The news came when UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said authorities are considering placing convalescent Covid-19 patients in hotels as a “backup plan”, such is the tremendous pressure exerted on hospitals by the latest wave of infections.
The UK on Tuesday marked its second deadliest day since the start of the pandemic, with 1,243 new deaths from the coronavirus. It also reported 45,533 new cases, bringing the total number of cases to 3,117,882.
England entered its third national lockdown last week as it fights against the spread of a new, more contagious variant of the coronavirus. The UK government and senior health officials have warned that many hospitals are on the verge of being overwhelmed.
At a news conference Monday, Hancock said that the variant “the NHS [National Health Service] under very significant pressure ”, with a 22% increase in Covid hospital admissions compared to the previous week.
The study – which has not yet been peer-reviewed – was published Wednesday by researchers at King’s College London. It analyzed responses to an anonymous online survey in June and July of more than 700 doctors and nurses working in intensive care units (ICUs) in six different hospitals.
While nearly 60% of the respondents reported good well-being, the study found that nearly half of the ICU staff reported symptoms consistent with a likely diagnosis of PTSD, major depression, or anxiety or drinking.
Almost one in seven (13.4%) of IC staff reported regularly in the past two weeks that they thought they were better off or had hurt themselves.
About 45% of the respondents met the threshold for probable clinical significance on at least one of these measures: major depression (6.3%), PTSD (39.5%), severe anxiety (11.3%) or drinking problem ( 7.2%).
Nursing staff were more likely to report more stress than doctors or other clinical staff, the researchers found. Nearly half of those who completed the surveys were nurses, and just over 40% were doctors. The researchers found that doctors consistently reported better health than nurses.
The study, led by Neil Greenberg of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, was published online in the journal Occupational Medicine.
“Our results underscore the potentially profound impact Covid-19 has had on the mental health of frontline personnel in the UK,” the study said.
“(The) probable PTSD frequency we report was about nine times that in the general population and more than double that in recent veterans.”
The researchers note that during the pandemic, ICU personnel experienced many stressors, including staff shortages, fear of contracting the virus and putting their loved ones at risk, concerns about a lack of personal protective equipment, and fears related to the loss of patient lives despite their best efforts.
The study’s findings will only increase concern about the stress placed on NHS staff in England as they struggle to treat record numbers of patients with Covid-19.
Hancock said Wednesday that placing Covid patients in hotels is considered a “backup plan” by the country’s authorities, but it is “clearly not what I want to do.”
“We are considering all options, it is not something that we are actively implementing. But I would say it would only happen if it were clinically correct for an individual patient,” Hancock told the BBC.
“There is a slowdown from the number of cases to the number of people showing up in the hospital. So we know that pressure on the NHS will continue to increase in the coming weeks,” he added.
Hancock said the temporary Nightingale hospitals set up by NHS England during the first wave of the pandemic were there like a setback for hospitals.
Asked what kind of patients would be sent to hotels, the health secretary said it would be “for resigned patients or patients who have been in hospital who no longer need full hospital treatment but are not quite ready to go home. . “
London and South East England are among the areas most affected by the new variant, although it has now spread across the UK and been discovered in at least 50 other countries, including badly affected Ireland.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Friday declared a ‘major incident’ in the English capital ‘due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus … and the increase in Covid-19 cases in hospitals, putting the NHS at risk of being overwhelmed. to become. “
The British government is hoping to get the crisis under control with a massive vaccination against Covid-19.
“So far, we have given 2.6 million doses to 2.3 million people in the UK, and we have protected more people through vaccinations than all countries in Europe put together,” Hancock said at a news conference in Downing Street on Monday.
Hancock said the UK is on track to deliver a first dose of the vaccine by Feb. 15 to “everyone in the top four cohorts” – who account for 88% of Covid-19-related deaths – on Feb. 15. Those groups include all retirement homes. residents and staff, all aged 70 and over, and primary health and social workers.
Two-fifths of people over 80 and nearly a quarter of elderly nursing home residents had received a first dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of Monday, Hancock said.
CNN’s Martin Goillandeau, Duarte Mendonca and Niamh Kennedy contributed to this report.