Health Secretary breaks ranks and warns there will be a ‘rocky few weeks ahead’ for the NHS

The Health Secretary Sajid Javid has broken ranks from Boris Johnson and has warned on Friday that the NHS is in “challenging times.”

He has strongly advised people that the “best thing” to do is get vaccinated or book their booster jabs.

Whilst visiting a hospital in South London Javid warned that the NHS are facing a “rocky few weeks ahead” as they are dealing with very high Omicron cases.

Javid said, “We know now that Omicron is less severe… and we certainly know that once you get boosted that your chance of hospitalisation, our latest analysis shows, is almost 90% less than it was with Delta.”

Two more major incidents were declared on Friday in England due to the pressures the NHS are up against with the Omicron wave.

In Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent emergency services have announced a civil emergency and Northamptonshire also declared a system wide major incident.

The Prime Minister has been told by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) that the deployment of the armed forces to hospitals means he can no longer say there is not a “staffing crisis” within the NHS.

Patricia Marquis, the RCN’s director for England, said, “The Prime Minister and others can no longer be dismissive of questions about the ability of NHS staff to deliver safe care.

“Once the military has been brought in, where does the government turn next in a bid to ‘ride out’ the wave rather than deal with it?”

It was reported earlier that Javid is “very unhappy” that the requirement for PCR tests has been removed by the government.
Javid warned senior Ministers against dropping the Day 2 PCR tests for international travel, The Times has reported.

Javid reportedly said that the UK is now at risk of being placed into another lockdown as the lack of PCR tests limits the government’s ability to detect new variants entering the country.

A government source told The Times, “Sajid was very unhappy about the decision to remove the requirement for PCR tests.

“He argued they are instrumental in spotting new variants sooner.

“He said that by scrapping them you increase the risk of having to shut down the entire economy. But he lost the argument.”

The Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has delivered a blistering attack on Boris Johnson as he is “not taking action to protect” the “population.”

At a Welsh Government press briefing on Friday Drakeford said, “In England, we have a government that is politically paralysed, with a Prime Minister who is unable to secure an agreement through his Cabinet to take the actions that his advisers have been telling him ought to have been taken.

“And even if he could get his Cabinet to address them, he can’t get his MPs to agree them.”