Stafford hospital boss: Our staff have charged up the hill to face Covid crisis

Tracy Bullock said there had been "degrees of anxiety" at the prospect of facing the pandemic – but they all "charged up the hill" to face it.

The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust chief oversees Stafford County Hospital along with Royal Stoke University Hospital.

Ms Bullock, speaking to the Express & Star, said the trust had been preparing for the virus ahead of the first case at the Stoke site early in March.

She said: "Dealing with a global pandemic, as much as it brought fear, it brought a bit of excitement with it as well. And when we got our first Covid patients, my reflection to the executive team was 'right, are we ready? This is it' and we were ready.

"Fortunately, we were able to plan from what was happening in London because they were ahead of us and we were in contact with them and my chief nurse was talking to other nurses in other European countries, so I think we were ready and prepared – but you can't really anticipate what it's going to be like.

"I think the staff here have been absolutely tremendous. We're all human beings and there were degrees of anxiety – will they be ok? Will patients be ok? Because it was a completely new thing.

"We asked the staff to charge up the hill in readiness for Covid and they pelted up that hill and gave everything they've got – and have continued to do it through the year. Staff are getting tired and fed up because we want to do things other than Covid, but we're still right up on that hill at the moment."

Ms Bullock said the second wave of the virus had been more difficult than the first one – due to national instructions, during the first wave, which led to the cancellation of non-urgent elective services.

Staff were retrained and shifted from different departments – due to the focus on tackling Covid – with extra staff available to help combat the pressure being faced by the organisation.

She said: "I think where it got tricky is we started to come out of that first surge and we had a little lull for a short time, around May or June, and it gradually started to increase and we've been right up on top of that.

"It's been more difficult because when we came out of the first surge, we were asked to restart services which we did and we did it very very well. But we were never going to go back at 100 per cent because of the way we had to change – social distancing, staff wearing PPE and all of that. Even if we opened 100 per cent we would never be at the same capacity we were pre-Covid.

"It meant we didn't have the same level of space in the hospital so our staffing point for the second surge – which was far far worse than the first surge – was very difficult.

"We were half empty and had an excess workforce during the first surge. The second one, we were full and our workforce was engaged in delivering services. We didn't have much excess staff.

"We've been able to plan and train staff – but it's not been without its blips, because staff have not been immune to Covid."

Cancer waiting times improved after the first Covid-19 surge at the two hospitals as vital work continued to be carried out by staff.

Ms Bullock added: "We got through that first surge never having stopped cancer work between the first and second surge, then it's changed slightly during the second and third – there were two blips for us – and we've not been able to do as well as we did during the first surge, but we've not deteriorated and we've held our position."

Chiefs at the trust have put a string of wellbeing measures in place from the start of the pandemic, with psychologists, therapists and other support being offered to staff 24/7.

And now, with reducing numbers of Covid-19 patients, workers have been asked to take their wellbeing day – or take an extended lunch, and not discuss the virus or their work. Instead they have been urged to focus on themselves and take some time out for themselves.

The hospital boss added: "I personally can't thank the staff enough – they've done everything they can and they've gone above and beyond what's been asked of them.

"I've been the chief executive for not even two years yet and one year of that has been fighting Covid, yet I said I wouldn't have worked anywhere else.

"I'm proud of staff who have been utter professionals throughout this. They've climbed up that hill and stayed up there and I can't tell you how grateful and how proud I am."

The number of coronavirus patients being treated by the two hospitals continue to fall, in line with the national figures, but it's falling from a "very high point" and is decreasing slowly.

Ms Bullock said: "Every single day it's coming down, but it's coming down from a high position. We have 72 patients across both hospitals, 66 at the Royal Stoke University Hospital, and six now at Stafford County Hospital – and 16 patients are in our critical care unit at Stoke.

"These are the best we've seen for a very very long time, but it's coming down very slowly and it's coming down from a very high point for us."

The hospital chief executive said she was "cautiously optimistic" over whether there would be a further wave of Covid-19 as lockdown is lifted.

She added: "Am I bracing myself? No, I'm trying to be more positive. So obviously children have gone back to school and I'm keeping my eye on what's happening. We've got the variants as well, which is a normal course of a virus, and we need to be cautious to see how they behave.

"I would still ask people to be sensible and I think it's important to stress PPE, Hands, Face, Space, I think it would be good – even when Covid is gone – that we think about some of the benefits we've seen.

"I've not seen anyone with a cold and the numbers of flu patients, seasonal flu patients, have fallen. We've had one or two and normally we have hundreds. The number of children that come in with serious respiratory illness, we've had only one or two.

"This isn't a coincidence. This is because of Hands, Face, Space – we've seen it works and we must carefully examine our response to next winter, because of the benefits we've seen.

"If I have a cold, when I go out I'll put a mask on and I may next winter, I may well wear a mask again anyway. We need to think about this going forward."