News

It is incredibly encouraging to see that community prevalence of Covid is continuing to reduce, and that there has been a significant reduction in the number of people now being admitted to hospital with Covid. However, across north central London demand for critical care services remains very high. There are increasing numbers of people admitted to critical care with conditions other than Covid, and it will still be some weeks before we see anything like a return to normal levels of activity in our intensive care units. With hospitals so busy we are still only able to provide the most urgent elective (planned) care for local people, although we are preparing plans to restart elective care as soon as we are able.

As we enter February 2021 we continue to see considerable and unprecedented pressure on our health systems. While the recent drops in the number of Covid cases and hospital admissions due to Covid are encouraging, it is likely that north central London will need to sustain our current ‘super surge, full stretch’ intensive care levels over the coming weeks. We are currently operating at 250% of our usual intensive care capacity, which has been made possible by incredible flexibility and collaboration across health and care providers, ensuring local people can continue to have confidence that high-quality care is there when they need it.

We start 2021 with ongoing pressure on health and care systems due to the rapid spread of Covid-19 and the increasing number of people in hospital with Covid, including people admitted to intensive care. Given this, our work to vaccinate as many vulnerable people as quickly as possible against the virus becomes even more important. Staff across our acute and community providers, and primary care, are working with huge flexibility to increase capacity, including new critical care beds, high dependency and acute beds, and step-down facilities, we have also seen exceptional support from the specialist providers in our system.

As we continue to deal with an increase in Covid-19, hospitals are having to change the way they deliver services. To ensure that women and their babies have the safest birth possible, hospital trusts across North Central London are putting in new measures. Due to the current impact of the pandemic the London Ambulance Service is no longer in a position to guarantee an ambulance response to those women choosing to plan their birth at home, or within one of the capital’s three stand-alone birth centres. Because of this, regrettably the following trusts are temporarily suspending home birth services.

In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing need for us to care for patients requiring urgent, emergency and COVID-19 care, we have unfortunately had to reduce some non-urgent, planned procedures and outpatient services in North Central London.

As a turbulent and challenging 2020 draws to a close there is no let-up in the incredible amount of work going on across North Central London to deliver health and care. We are delighted to say that the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine is now underway commencing at the Royal Free Hospital Hub. From this week, five local vaccine services – one in each borough – have come online, with a further six due to come online later in the week. We are prioritising those most vulnerable to Covid-19, in line with national guidance, focussing on vaccinating over 80s, plus frontline care home and NHS staff.

The NHS has planned extensively to deliver the largest vaccination programme in our history. This will be a huge task. The NHS is working closely in partnership with local councils in Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington to roll out vaccines when the supplies are available. As part of this, the NHS is recruiting extra people, to ensure they can continue to provide the vital health services that we all rely on.

To ensure the NHS can continue to deliver the best emergency and planned care across north central London during the winter and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, temporary changes to services for children and young people will commence on 28 September.

North London Partners in health and care, north central London’s Sustainability and Transformation Partnership, has announced that, following a full recruitment process, Rob Hurd has been appointed to the role of System Lead. This follows the decision to separate the roles of Sustainability and Transformation Partnership Convenor and Accountable Officer of NCL Clinical Commissioning Groups.