Liverpool admissions flatten as covid accelerates in Manchester, Yorkshire and Notts

The drop in Cheshire and Merseyside has been helped by a flattening of new cases at Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, which saw a steep rise in new covid cases at the start of October. Liverpool was made subject to stricter lockdown measures before other areas this autumn, although the apparent flattening of admissions pre-dates the formal introduction of tier 3 restrictions on 14 October.

Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, which have both seen trusts cancelling routine elective procedures in recent days, have both had surges in new covid cases, while Cumbria and the North East is also rising fast.

Meanwhile, Lancashire and South Cumbria is now the system with the highest proportion of its beds occupied by covid-positive patients. This is based on exclusive analysis by HSJ  of new data just published by NHS England.

The high occupancy in Lancashire is driven particularly by Blackpool Teaching Hospitals FT, which is the first trust in the second wave to have more than 30 per cent of its beds occupied by covid-positive pateints.

Kevin McGee, Blackpool FT’s chief executive, told HSJ: “We are managing the situation daily. There have been some cancellations to manage operational capacity which is normal but there are no systematic changes at this point.”

South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire — where trusts have also moved to cancel electives over the last fortnight — have seen substantial increases in the share of their hospital beds occupied by covid patients in the week to Tuesday 27 October: 7, 5 and 5 percentage points respectively.

In several cases the covid occupancy is now higher than it was for these areas in the first wave. 

The charts are built with new weekly hospital activity data published by NHS England, covering a period from early August to 25 October.