THE Daily Echo reports today that hospitals in Hampshire still have over 450 Covid patients.

At the same time, NHS Providers say that England urgently needs more intensive care beds.

We are desperately underprovided: England has 7.3 intensive care beds per 100,000 people, fewer than most European countries. Germany has 33.8.

We need many more beds, but a “bed” in a hospital is not just a piece of furniture. It is a whole team of people to care for the patient in the bed – nurses, doctors, cleaners, porters and more.

The Nightingale hospitals were largely unused simply because there were not enough trained staff to work in them.

Our NHS is woefully underprovided.

It has been stripped bare over the past ten years and recently recorded 100,000 unfilled vacancies including 44,000 nurses.

We need to train many more nurses, but trainee nurses’ bursaries were removed and later replaced with an inferior version.

We have demanded far too much of our NHS staff over the past year, including in Hampshire, and many will pay the price in their own health for years to come.

Their job would have been easier if their numbers had not been so stretched.

Anna Ridehalgh

Southampton