Inside Health gets exclusive access into Ysbyty Gwynedd, the Bangor emergency department, to see how they are preparing staff to deal with coronavirus patients arriving at the front door. Although advice is for patients to stay at home and call 111, some will be sick enough to need hospital admission. For that outcome, staff need to be properly fitted for face masks and trained in putting on personal protection equipment or PPE. Saleyha works in the department and Inside Health follows her getting kitted out with the help of Tim Hamilton Jones, an ED staff nurse tasked with the job of getting everyone ‘fit tested’.

GP Dr Margaret McCartney talks about the evidence on face masks and the different types that are out there and gives the latest information on the incubation period for COVID19.

It’s estimated that 80% of cases will be able to recover at home but 20% may need hospital care. Reports coming from Italy describe the demand on intensive care beds for patients with coronavirus because of the disease’s potential impact on the lungs. Dr Alison Pittard, Dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care and herself a practising ITU consultant in Leeds tells Inside Health about plans for increasing critical care bed capacity, in the NHS. The service is however already stretched before the disease has even taken hold here.

As the government works out a plan of action to support the NHS to cope at this time, Inside Health talks to the British Red Cross, already working in hospitals across Wales, about supporting staff during the normal pressures, even before coronavirus struck. We hear from support workers within the Emergency Department and get an insight into what they do.

Producer, Erika Wright