Hundreds of troops are being drafted into London hospitals to replace staff isolating with Omicron as the NHS grapples with critical workforce shortages.

Military medics will assist doctors and nurses with patient care, while general duty personnel will help fill gaps caused by other absences.

The Royal College of Nursing has said the deployment means Boris Johnson can no longer deny there is a ‘staffing crisis’ within the NHS.

The Prime Minister has said it is ‘not true’ that the health service does not have enough staff to cope with the pressures it is facing, despite dozens of hospitals declaring critical emergencies in recent days.

Patricia Marquis, the RCN’s director for England, said: ‘The prime minister and others can no longer be dismissive of questions about the ability of NHS staff to deliver safe care.

‘Once the military has been brought in, where does the government turn next in a bid to ‘ride out’ the wave rather than deal with it?’

Around 200 armed forces personnel are being made available to hospitals across the capital, which has been the epicentre of the Omicron outbreak with a huge upsurge in cases.

The announcement comes after Boris Johnson said this week that ministers hoped to ‘ride out’ the latest wave without the need for further restrictions in England.

It is expected the military will be ‘on task’ for the next three weeks.

In addition, 32 military co-responders are being provided to support the South Central Ambulance Service, working alongside paramedics until the end of March.

Over 20 NHS trusts have declared ‘critical incidents’ – an alert to signal that there are fears priority services cannot be safely delivered.

MPs on the cross-party Health and Social Care Committee warned yesterday that 5.8 million people are now waiting for treatment across the country, with Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt urging the government to ‘wake up to the scale of the staffing crisis facing the NHS’.

Around 1,800 service personnel are already deployed across the UK to support the civil authorities in their response to the pandemic.

They include 313 personnel assisting the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust and 96 with the Scottish Ambulance Service, while more than 1,000 are helping the vaccine booster programme.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: ‘The men and women of our armed forces are once again stepping up to support their dedicated colleagues in the NHS as they work hand-in-hand to protect the nation from Covid-19.

‘They have shown their worth time and again throughout this pandemic, whether driving ambulances, administering vaccines or supporting patients in hospital, and they should be proud of their contribution to this truly national effort.’

Government figures showed there were 17,988 people in hospital in the UK with Covid-19 as of January 5, up 50% week-on-week and the highest total since February 18.

Infections remain high, with the latest official figures showing there were a further 179,756 lab-confirmed cases of the virus recorded in the UK as of 9am on Thursday.

The epicentre of the current Covid outbreak appears to have moved from London to the North West, where cases are rising rapidly.

The Royal Preston Hospital is converting its canteen into a makeshift ward to prepare for a potential surge of patients.

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Separately, workers at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital have now taken the drastic step of removing curtains between beds so that more people can be squeezed into wards as part of ‘extreme measures’ to deal with the staffing crisis.

Meanwhile, there are signs that schools are also coming under pressure, with a third of school leaders reporting staff absence rates of more than 10% for Covid-related reasons, according to a survey by the NAHT union.

The snap poll found the overwhelming majority (95%) had pupils off due to Covid at the start of term, while 29% said more than 10% of their students were absent.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, has warned that schools were ‘teetering on the edge’ with considerable shortages, adding that absences due to illness may ‘very likely rise’ during the term.

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