Covid and the NHS

More than 80 thousand people in the UK have now died with Covid-19; there are currently more than three million confirmed cases across the country and in the worst affected areas one person in 20 is infected.

Even with the whole of the UK now in some form of lockdown, there are more than 35,000 people in hospital with the virus. That is around 50 per cent more than at the peak of the epidemic in the UK last spring.

As hospitals reprioritise to deal with Covid cases, patients with other conditions are bearing the brunt, with one London hospital trust announcing it was cancelling some cancer operations.

So how is the NHS coping with the Covid crisis?

Contributors:

Jennifer Dixon of the Health Foundation

Nigel Edwards of the Nuffield Trust

Siva Anandaciva of the King’s Fund

David Salisbury, the former head of immunisation at the Department of Health.

Producers: Tim Mansel, Sally Abrahams, Kirsteen Knight, May Cameron Editor: Jasper Corbett