Leeds council CEO ‘confident’ city’s hospitals can cope with post-lockdown ‘flood’ of patients

Hospitals across the UK have reported dramatic falls in cancer referrals from GPs since the beginning of the lockdown, leading some experts to warn hospitals could see a flood of new cases once lockdown restrictions are lifted.

But Leeds City Council’s chief executive Tom Riordan, who meets regularly with the city’s health chiefs, urged individuals with non-Covid-19-related illnesses to use GP and A&E services available to them.

He added that he was confident Leeds had the infrastructure to cope with any increase in cases once the lockdown restrictions were relaxed.

The comments were made during an online press conference, during which the authority outlined its early plans post-lockdown.

Mr Riordan said: “Its a key issue that the NHS is actively preparing for. The NHS is still open for people – GPs’ surgeries and in the acute sector, to utilise as normal.

“There has been a huge amount of work to free up hospital beds in case we had a surge of people coming in with the virus.

“The hospitals have done a fantastic job and are now either at the peak or coming out of the other side of it. They are actively thinking about how to bring back in that elective set of operations and treatments that are going to be needed.”

He claimed there was currently a ‘gradual shift’ towards hospitals restarting routine surgeries.

He added: “That transition has started and the NHS is open for people to engage with as usual – we would encourage them to do so because there is a risk that if they don’t, there will be issues for them later down the line.”

“I think the hospital has capacity at the moment and has a plan in place to make sure people are in the right place where they need to be. The testing facility is vital, because we have to make sure people are safe when they leave hospital.

“This will increase people’s confidence in the system. They need to know they are not going to catch the virus, and the hospital has everything in place to make sure that doesn’t happen.”