The NHS would support the removal of PCR testing requirements to get staff back to work if the science allows, a confederation head has said.
Covid testing rules will be relaxed to remove the need of asymptomatic people to take a follow-up PCR test as part of efforts to shorten isolation periods and ease the staffing shortages crippling Britain, The Telegraph understands.
Asked on the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme if he would support the move, Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation whose members are NHS organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said: "As long as it's based on the science - because on the one hand, we do need to try to get staff back to work as soon as possible... on the other hand, if staff come back into the hospital and they're infectious, that's completely counterproductive, because that's going to mean more sickness in the hospital and staff.
"So this can't be led by kind of politics or blind hope - it's got to be led by the science. If the science says it's possible for us to go back to work earlier then of course, NHS leaders will want that to be possible.
The plans have also received backing from figures from Britain's workforce.
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Moroccan tour operators threatened with bankruptcy due to border closures protested Tuesday, calling for the tourism industry to be "saved".
About 200 industry workers demonstrated in front of the tourism ministry in Rabat, demanding the reopening of borders and talks with the authorities, citing the "dramatic collapse" of the industry in the wake of the pandemic.
Morocco suspended all passenger flights from November 29 until January 31 as a result of rising infections of the omicron variant worldwide. The restrictions have dealt a punishing blow to the country's vital tourism sector, already on its knees after two lost seasons because of the pandemic.
Lahcen Zelmat, head of the national federation of the hotel industry, said the situation for tourism was "catastrophic" and called for borders to be reopened and bank loan payments to be delayed.
Raja Ould Hamada, the owner of a travel agency in Marrakesh, said the most recent border closure was a "fatal blow" to the industry, claiming "other competing countries" such as Egypt, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates had benefitted.
The North East Ambulance Service has confirmed that it asked patients with "potentially non-life threatening" calls to be taken to hospital by a friend or relative if an ambulance was delayed over the Bank Holiday.
Dr Mathew Beattie, medical director at NEAS, described the decision as "incredibly difficult" but said it formed part of the highest level of its clinical escalation plan.
Dr Beattie added: "Under normal circumstances, we would move up and down our clinical escalation levels reactively as each point is triggered or demand reduces.
"The measures we took over the bank holiday weekend were implemented because we have seen activity fluctuating dramatically with surges in demand.
"This was an incredibly difficult decision to take, but when patients are waiting an average of an hour for an ambulance that should be responding within 18 minutes, there is a risk for them coming to harm if they cannot get to hospital quickly."
A 60-year-old man has been charged with criminal damage following reports of an anti-vaccine protest outside Sajid Javid's London home.
A video posted online appears to show a person delivering a letter with an anti-Covid vaccine message to what they claimed was the Health Secretary's home in Fulham, south-west London.
In the footage, a man stands outside the property and addresses the camera for several minutes, saying the letter is putting the Health Secretary "personally on notice" for "harming" people in Britain with vaccines. The video then shows the man being restrained in handcuffs by police officers.
The Metropolitan Police said Geza Tarjanyi, 60, of Leyland, Lancashire, was arrested on Monday.
The force said he was due to appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, charged with having an article with intent to destroy or damage property. He was then bailed to appear at Isleworth Crown Court on Feb 1.
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Some 55 care home resident deaths involving Covid-19 in England and Wales were registered in the week to December 24, down slightly from 60 in the previous week.
In total, 44,521 care home residents in England and Wales have had Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate since the pandemic began.
The ONS figures cover deaths of care home residents in all settings, not just in care homes.
Sir Keir Starmer has tested positive for coronavirus again, a Labour spokesman said.
Angela Rayner, his party's deputy leader, will deputise for him at Prime Minister's Questions at 3pm this afternoon.
It is the Labour leader's sixth time in isolation after previous Test and Trace rules meant he had to self-isolate whenever a close contact of his tested positive.
Hong Kong has announced strict new anti-coronavirus controls today, banning flights from eight nations, shutting bars and gyms and cancelling evening restaurant dining after the omicron variant was detected within the city.
The restrictions are the latest economic blow to Hong Kong which has pursued a zero-Covid strategy that has kept cases low but left residents cut off from the rest of the world.
Like mainland China, Hong Kong has maintained some of the world's harshest measures throughout the pandemic - including virtually closed borders, weeks-long quarantines, targeted lockdowns and mass testing.
The city has recorded 114 omicron cases as of Tuesday evening, with the vast majority identified at the airport or during the 21-day hotel quarantine that is mandatory for most arrivals.
It is "unreasonable in the face of omicron to expect everything to remain the same" as some hospitals cancel non-urgent operations, the care minister has claimed.
Annual contingency planning means "often [slowing] down electives", according to Gillian Keegan, even though the Government "obviously wants" the backlog to remain cleared.
Speaking to the Today programme, Ms Keegan said: "What we do is we have these contingency plans where they can call for mutual aid, they can call for more volunteers, they can call for military aid if they need."
Suspensions would be for a "short period of time", she predicted. "Every winter this is something that happens every time. What is worse this year is we do know that we have a massive backlog and we are building new surgical hubs and new diagnostic hubs to be able to deal with that as well.
"But right now, if we have emergencies due to a lot of admissions at A&E that is one of the measures hospital trusts will look at. But obviously we want everyone to get their elective surgery as soon as they can."
Lucy Moreton, a professional officer at the Immigration Services Union, said she would "welcome" the moves to relax Covid testing rules.
The Telegraph understands that Covid testing rules will be relaxed to remove the need of asymptomatic people to take a follow-up PCR test as part of efforts to shorten isolation periods and ease the staffing shortages crippling Britain
When asked about the proposed changes, she told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme: "If scientists are happy that LFDs are sufficient for that, then yes that would be welcome."
Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, said relaxing the rules around follow-up PCR tests would be "very helpful" and "logical".
He told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme: "The quicker you can get these people back in action the better really," adding, "let's get people back to work."
His comments come after The Telegraph revealed that Covid testing rules will be relaxed to remove the need of asymptomatic people to take a follow-up PCR test as part of efforts to shorten isolation periods and ease the staffing shortages crippling Britain,
The UK Government knew "this was going to be one of the most pressurised winters" for the NHS and that extra investment had been given to help the service cope, a minister has said.
Health minister Gillian Keegan, asked about the number of critical incidents being declared by NHS trusts, told BBC Breakfast: "Right now, they are under extreme pressure with the Omicron variant, with the number of positive cases and the increase in hospitalisations, and at this point in time when they always have extreme pressure.
"We knew that and we actually knew that going into this period - that's why we've put an extra ￡5.4 billion of investment to try and get extra staff, get some extra capacity to be able to put virtual wards in place, extra beds and extra capacity with the Nightingales, etc, all of which we anticipated, that this was going to be really difficult.
"We've had two years of a pandemic, there is a build-up of people who haven't come forward who need electives - there is a backlog we need to deal with - and then you have got the unknown of Covid - we now know we have Omicron - and also flu was a big unknown as well, how much flu we would have this year.
"We always knew that this was going to be one of the most pressurised winters and they are doing an absolutely amazing job.
"Part of one of the procedures we have with our NHS contingency and resilience plans is actually to declare this critical state, and then they will work with NHS regional colleagues and the local resilience forums to make sure that mutual aid is provided, or whatever support is required, so it is part of the escalation process.
"These are tried and tested plans, we have these plans in place every winter."
Health minister Gillian Keegan said "about one million" people are currently in isolation because of coronavirus.
Speaking to Sky News, she said: "We don't actually collect that data on a daily basis but it is obvious if you look at how many people tested positive yesterday - it was about 215,000 - that they will all be self-isolating obviously from the previous days.
"So, it is about one million probably who are self-isolating right now."
Asked why the UK Government did not have the exact data, Ms Keegan replied: "We get the tested positive ... figures, so you can add those up over the days, but what we don't know is how many people after day six and day seven have tested negative and are free to leave isolation.
"So, it is around about a million people though."
You can follow the Telegraph's politics live blog, manned today by Dominic Penna, here.
Here is your Daily Telegraph, on Wednesday, Jan 5
A record number of lateral flow tests were mailed to people on Tuesday, Gillian Keegan said, as she hinted at removing "unnecessary" testing procedures.
Asked what might be behind teams looking at relaxing the rules around follow-up PCR tests, the health minister told BBC Breakfast: "What we've got is many, many more lateral flow tests.
"Yesterday was a record - we sent out 741,000 lateral flow tests to people's homes.
"We've tripled capacity - that's what we've been working on over Christmas - so for January and February, we have 350 million lateral flow tests, so hopefully that should sort out some of the short-term supply issues that we've had where people have had to wait a little bit to get their packs.
"We're doing so many of these and they are really accurate when you've got a very infectious variant like Omicron.
"So, actually, what we are doing all the time is looking at what makes sense, we don't need to do things that are unnecessary."
There is "no official" update yet on whether testing rules will be changed in England so that those who test positive in lateral flow tests will not need a confirmatory PCR, according to a health minister.
Gillian Keegan, asked about The Telegraph's front page, told BBC Breakfast: "The teams are looking constantly at what makes sense and what works, etc, but I don't have any official news or updates for you this morning."
Pressed on whether the rule change was being brought in for those who are asymptomatic, the minister replied: "As I say, I don't have any official news on that but I know that the teams are looking at testing and testing regimes.
"We've introduced so many lateral flow tests now and they are very accurate - they are really accurate if people are infectious, so I guess they are looking at the regime all the time in terms of what makes sense.
"I don't have any official news but the teams will announce it once they have come to their conclusions."
Asked whether the announcement could come on Wednesday, she said: "You may be able to expect some news - I don't know when."
Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (Spi-M), told BBC Breakfast that lateral flows were very accurate when it came to recording a positive result.
"Of course, with a PCR test what happens is a number of those can get sent away for sequencing and then you get more information regarding the virus itself.
"So, that sort of information may potentially be lost, but only a subset of those PCR tests are sent away for sequencing anyway, so, hopefully, we won't be losing the levels of information that we already have in this country that enables us to identify variants and so forth."
He said it was "very, very important" that if any changes were brought in regarding dropping some PCRs that people still recorded their results from lateral flows.
Regarding the potential change to travel testing requirements, he said when there were very high numbers of cases in the UK, testing upon entry to the UK "becomes less important" as cases are already circulating.
"So, again, that's probably why the change is coming in to support the travel industry and reduce a lot of the testing requirements."
Covid testing rules will be relaxed as part of efforts to shorten isolation periods and ease the staffing shortages crippling Britain, The Telegraph understands.
Fears are growing that staff absences have become as big a problem as Covid itself, with bin collections delayed, trains cancelled and 17 hospitals in Greater Manchester announcing on Tuesday that they would be suspending some non-urgent surgery, with 15 per cent of staff off sick.
Millions of people who test positive on lateral flow devices will be told they do not need to take follow-up PCR tests, which currently delay the official start of isolation for hundreds of thousands.
Health officials have drawn up plans to limit PCR tests to those with Covid symptoms, allowing people who are asymptomatic – around 40 per cent of cases – to return to work more quickly. More than 1.2 million people are isolating after testing positive in the last week, with hundreds of thousands more waiting for tests or results.
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