LONDON: The armed forces are supporting Britain's National Health Service (NHS) in various parts of the UK as new data shows hospital staff absences due to Covid have risen 59 per cent in a week.
Some 200 military personnel have been drafted in to help the NHS in London, while around 150 staff will support the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) from next week by driving ambulances, helping lift patients and offering life support.
It comes as a system-wide major incident was declared in Northamptonshire by health, public and emergency service leaders due to Covid-19.
Northamptonshire Local Resilience Forum, which is made up of NHS organisations, local authorities, Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service and Northamptonshire Police, issued the alert due to "rising demand on services and staffing levels".
Chair of the forum, chief fire officer Darren Dovey, said: "Declaring this incident is a necessary step to make sure we are able to share resources where necessary which is increasingly important as more staff need to self-isolate."
In December, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan declared a major incident due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant across the capital.
Meanwhile, NHS England data shows 39,142 NHS staff at hospital trusts in England were absent for Covid-19 reasons on January 2, up 59 percent on the previous week (24,632) and more than three times the number at the start of December (12,508).
The figures suggest one in 25 (4 per cent of) NHS staff working in acute hospital trusts are off sick or self-isolating due to Covid.
This 4 per cent is based on NHS Digital monthly workforce data for September for acute trusts (the most recent available).
The latest data shows that in north-west England, 7,338 NHS staff at hospital trusts were absent due to Covid-19 on January 2, up 85 percent week-on-week from 3,966, while in north-east England and Yorkshire there were 8,788 absences, more than double the number a week earlier (4,179).
In London, absences were up 4 per cent week-on-week, from 4,580 to4,765.
Overall, there were 82,384 NHS staff at hospital trusts in England who were absent for all sickness reasons on January 2, including self-isolation and mental health reasons, up 21 per cent on the previous week (68,082) and up 37 per cent from the start of December(60,136).
NHS national medical director Professor Stephen Powis said risingCovid-19 cases were "piling even more pressure" on hospital trust workers.
He said: "Omicron means more patients to treat and fewer staff to treat them.
"In fact, around 10,000 more colleagues across the NHS were absenteach day last week compared with the previous seven days and almosthalf of all absences are now down to Covid.
"While we don't know the full scale of the potential impact this new strain will have, it's clear it spreads more easily and, as a result, Covid cases in hospitals are the highest they've been since February last year - piling even more pressure on hard-working staff.
"Those staff are stepping up as they always do; answering a quarter more 111 calls last week than the week before, dealing with an increasing number of ambulance call-outs, and working closely with colleagues in social care to get people out of hospital safely."
Patricia Marquis, the Royal College of Nursing's director for England, said nurses found themselves "spread thinner and thinner,but they can't keep spinning plates indefinitely... this situation is simply not safe."
According to the Health Service Journal (HSJ), staff absences acrossthe entire NHS, including mental health trusts and other areas, for any reason including Covid-19, may be as high as 120,000. - dpa
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