Under a deal announced on Saturday by the government, the entire capacity of private hospitals in England will be used to both treat coronavirus patients and deal with key healthcare facilities that the NHS is unable to fulfil. The move will provide nearly 20,000 staff to help cope with the surge in cases and 8,000 hospital beds as well as 1,200 more ventilators – key equipment in helping victims of the virus recover.
The work will be undertaken by private hospitals at cost – meaning they will not be making a profit on the service – and will run for an initial 14 weeks followed by a rolling period with one month’s notice at the discretion of NHS England.
According to official figures 281 people have now died after testing positive for the coronavirus in the UK. While countries such as Italy and Spain have been affected far more severely with 651 deaths on Sunday in Italy alone.
The scale and severity of the outbreak has meant that a myriad of private companies are working around the clock to produce tests, vaccines, antibody tests and vital equipment such as ventilators.
Wesley Baker, CEO of ANCON Medical, discusses the importance of cooperation between private firms and the NHS:
“Tackling this pandemic and minimising the number of people that die as a result will take a combined effort from all areas of healthcare. It is a necessary and positive step to see private providers step in to increase capacity at cost. The government strategy so far has focused on pushing down the curve to keep it below NHS capacity and this move means that that curve has more room for manoeuvre.
It is vital that the private and public sectors come together to fight the spread of the disease. Private sector companies such as ours have incredible potential to effectively screen for the disease much faster than current methods by using new technologies. If we can work in tandem with the fantastic work the NHS does, we could make a big impact in slowing the spread of the disease and protect the most vulnerable in society – thus flattening that curve and allowing the NHS to work within capacity.
Personally, I am taking the utmost care to guard against the virus, both in my family and at ANCON. My son suffers from an autoimmune disease, which means it is a significant health risk should he catch it. At home we have a clean environment, hand cleaners and masks which we purchased some weeks ago to the highest standard which can protect against the size of the virus. We also have arranged that his home teachers will soon start using Skype rather than directly visiting, and we have stocked our reserves in food in case.”
ANCON Medical’s Nanoparticle Biomarker Tagging (NBT) device works with AI and machine learning to identify the breath biomarker profile of a COVID-19 positive patient – allowing the device to diagnose the presence of the disease in as little as 10 minutes, without the need to send samples to labs, as is currently the case. It can also provide rapid response screening and diagnosis technique for future outbreaks.