'The time has come to make everywhere Tier 4,' says GP

28 December 2020, 14:00

'The time has come to make everywhere Tier 4,' says GP

This is the moment a GP told LBC that "the time has come to make everywhere Tier 4".

Dr Laurence Buckman, who was chairman of the British Medical Association's General Practitioners' Committee between 2007 and 2013, made the remark while speaking to LBC's Andrew Castle.

His comments come after Boxing Day was described as one of the London Ambulance Service's "busiest ever days" as the number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 near the April peak.

The 7,918 calls received by London Ambulance Service (LAS) on 26 December was up more than 2,500 on the 5,217 received on the same day last year, and medics are receiving support from other ambulance services in the South.

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Dr Buckman told LBC: "I work for part of my time for the National Covid Service, which sits behind NHS 111.

"The number of calls is rising but, worse than that, the number of really sick people calling is rising. That's very worrying.

"And although I think there are concentrations geographically, I think the time has come to make everywhere Tier 4 and possibly to consider tightening that a little bit too."

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According to the Government's Covid dashboard, there were 21,286 people in hospital with coronavirus across the UK on December 22, which is the last day for which data is available.

This is slightly less than the 21,683 patients recorded on April 12.