Demand for critical care in Wales ‘lower than expected’, NHS chief says
Dr Andrew Goodall said using oxygen treatments instead of putting patients on ventilators was proving a ‘more effective’ way of treating patients.
The number of coronavirus patients in Wales needing critical care is less than half of what it was during the peak of the virus despite rising hospital admissions, the chief executive of NHS Wales said.
Dr Andrew Goodall said early intervention by doctors, aided by increased testing, and improvements with oxygen therapies meant that both demand on intensive care units and mortality rates were lower compared with April.
Demand for critical care capacity in Wales is 60% lower than at the peak, with 57 people currently receiving treatment, while 1,275 people currently occupy hospital beds because of Covid-19 in non-critical care areas.
The number of Covid patients occupying non-critical hospital beds is just 9% lower than it was in April and is the highest amount since that time, with numbers expected to rise further in the coming days.
But Dr Goodall said increasing admissions were not resulting in greater demand for critical care beds, saying the numbers were “lower than expected” and represented “a good sign”.
He told the Welsh Government’s Covid-19 briefing on Tuesday: “By now I would have expected, if it was the first wave’s experience, to have seen more coronavirus patients in our critical care areas.
