Race is on to bring back services lost during year-long virus battle

Diane Wake, chief executive of The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, said it could take six months until Russells Hall Hospital gets back to pre-Covid levels after treatments were delayed due to the pandemic.

Hundreds of non-critical procedures and appointments – including hip replacements and other orthopaedic surgeries – have been postponed over the last 12 months as the hospital focused resources on the Covid fight.

Mrs Wake said cancer referrals and treatments were maintained during the height of the pandemic, and that the focus now was on addressing the backlog of "time critical surgery" including eye operations.

She told the Express & Star: "We are in a fairly good position and have started restoring services already.

"We didn't stop the urgent work such as cancer, and during the second wave we made sure we had the staff available and facilities needed to continue these operations.

"Patients were naturally nervous about coming to a hospital for surgery which is full of Covid patients, so we have had a lot of one-to-one discussions with people to make sure they feel safe about coming in.

"Some have quite rightly deferred their treatments because they didn't want to come in at that time. As we come out of this, I think in the next six months we'll be back to where we were pre-Covid."

Mrs Wake said the restoration of services was a joint effort between all trusts in the Black Country and West Birmingham, and that there were "very few" patients now waiting for treatment for more than a year.

"What we all want is good outcomes and equitable access for our patients across our system," she added.

Like all hospitals Russells Hall faced a huge challenge at the start of last year coping with a new virus that put immense pressure on staff and resources.

Mrs Wake, who took over at the trust in 2017, recalls being told about the hospital's first Covid patient on March 8 last year. Within a short time numbers started to escalate, she said, meaning more more ward space had to be found urgently.

She said she the pace at which the numbers rose left her "in disbelief", while some staff were "terrified" at what they were faced with.

A battle commenced to secure enough PPE for patients and staff, while a new training regime was brought in and an incident room was set up from where national directives were enacted.

"The most important thing was making sure we could rapidly isolate patients who came in and were diagnosed with Covid-19, and that we had designated staff to deal with that group," Mrs Wake said.

"As the numbers increased it became clear that we couldn't keep all of those patients in one area and we had to move to other wards as the hospital began to fill up with Covid patients.

"We all had to galvanise ourselves to make sure we were doing the right things to keep everyone safe within our organisation.

"We also had to be innovative and fleet of foot to be able to respond to new national directions as the situation changed."

The challenges included making sure pharmacies has the right supply of medicines, while laboratories needed to be equipped for testing. With deaths rising, it was crucial that enough mortuary capacity was available.

New developments were swiftly brought in, such as remotely monitoring non-critical patients on a virtual ward.

Some innovations, such as seeing non-Covid patients – and providing support for families – remotely are likely to continue after the pandemic, Mrs Wake said.

Over the course of the pandemic, up to 800 staff have been redeployed into the Covid fight, while 2,500 people have been recruited to work in vaccine centres including the Black Country Living Museum site.

At the height of the first wave in April there were 160 Covid patients at Russells Hall Hospital. In January this year that number was eclipsed and patient numbers hit 250.

That is now down to 45, including 15 patients in critical care.

With the figures heading in the right direction and the success of the vaccine roll out, Mrs Wake said she was "really hopeful" that we have now come through the worst of the pandemic.

"It is important that everyone continues to listen to the government guidance and adhere to the 'hands, face and space' message – even if you have had your vaccine," she said.

"They have made a commitment to look at the evidence to see when we transition out of lockdown, and I think it is important that we move slowly.

"If we do the right thing now, hopefully when lockdown is lifted we won't have to go into it again."

Mrs Wake also moved to allay concerns over the AstraZeneca jab, which was deemed "safe and effective" by the EU's medicines regulator after its use was suspended in a number of countries.

She said: "The evidence is that the vaccines we are offering to the public are safe. The things that are being talked about in Europe and in other countries... we don't have any evidence of them being true.

"If people need any advice or have any concerns then they should speak to people at the vaccine centres or their GP.

"We need as many people as possible to have the vaccine when it is offered, and I would encourage everyone to take it up."