The Whittington use ‘cute cats’ to get people washing hands

PATIENTS on edge about the coronavirus are ignoring official government advice and piling into hospital walk-in centres with worries about possible symptoms.

Reports, due to be discussed by health chiefs this week, say Urgent Treatment Centres – walk-in GP surgeries inside hospitals – had been experiencing “high numbers of calls in relation to COVID-19”.

NHS bosses are now urging patients not to go to hospital or their GP surgery before calling 111 – the non-emergency NHS advice number.

Advice from Islington’s Clinical Commissioning Group said: “Do not go to a GP surgery or hospital. Call 111, stay indoors and avoid close contact with other people.”

Like the common cold, coronavirus infection happens through coughs, sneezes and hand contact – or by touching contaminated surfaces.

Passengers are being specifically told to wash their hands for 20 seconds after getting off public transport and not to rub their eyes, nose and mouth until they have done so.

The Whittington Hospital in Archway has been tweeting 20-second films of cute cats to try and convince people how long they need to wash their hands for.

People are also being advised to carry tissues to “catch your cough or sneeze” and to “bin the tissues and wash your hands”.

The advice for managing COVID-19 for most people will “be self-isolation at home and simple over the counter medicines”.

Patients suspected of having coronavirus are being tested in booths outside the Whittington and the UCLH in Euston and the Royal Free in Hampstead. Results are then phoned through to patients in their homes.

Anyone who is diagnosed with coronavirus may then be taken to a specialist unit at the Royal Free’s Hampstead site.

Patients inside the unit are being kept in isolation, away from public areas of the hospital.

Patients discharged from the Royal Free are being sent home and told to stay indoors.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited patients and staff at the isolation unit on Sunday and later said that he “shook hands with everybody”.

Patients who have outpatient appointments at these hospitals are being “reassured that their safety is a top priority, and are encouraged to attend all appointments as usual”.

Yesterday (Thursday), the number of cases in the UK had reached at least 116 with the figure expected to keep on rising.

Around the world there have been more than 90,000 positive tests for the virus, with over 3,300 deaths. The elderly and people with underlying health conditions have suffered most.

National Health officials said they were moving into a new phase in the fight against the virus, as attempts at containment had not been wholly successful with people becoming infected despite having no travel connections to countries with large outbreaks: Italy, South Korea, Iran and China, where it originated in the closing weeks of 2019.

A new “delay” phase was aimed at slowing down the spread of the virus and holding back a peak until warmer spring or summer months.  Attempts to develop a vaccine, meanwhile, are under way.