Another covid death at Harrogate hospital

Another person has died of coronavirus at Harrogate District Hospital, it was revealed today.

According to NHS England, a patient who tested positive for coronavirus passed away on November 5.

It means the total number of covid deaths reported at the hospital is now 90.

A further 61 cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the Harrogate district today by Public Health England.

It takes the district’s total number of cases since the start of the pandemic up to 2,971.

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Meanwhile, the seven-day case rate for the district stands at 279 per 100,000 people, which is still above the national average of 241.

Four of the North Yorkshire’s seven district and borough council areas — Scarborough, Harrogate, Selby and Hambleton — now have higher rates of infection than the England average.

Covid R number rises to 1.6 in Harrogate district

The rate of covid infections in the Harrogate district is rising sharply and is now well above the national average.

The R number, which refers to the reproduction rate, was 1.4 last week and is 1.6 today. This means every 10 people that test positive in the district will infect another 16.

The latest R number for the UK is 1.1 to 1.3.

The seven-day rolling average rate of infection for the Harrogate district was 160 cases per 100,000 people two weeks ago; last week it was 251 and today it is 279.

The England average is 241.

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North Yorkshire as a whole appears to be struggling. Four of the county’s seven district and borough council areas — Scarborough, Harrogate, Selby and Hambleton — now have higher rates of infection than the England average.

For many months North Yorkshire fared better than many parts of the country.

Although widely accepted that lockdown will take time to bring down infections, these are worrying figures for county health officials.

Local covid hotspots

The Harrogate district accounts for three of the top 10 covid hotspots in North Yorkshire, according to a breakdown of positive test results in the last seven days by local community area.

Harrogate east is third on the list with 42 infections, one place ahead of Killinghall and Hampsthwaite, which has 41. Harrogate west and Pannal is eighth with 36.

Catterick Garrison and Colburn in Richmondshire tops the list with 52.

The only local area in the bottom 10 is Pateley Bridge and Nidd Valley, which has recorded just seven positive tests.

 

 

 

Forty-six further cases of coronavirus in Harrogate district

Latest Public Health England figures show a further 46 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the district in the last 24 hours.

It takes the total amount of cases since the start of the pandemic up to 2,765.

Yesterday, the district reported its record daily case increase with 96 positive tests confirmed.

The seven day case rate in the district has increased to 269 per 100,000 people and remains above the national average.

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Meanwhile, Harrogate District Hospital has reported another death from a patient who tested positive for coronavirus.

The death was reported on November 5 and takes the total amount of deaths up to 89, according to NHS England figures.

Health bosses said yesterday that 24 patients were being treated for coronavirus at the hospital.

Record daily number of covid infections in Harrogate district

Ninety-six people in the Harrogate district — the highest daily total since the pandemic began — tested positive for covid, according to the latest daily figures from Public Health England.

Harrogate west and Pannal has recorded the most new infections in the district in the last seven days, with 41.

Pateley Bridge and Nidd Valley has recorded the fewest, with five.

It was also revealed today that Harrogate District Hospital is currently treating 24 coronavirus patients – an increase of eight on last week.

The figure was published today by Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust.

The hospital ended routine patient visits today as the country entered a second lockdown.

The only exceptions are for visits to patients at end of life; instances where difficult conversations need to take place; patients with physical or cognitive impairment; long-stay patients.

It comes as Steve Russell, chief executive of the hospital trust, told the Stray Ferret that the hospital was coping well with the virus.

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The district entered a second national lockdown today, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson said was needed to protect the health service from increased demand.

The weekly case rate in the district is still above the national average, with 252 per 100,000 people.

Harrogate hospital ends routine visits to patients

Harrogate District Hospital has confirmed it will no longer allow patient visits, except in a few limited circumstances.

The restriction came into force today as part of lockdown measures.

The only exceptions are for visits to patients at end of life; instances where difficult conversations need to take place; patients with physical or cognitive impairment; long-stay patients.

A hospital statement said ‘all of these exceptions will be at the discretion of the shift lead’.

Visitors must wear masks and visors, which the ward will provide.

Steve Russell, chief executive of Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, told the Stray Ferret it had been a difficult decision that had been debated this week.

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The hospital has also limited the number of visitors to maternity wards to one.

Visiting slots between either 10am-12pm or 2pm-4pm will be allocated in the morning by the midwife in charge. Hospital guidance adds:

“If you are attending for an induction of labour your partner can attend with you.

“This is a decision we’ve taken reluctantly because we know how important visitors are and we know how much it means for partners to be present at key stages of pregnancy and birth.

“However, we have to play our part in reducing contacts and minimising potential spread of covid. We hope you understand why we’re doing this.”

Harrogate hospital coping well with covid, says chief executive

Preventing the NHS from being overwhelmed is one of the main reasons for today’s lockdown.

There have been some worrying stories about hospitals running out of beds in the coming weeks but Harrogate District Hospital is in a better position than most, according to the man in charge.

Steve Russell, chief executive of Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, told the Stray Ferret there was less pressure on critical care at the hospital than in the first wave and so far it was “managing reasonably well”.

In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Russell highlighted how relatively few covid patients the hospital has despite the Harrogate district’s soaring infection rate that is now above the England average. He said:

“Our wonderful staff in the hospital and community are doing a brilliant job. Other parts of the county have had more cases of us.

“We have had a lower increase in covid than areas around us and we are still running many routine services.”

Covid wards

Harrogate District Hospital has about 320 beds in total, and about 85 per cent are currently occupied.

There are two red wards — designated wards for confirmed or suspected coronavirus. The wards have about 60 staff. When one ward has more than 15 patients the second one is used. “We chose wards with the highest number of side rooms,” said Mr Russell.

He added that as part of the hospital’s surge plans, it would reduce other activities if the number of covid patients grew significantly and staff had to be redeployed. He said staff with the closest skill set for critical care, such as theatre staff, would be the first to be moved.

Mr Russell said the point at which this happened would be determined by a range of factors, including the overall pressure on critical care rather than a set number of covid patients and so far during the second wave the hospital had not reached it.

It currently has about 15 covid patients compared with 50 to 60 at the peak of the first wave. He said:

“The most important thing is how we are coping overall. And at the moment we are coping well.”

Critical care

The hospital’s base critical care capacity is seven. This can ‘flex’ to 10 and has the capacity for another six to eight patients.

Although there were far more covid patients at the peak of the first wave than there are currently, there were more beds available in spring because the hospital had cancelled most other activities. Mr Russell said:

“We didn’t know as much about the disease during the first wave. We now have new drugs, we manage patients better, we have non-invasive ventilators that allow patients to stay awake as well as mechanical ventilators. We have enough ventilators to cope.”

The hospital hasn’t redeployed any staff to treat covid patients during the second wave. Mr Russell said it ran training sessions to prepare staff for this during the first wave and it planned to run refresher sessions.

‘Right to lockdown’

Mr Russell described the decision as ‘a logical and understandable step’, adding:

“If we look at what’s happening across the NHS more broadly and the growth of pressure other hospitals are experiencing, I think it was a wise decision. The measures that we had in place didn’t seem to be slowing the pressure on hospitals as much as needed.”

Staff under pressure

The trust employs about 4,500 staff, of which about half are based in the hospital. Mr Russell said it had been one hell of a difficult year but he had never been prouder of being part of the NHS. He said:

“There is quite understandably a sense of anxiety. People are tired; they are anxious about what might come because winter is generally a busier time for the NHS. It doesn’t matter how well you prepare you can’t predict the future.”

He said the trust had put in place health and wellbeing support for staff. Currently absenteeism was only about 1.5 percentage points higher than usual, and six staff were off yesterday due to test and trace. Staff are only tested for covid when they display symptoms. Mr Russell said:

“Healthcare professionals are sociable animals. Lunchtime has always been a sociable affair. But staff now have to sit further apart, wearing face masks and goggles. It is’n’t nice. It’s uncomfortable. But they know it’s necessary.”

Visiting restrictions

The hospital is ending routine visits today. The only exceptions will be around vulnerable groups.  Mr Russell said this had been a difficult decision that had been debated this week, and the biggest dilemma was about allowing visits to terminally ill patients. He said:

“People find it distressing not being able to visit people at the end of life and so they will be one of the exceptions.”

Nightingale staff

Mr Russell is also chief executive of the Harrogate Nightingale hospital, which he describes as “an insurance policy we hope we never need”.

But if it is, Harrogate District Hospital may have to redeploy staff. Mr Russell said it had identified 10 or 11 staff of 12 or 13 that could be redeployed. Other hospitals in the region would have to do the same. He said this was part of the hospital’s escalation measures and could result in it having to pause routine work.

‘Difficult to switch off’

Many of us think we have stressful jobs but being in charge of a hospital during a pandemic is something else. “Switching off has been difficult,” Mr Russell admits. He had booked a family holiday to Africa next week. This changed to a trip to the New Forest when overseas travel became difficult. Now, with lockdown, he will be staying at home in Harrogate. He said:

“I get a lot of resilience from friends and family, and I’m lucky to have such a fabulous team around me.”

Andrew Jones MP criticised for lockdown U-turn

Local Liberal Democrats have asked how Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Andrew Jones could support the national lockdown “with a straight face” after recently speaking out against the move.

Mr Jones said on October 20 “a blanket national lockdown is wrong and local interventions are what we need now to tackle this crisis”.

Two days later he said businesses in his constituency were worried about the impact of the district being moved into tier two.

But on Wednesday he is set to vote with the government on introducing a national lockdown from Thursday.

Geoff Webber, the Liberal Democrat group leader on North Yorkshire County Council, who represents Bilton and Nidd Gorge, said:

“How can he roll back from that so soon with a straight face? Foresight is in his job description; seven months on he and his party shouldn’t be waiting until breaking point to respond to the crisis.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to tell MPs today that covid deaths over the winter could be twice as bad as those in spring if the lockdown isn’t implemented.

The Stray Ferret asked Mr Jones if he still supported a blanket ban and which way he intended to vote.

Mr Jones once again chose not to respond to the Stray Ferret, although we are aware he has spoken to other publications on this issue.

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Another late night queue at Harrogate Tesco

Just three hours after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced another national lockdown yesterday, a large queue had formed outside the Tesco Express in the centre of Harrogate.

This video was taken minutes after 10pm — when pubs closed — and shows little sign of people conforming to social distancing guidelines.

The same situation arose last weekend at pub closing time.

But with all pubs forced to close from Thursday, further instances are unlikely to be repeated anytime soon.

Harrogate town centre was busy last night, with Halloween many people making the most of a final weekend of the pubs being open.

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10pm queues

The Harrogate district’s seven-day rolling average infection rate is 251 people per 100,000 people, which is the highest of the seven district and borough council regions in North Yorkshire.

It is also higher than the England average of 223 per 100,000 people.

According to government figures, Harrogate west and Pannal has recorded the most new infections in the district in the last seven days, with 43.

The next highest is Harrogate central with 36 followed by Killinghall and Hampsthwaite with 31.

Ripon north and west recorded the fewest new cases, with just four.

A quarter of North Yorkshire care homes affected by covid

Almost a quarter of North Yorkshire care homes currently have at least one covid infection.

Richard Flinton, chief executive of North Yorkshire County Council, revealed the situation in a bulletin on Wednesday. He said:

“Despite robust outbreak management plans, we now have more than 55 care homes out of a total of 233 with single cases or outbreaks, and three of those now have a very difficult situation with wider scale infection. This is a serious matter, as you will understand.”

The council is due to make an announcement on reopening care homes to some visitors today.

It advised care homes to close during October.

A council spokesman said the announcement was still due to go ahead.

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Mr Flinton reiterated that North Yorkshire’s tier one status was hanging by a thread and that people’s actions now would determine what happened at Christmas. He added:

“If we are to have any chance at all of staying in this tier, and to give us all the best chance of being able to be with our loved ones at Christmas, we need to step up and stand together as a county and we will explain this in more detail over the coming days.

“In my role as chair of North Yorkshire’s Local Resilience Forum, I am regularly asked when all this will end.

‘The answer is unfortunately not as straightforward as the question. In truth, we will need to adapt the way we live for many more months.”

Harrogate venues warn of dire consequences of tier two

Some of Harrogate’s most popular venues have spoken of their concerns for the future of their staff and businesses if North Yorkshire moves to tier two.

North Yorkshire County Council warned yesterday the county could move from tier one to tier two by the end of the week amid rising covid infection rates.

Martin Greenhow, managing director of the Mojo group, said covid restrictions had already been “catastrophic” for the hospitality sector. He added:

“Moving through the tiers is like squeezing hard on the trigger of the executioner’s gun.

“We’ve already seen a reduction in trade of about 70% between pre-covid levels and the introduction of the curfew. Moving into tier two we’re expecting an 80% drop-off in trade, going by other sites’ progress.” 

North Bar in Harrogate is also concerned about the likely impact. Assistant manager Jessica Parkinson said:

“We’re worried for the staff, what it means for them, as we’ve already had to cut hours and seen less footfall, which is very sad.” 

However, Simon Cotton, managing director of the HRH Group, whose properties include the Fat Badger, the White Hart Hotel and the Yorkshire Hotel, said the main difference between tier one and tier two for venues was policing. He added:

“Do you look at groups of people and assume that they’re not a family or one household when they actually might be? There are lots of exceptions to the rule, such as meetings. For work reasons you’re exempt, so the rules are open to abuse so easily.

“Staff can politely ask the question but can’t be expected to strictly enforce this as we’re not the police.

“It does rely on the public doing what they should in terms of the government guidelines. It is not up to hospitality to police this.”