NHS primary care staff are still 'stretched to the limit...

Covid pressures are starting to rise again' and the surgery backlog isn't clearing fast enough

- HELENA VESTY

PRESSURE is mounting on a primary care system already splitting at the seams in Greater Manchester, GPs, community nurses and hospital medics alike have warned.

“I have a sneaking suspicion it will all come back to GPs who are already inundated anyway," sighs one doctor.

The official narrative is that the country is now 'living safely with Covid, and that the focus for the NHS should be getting delayed surgeries back on course - correcting a colossal backlog of operations built up through two years of stop-start procedures.

But hospital staff have already spoken out to the M.E.N., fearing 'another Omicron' will hit their wards, after New Year marked among the most challenging moments of the pandemic for NHS workers. Staffing was stretched so thin that many felt the situation unsafe.

Now, GPs and community care staff in the region share their side of the story, as they “feel Covid pressure start to rise again, while also trying to cope under the weight of millions of sick patients whose treatment could be years away.

During the wind down of Covid19 safety measures, from February to April, the M.E.N. has spoken to NHS staff from across the primary care, secondary care and public health systems.

Primary care services typically provide the 'first point of contact with the NHS - GP services, community nursing, local pharmacies, dental and eye health care. Secondary care involves care beyond that generalised level - specialist doctors based at hospitals treating both inpatients and outpatients, for example. Meanwhile, public health involves organised measures to promote health, prolong life and prevent infection, such as councilled policies to increase residents' activity levels.