A health service audit has unveiled that almost a quarter of patients admitted to hospitals with COVID in England are actually getting treated for a different condition.
NHS statistics show just 3,855 of the 5,021 people in hospital with COVID on Tuesday were essentially in the hospital because they were unwell from the virus. The remaining 1,166 patients were getting care for other ailments and injuries, such as a broken leg.
Daily figures on the number of COVID patients in hospitals have been released during the pandemicover-egged and have been paraded by ministers at No 10 press conferences to justify keeping lockdown restrictions in place.
But, until now, they were never broken down to show precisely how many people occupying beds were actually sick with the virus, meaning numbers included patients who just so happened to test positive.
The figures provoked critique from Tory MPs who vented that the misleading data will have been used to justify important lockdown decisions the Government has taken during the COVID emergency.
Experts claimed the numbers were especially significant and should have been collected since the start of the pandemic.
It comes after NHS England data last week revealed only 44 per cent of COVID patients tested positive before they went into the hospital, meaning many catch the virus and fall unwell while on the wards.
Meanwhile, admission rates are now slowing down, in a sign that the third wave is finally coming under control.
Scientists think that hospitalisations may even begin to fall next week, in line with cases, which have been plunging for over a week.
Before ministers pushed forward with Freedom Day this month, recently elected Health Secretary Sajid Javid asked NHS England to distinguish between the types of patients in the hospital to get a better idea of the actual state of the outbreak.
Hospitals were told to give a breakdown of those who went to hospital primarily because of COVID and were experiencing severe symptoms, as well as those who tested positive but were in the hospital for another reason.
The figures, which the NHS only began gathering on June 18, revealed the proportion of people identified as COVID patients who were in hospital due to the virus ranged between 74.9 per cent and 79.7 per cent.
It suggests daily hospitalisation figures were inflated and included incidental cases, and that in the most recent weeks, only 77.8 per cent of COVID patients were primarily sick because of the virus.
As per normal, you go into hospital with one thing and pick up something else, and it appears that if you’re unwell, the hospital is not the place to be.
Of course, our Government have been inflating the numbers since the start, and I can’t wait for their day of retribution – hopefully heads will roll.
It would be disastrous and interesting if the Government, SAGE and PHE ever correctly audited those that died with COVID and those that they said did and actually didn’t.
It’s called the ‘run over by the bus’ syndrome.
People who tested positive for COVID but then died from something totally unrelated, but still counted as a COVID death. So, how can you formulate policy and action on the wrong data?
But this was so clearly the case, and it’s disturbing that it’s only now just been reported, but then the Tories and the so-called experts over egged the virus from the start, with the help from the media, putting fear and causing hysteria from the people.
