Number of Covid hospital patients in Sheffield falls from over 400 at peak to just 15

Just one person with coronavirus remained on a ventilator as of Sunday, August 9, down from a high of 34 in April, according to the latest statistics from NHS England.

This is the first time a detailed breakdown of the number of Covid-19 patients by hospital trusts has been released, with only the daily number of deaths previously published.

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It reveals the true scale of the challenge which faced the NHS in Sheffield at the peak of the pandemic, and how cases have since fallen dramatically.

At Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, which runs the Royal Hallamshire and Northern General hospitals, among other facilities, 407 beds were occupied by coronavirus patients on April 5, but that figure had dropped to 15 by Sunday, August 9, the latest date for which data is available.

There were 34 people with Covid-19 in mechanical ventilation beds on April 19 compared with just one on August 9.

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To put those figures in context, as of Sunday a total of 1,161 beds across the trust were occupied and 21 people required mechanical ventilation.

Since the pandemic began, 328 patients with Covid-19 have been admitted by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, 1,106 inpatients have been diagnosed with coronavirus and 1,284 people who had tested positive for the virus have been discharged.

As of Wednesday, August 12, a total of 290 people with coronavirus had died at hospitals in Sheffield, including one at Sheffield Children’s Hospital and two patients from Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust.

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No new patients with Covid-19 were admitted by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals in the four days up to August 9 and only three inpatients were diagnosed with the virus in the week leading up to that date.

The new statistics reveal the impact the disease has had on different age groups in Sheffield, showing how older people are at greater risk.

Of the 328 patients admitted with coronavirus, just one was aged 17 or under, 128 were aged 18-64, 141 were aged 65-84 and 58 were aged 85-plus.

The figures also show how staff at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals have spent a total of 125,930 days off work due to Covid-19, with daily absences peaking at 1,282 on April 28 before dropping to 396 by August 9.

Despite the dramatic fall in hospital patients with coronavirus, health experts have warned of the need to remain cautious to avoid a spike in cases putting more lives at risk and placing the NHS under greater pressure.

Data from Public Health England shows the coronavirus infection rate in Sheffield rose slightly from 14.0 new cases per 100,000 in the week ending August 2 to 15.4 in the seven days to August 9, though that could be due to greater testing.