The Telegraph newspaper is claiming this morning that it has seen data that appears to show that as many as 11,000 people caught covid-19 and died after being admitted to hospital for another ailment.
The paper’s investigation team is reporting today that:
Thousands of patients who went to hospital to be treated for other illnesses “probably” or “definitely” caught coronavirus during their stay and subsequently died, hospital data show.
On Monday night, MPs condemned the figures as a “scandal”.
The revelation has prompted fresh calls for vaccinations for NHS staff to become compulsory, amid fears that hospitals could struggle to cope during the winter.
It is expected that the Government will announce mandatory vaccination for NHS staff this week, but give them until spring to get the jab.
Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative chairman of the health and social care select committee, said: “These numbers are truly shocking… hospital infections have been the deadliest silent killer of the pandemic… It surely strengthens the case for mandatory vaccination for frontline healthcare staff.”
The Telegraph used a Freedom Of Information request to obtain the data from NHS Trusts in England. A coronavirus case likely to have been caught in hospital is known as a nosocomial infection.
According to the data seen by the newspaper, 11,688 people who died in hospital after testing positive for Covid, more than likely caught the virus there.
University Hospitals Birmingham, an NHS Trust in the Midlands, recorded as many as 484 deaths of patients believed to have caught the virus on wards during the pandemic.
Former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is not alone in calling for the mandatory vaccination of NHS staff this morning. Cross-party MP’s are calling for urgent action to protect hospital patients this Winter. They want the current Health Secretary Sajid Javid to mandate the jabs without delay.
Someone needs to tell them that the covid jabs do not prevent transmission. That fact always gets lost when mandatory vaccination comes up doesn’t it?
NHS England issued a brief response to The Telegraph’s findings. It said that the analysis was “flawed” because it contained “probable” cases which means it “will contain cases of people who did not catch Covid in hospital.”
Problem, Reaction, Solution maybe?
