Steve McGuirk is chairman of Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and has written this new year column for the Warrington Guardian:

"AS we approach the end of 2021 – thankfully for many of us – it’s customary to have a look back at the events of the past year, and I am grateful to the Warrington Guardian for the opportunity to do that on behalf of the Hospital.

It has been an incredibly tough year for us – and there has really been little to no respite.

As we entered 2021, we had five times the number of Covid patients in the hospital than we currently have; and this was nearly twice as many patients as wave one.

These figures give a sense of just how tough it was for us this time last year and though, in the summer, it eased off a little, there has never been a time when we have been Covid free.

Amid this, we were rapidly reconfiguring our other site at Halton to be as Covid-free as possible, and to try to get moving with our recovery (non-Covid) work as soon as humanly possible.

The issues here are not so much people having Covid (though that is bad enough) it is the need to have stringent - though vital - infection control measures in place. In the event, we have done well, and we have managed to make real headway into the huge backlog arising from the impact of the pandemic.

This is not to be complacent, because even though we work hard to prioritise, we fully recognise the terrible impact delay can have for some patients.

The impact of Omicron is likely to mean that we will need to redouble our efforts in this crucial area of our work over the coming months.

Alongside Covid and the recovery programme, however, we have also needed to develop and run a major vaccination programme, and we are currently preparing for the implications of vaccination becoming a legal requirement for many of our staff in 2022. We are not anticipating a major impact, as we are very proud at the way our staff have already responded with one of the highest staff vaccination rates in the country – well over 90%.

It has become almost a cliché to talk about how fantastic the NHS has been, and what an amazing job has been done over the last couple of years.

And it’s sometimes easy to lump people together as part of the NHS, forgetting that we are not talking about remote or distant people. We are talking about our own community and our families and friends, as most people who work at the hospital live here in Warrington and Halton.

I am tremendously proud of everyone who works for our trust and their work in 2021.

Warrington Guardian:

Warrington Hospital staff were nominated by Guardian readers to be shortlisted for our Lockdown Heroes Awards earlier in the year

 

It is inevitable that mistakes will be made and, when they are, we accept and learn from them as we have in 2021; and, yes, car parking remains a frustrating problem.

But the care and compassion our teams provide on the vast, vast majority of occasions is second to none. And this is even more remarkable given the immense challenges (and personal risks) they have faced and continue to face.

In this respect, it’s worth reminding members of the public that we have tragically lost colleagues to Covid during the pandemic.

Finally, could I thank the public for their support in 2021 and wish everyone a happy and well new year - but if you can do one thing to help us, it really is to ‘get vaccinated’!

Thank you."