Great Ormond Street Hospital

'Over 70 GOSH staff test positive for Covid-19'

Sarah Lee

BBC London

GOSH
PA

More than 70 members of staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) have tested positive for Covid-19, it has been claimed.

Anthony Costello, a former director of the World Health Organization (WHO), tweeted that he had been sent an email detailing the outbreak at the children’s hospital in London.

The email stated 73 out of 181 members of staff had tested positive with the illness, while another 318 were off sick due to them or members of their family showing symptoms.

A Great Ormond Street Hospital spokesperson said: “We continue to monitor Covid-19 related staff absence carefully which currently equates to 6%of our workforce.

"We are able to fully staff all of the services we have planned to run at this time.”

The figures relate to a staff email sent out on 1 April.

There are more than 4,000 members of staff who deal with more than 268,000 patient appointments every year, according to the GOSH website.

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Critical Condition: Allegations of failings at Great Ormond Street

Are allegations of failings at Great Ormond Street properly investigated?
Great Ormond Street Hospital in London has a global reputation for providing outstanding care to children with the most complex medical conditions who need expert help. 
The hospital, known as GOSH, boasts more specialist services for children under one roof than any other and employs some of the country's leading doctors to staff them. 
The vast majority of the 43,000 children who stay at GOSH every year receive care which befits its reputation.  
But when things go wrong, is the hospital being transparent about its failings and does it do everything it can to prevent mistakes being repeated?
When serious mistakes happen hospitals are duty-bound to launch serious incident investigations to understand what exactly happened and report them to external bodies. 
But File on 4 investigates claims that in some cases the hospital has failed to declare serious incidents despite evidence of harm. 
Reporter Michael Buchanan began investigating how the hospital deals with errors after attending the inquest of 14-year-old Amy Allan, from North Ayrshire, who died following elective back surgery. 
Michael returns to Scotland six months later to investigate how the hospital responded to Amy's death and meets other families who say they cannot get the answers they're seeking.

Producer:  Ben Robinson
Reporter:  Michael Buchanan
Editor: Carl Johnston
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