WE ARE nearly a month into the national lockdown, so how is the NHS bearing up?

While there are growing worries about the impact on the wider economy, our health service is holding up extremely well.

There have, of course, been terrible tragedies: the Royal Surrey reports an estimated 42 Covid deaths and Frimley Park an estimated 80 deaths.

But more positively, both report growing numbers of patients successfully discharged after catching Covid: 91 patients discharged from the Royal Surrey and across both Frimley Park and Wexham (the group’s other site in Slough) 360 discharged.

So our brilliant staff are keeping very sick people alive and sending them home in impressive numbers.

Both hospitals also report some spare capacity.

The big question is whether or not we will see the ‘London surge’ locally.

London is the epicentre of the virus nationally and London hospitals have been hardest hit.

But thanks to the social distancing measures introduced on March 23, the number of hospital admissions has started to stabilise.

Given that social distancing started at the same time in Surrey, there is a possibility that we won’t see the same surge here – let’s pray.

What is most heartening is the amazing public support for our frontline staff.

They are human beings who worry about passing on the infection to their families, just as we all do. They go to work every day knowing that in other parts of the country, brave doctors and nurses have paid the ultimate price for doing just that – as do our wonderful care home staff, who are equally exposed.

As the government tries hard to iron out issues with protective equipment, they have been really buoyed by community support, including 3,500 Easter eggs delivered to Frimley and 4,000 delivered to the Royal Surrey.

Wherever they were stored, I am glad no-one told my children!

They have also had donations of pizza, coffee and individually-tailored scrubs and gowns.

The other positive is a big increase in staff testing: Louise Stead, chief executive of the Royal Surrey, says they have tested 583 staff and are ramping up their testing to 100 tests a day.

Neil Dardis, who runs Frimley, has set up drive-through testing for staff. Both say this is helping to bring down staff absences to ten per cent or lower.

We now need to see the same happening for care-home staff and social workers who look after people in their own homes.

That is not to say there are not many challenges, not least that even as we pass through the peak period, the death rate will sadly remain very high.

We also have to think about the challenges of restarting the economy – my subject for next week’s column.

But for now we can take some comfort that our fine National Health Service is successfully tackling the biggest challenge in its history.