In London:
NHS England chiefs are considering the drastic action because hospitals across the capital are becoming overwhelmed by people who are very sick with Covid-19.
The operations likely to be cancelled, known as “priority two” procedures, mainly involve surgery for cancer where specialists have judged that the patients need to be operated on within four weeks. Any delay could allow their tumour to grow, the disease to spread, or both, thus reducing their chances of survival.
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If this were to go ahead (which looks likely - UK recorded 80,000 cases on Boxing Day by specimen date..), then aren’t we already making decisions about which lives to save? Is this an inevitable choice, purely because it’s far easier to cancel a surgical procedure than it is to turn away a critically ill patient gasping for breath?