Article 569FK UK coronavirus live: concern about second wave 'very high' among NHS managers, MPs told

UK coronavirus live: concern about second wave 'very high' among NHS managers, MPs told

by
Andrew Sparrow (now) and Ben Quinn (earlier)
from on (#569FK)

Chief executive of NHS Confederation tells MPs staff are exhausted'; Oliver Dowden tells people to book holidays but be prepared to quarantine

3.21pm BST

Here are the main points from Nicola Sturgeon's press briefing earlier.

I want to give people hope. I think there's a lot right now that should give all of us hope. It's been painful, it's been hard, but we've got this virus to really low levels.

But I don't do my job, I don't discharge my responsibilities and ultimately I don't do anybody any favours if I give false hope, or if I get so desperate, as I am to get everybody back to normal, that I forget about the risks that we face, and then I'm standing here in a few weeks and we're going backwards.

My biggest concern right now is that there are things that all of us can do to keep this under control that we're all maybe getting a bit lax at doing.

Sometimes one person's political issue is another person's very legitimate issue, part and parcel of dealing with Covid. And the fiscal flexibility of the government to deal with the overall consequences of Covid [an issue raised by the reporter] I would put into the latter category.

2.42pm BST

The all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, which is chaired by the Lib Dem MP Layla Moran, is holding its own inquiry into the lessons to be learnt from coronavirus, and today it has holding its first oral evidence session. Niall Dickson, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS leaders, told the group that NHS managers were very worried about a second wave. He said:

I would say in relation to the second spike issue or something coming, the levels of concern among our members - the people who are leading NHS trusts, who are leading in primary care and all levels in the systems - is very high.

I mean, of course, there's real concern about winter and the compounding factors there, but also about an earlier spike.

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