CEO of NHS Providers Chris Hopson Speaks to T&G on COVID Infection Rates and Hospital Admissions

The Chief Executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, has told Times Radio that NHS staff in hospitals are already facing abuse from members of the public refusing to wear masks in hospitals, ahead of covid restrictions easing in England from tomorrow.

Speaking to Tom Newton Dunn and Daisy McAndrew for T&G on Sunday, he said:

I was very struck by the number of chief executives who were saying to me at the end of last week, that they were seeing increasing numbers of very aggressive, very determined members of the public asserting what they believe is their right to not wear a mask, not socially distance, not observe the rules in terms of visiting rules. Because we are about to hit Freedom Day. And that is before Freedom Day is even being hit.

We need national NHS leaders to be very clear that it is inappropriate for people to abuse and confront NHS staff who are actually trying to protect patients, protect visitors and protect their fellow members of staff...we can't be in a position where our tired staff who've given so much are being abused for trying to protect people. Well, it's just not on.

On predicting the scale of the rise in covid hospitalisations after tomorrow's unlocking:

We could be talking about seven thousand (hospitalisations) at the end of July, fourteen-thousand in the middle of August. The real question is, when does this cap out? In other words, when does the community infection rate start to peak? We know there's probably a couple of weeks lag on hospital admissions and there's a really interesting debate going on at the moment about, will it cap out at below ten-thousand or will it cap out at potentially below more like twenty-thousand. And what's deeply fascinating is, nobody knows. And there is a real sense of, we just don't know, at this point.

On concerns about PCR test capacity:

It's very clear now that we are looking for a higher volume of tests than we've currently got capacity for. That capacity is being expanded at a real pace. One of the observations I'd make is that I do think our friends at test and trace in some in some senses have actually been given a really pretty hard ride. I think they're an impressive operation given the constraints within which they've been working in their context. And we know they're going absolutely full pelt, supported by our hospitals...I'm told that by the end of the month we should be at the capacity that we need. So I suspect this will be a temporary kind of pressure that won't last too long.

On the need for a new plan for social care by the winter to prevent a "real, real problem":

One of the issues that are coming up is the NHS budget was only decided for the first half of the year. So it's really, really important that we get all of this right as we head into what we know is going to be a difficult winter. If we find that we have anything like the levels of people who need care stuck in hospital beds this winter, we are going to have a real, real problem. So that combination of longer-term social care reform but also ensuring that discharge to assess funding keeps flowing is really, really important.

And on the NHS pay review:

I think a reasonable place for it to land would be three to four per cent. That's what I think where the Scottish Government were, at the higher end of that bracket. But interestingly nurses in Scotland weren't particularly happy with that. So I do think there is an important issue here. The key point is our staff have been working incredibly hard and it feels to me it is right and proper that we should recognise the contribution that those staffs have made. It was delightful for the NHS to receive the George Cross but actually, we also need to ensure that hard-working frontline NHS staff are also paid and remunerated at an appropriate rate and the effort they've put in over the last year is properly recognised.

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