Flu surge having 'major' impact on hospital

Staff at a Surrey hospital are feeling the effects of a busy winter season as flu cases rise.

The Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford has joined Frimley Park Hospital near Camberley in asking staff, patients and visitors to wear face masks.

Will Nevin, emergency medicine consultant and chief of service for access and medicine at the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust, said the hospital was under huge pressure.

He told BBC Radio Surrey: "It is getting really hairy right now...we are seeing about 20% more patients at this time of the year than we would ordinarily."

Mr Nevin, whose job centres around "trying to figure out which patients are the sickest patients, which patients can go home", said this increase had a wider impact on the hospital's capacity to manage the most unwell.

The request for staff, patients and visitors to wear masks in the emergency department comes amid rising flu cases.

Mr Nevin said: "We know that from southern hemisphere data that there is going to be a very, very large outbreak of flu this time around so we are expecting it to be more difficult."

While there has been a "massive uptick" in staff flu vaccination over the past week, he said sickness was still affecting hospital workers.

Mr Nevin said the hospital would be holding a "reset week" to help relieve the pressure.

This would help "get all the people out of hospital that don't need to be in hospital", and make sure that social care delay is not a reason that hospital beds are unnecessarily taken up.

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