Omicron: NHS staff sickness already ‘worse than ever’ with situation set to worsen

NHS staff sickness levels are already “higher than they ever have been” healthcare leaders have warned, as the latest data shows thousands are already off sick with Covid.

The government’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty warned MPs on Thursday the NHS was facing significant staff shortages over the next month and that this would come during a time when hospitalisations due to Covid may peak.

However, hospital trust leaders have warned they are already experiencing acute staff shortages due to sickness which are only going get worse in the fourth wave.

Speaking with The Independent, Glen Burley, chief executive for three NHS trusts in Coventry and Worcestershire, said: “We’ve got a situation where sickness levels are higher than they have ever been because of Covid and it’s a time of year when sickness levels are always higher and you add those two things together and it’s a worry.”

He said across the three hospitals, sickness rates were currently about 7 per cent, when they would usually be around 3.5-4 four per cent, and that the situation will get worse. The NHS chief also said it was becoming more difficult to get agency and temporary staff to fill in, also due to sickness.

On Wednesday afternoon the government updated its guidance for healthcare staff and removed isolation requirements for those who’d been in contact with someone infected with Omicron.

Nationally, NHS staff absence rates related to sickness reached an all-time peak in April 2020, with 6.2 per cent off sick, and in January, during the second Covid wave, 5.7 per cent of the workforce was off sick.

New weekly figures published by NHS England on Thursday showed a total of 56,889 staff were off sick as of 12 December, out of 852,595, across the acute trusts, with 12,240 off due to Covid-19. This does not include community and mental health hospitals.

According to data published by Cambridgeshire University Hospitals Foundation Trust, in October the NHS experienced its highest levels of staff sickness absence since April 2017.

Levels of Omicron infections are surging across the country, with London currently considered the epicentre. Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told BBC Radio Four on Thursday that usually staff sickness would last a couple of days but due to Covid, staff have to be off for 10 days, adding that London was probably the hardest hit area.

However, NHS England’s new weekly sickness absence data showed that on 12 December, acute trusts with the highest sickness percentages recorded were in the Midlands and northwest, with some recording rates of more than than 10 per cent that day.

James Fraser, president for the Paediatric Critical Care Society, told The Independent many children’s critical care units across the country are already having trouble as the recruitment and retention rates are “much more challenging” ahead of this wave.

He said: “Many nursing staff in children’s services are young, have children of school age and [their] children are becoming Covid positive contacts, and nurses are having to quarantine.

“The worry is with Omicron is that it will become a real issue over the next few weeks because it’s so contagious. We’re going into this fourth wave with tired staff, our units are very busy and a relatively compromised workforce, particularly the nursing workforce.”

Danny Mortimer, deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said: “Health leaders absolutely share the chief medical officer’s concern about the impact of coronavirus, including Omicron, on their teams and are seeing increased staff absences already.

“One of our members in London, for example, has reported a tripling of absences in less than a week and we know that primary care, mental health, ambulance and community services are feeling this strain too.

“The last thing any health leader wants to see is their care for patients being disrupted and they will do everything they can to minimise this.

“This is why it is so important that everyone eligible takes up their offer of vaccine or booster, that they behave in a responsible way that will reduce transmission, and that the government stays close to the impact the spread of this new strain has on frontline patient care.”

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which also represents NHS trusts, said “leaders are telling us that Omicron is already creating staff shortages in the NHS.

“In Omicron hotspots like London, absences are starting to rise rapidly. This is exactly what we would expect, given community infection rates are shooting up.

“This is being borne out in the latest data, which shows worrying increases in NHS staff having to take time off work due to Covid-19 self-isolation or sickness.

“So trust leaders are understandably concerned about what might come as the variant takes hold in the community, and consequently within the health and care workforce. The impact on the workloads for remaining staff is a major challenge given the huge service demand currently across the NHS.”