Over the past few days I’ve been speaking to several frontline NHS staff working in hospitals in London and surrounding areas and it seems that the situation is incredibly dire

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One doctor in a London hospital tells me that following a huge spike in cases their hospital is struggling to cope and they now have no choice but to ration Oxygen: “No beds, no space, minimal Oxygen supplies. We’re having to ration Oxygen.”

A senior doctor at one of the biggest London hospitals tells me that all elective surgery has now been cancelled and that roughly 80-85% of beds are currently being used for COVID patients.

At one hospital in London a specific team has been set purely to aid with the patient discharge process. Why? Simply to free up as much bed space as possible because demand is higher than it has ever been.

One medic tells me that the number ITU beds has increased at their hospital as they try and deal with extra demand but they only have staff to cover half of them: “Yes we have extra beds but what is the point if we don’t have any staff to actually work on them?”