Just five coronavirus patients now in South-west London hospitals

By Tara O’Connor, Local Democracy Reporter

There are currently just five coronavirus patients in hospitals across South-west London.

As of Friday across Croydon, Sutton, Merton, Kingston, Richmond and Wandsworth – the six boroughs covered by the new South West London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) – were treating five patients with the virus.

The hospitals this covers are Epsom and St Helier, St George’s in Tooting, Croydon University Hospital and Kingston.

But the hospitals are ready for any second wave, should one hit.

At a meeting on Wednesday, Sarah Blow, senior responsible officer of the South West London Health and Care Partnership, gave an overview of the response to the pandemic in the area.

She said: “All our staff have responded fantastically to this crisis and at no point were we not able to support our local populations through the health and care service.

“We are still in a level four incident in the NHS, we set up an incident control room where we worked with the whole of the NHS and had links with the local authorities.

“Every coronavirus patient in London that needed hospital treatment received it. I think we did a huge amount of work in a short space of time to make sure we had the intensive care capacity we needed.

“Even though the numbers are now reducing, we are still prepared for another wave should we get one, but we are also trying to restart some elective planned care.”