Figures show 77 per cent rise in staff absences at hospital trust due to Covid

The spread of the new variant of Covid-19 is taking its toll on staff absences.

Latest statistics for the trust, which runs three hospitals in the region including Dewsbury and District Hospital, show that there has been a 77.4 per cent increase in the number of Covid-19 related staff absences (due to either sickness of self-isolation) in the past week, up from an average daily figure of 111 staff absences in the week ending December 12 to 197 in the week ending December 19.

Nationally, staff absences for Covid-related reasons increased by 38 per cent to an average daily figure of 17,836 for the week ending December 19.

And there has also been a 27.4 per cent increase in the number of staff absences for any reason, up from an average daily figure of 599 in the week ending December 12 to 763 in the week ending December 19.

Nationally, on an average day in the week ending December 19, there were 65,305 hospital staff absent, up 10 per cent from the week before.

In the week ending December 19, 40.8 per cent of critical care beds across the trust's sites were occupied. This is a slight decrease from the previous week when the figure was 43.3 per cent.

Nationally, the percentage of adult critical care beds (all critical care, not just Covid) which are full has stayed stable

The number of ambulance handover delays of more than 30 minutes at the trust's sites has also fallen in the last week from 22.4 per cent in the week ending December 12 to 18.8 per cent in the week ending December 19.