Unless the number of cases peaks soon, Britain could be heading for the worst flu epidemic in a decade, the Health Secretary, Mr Alan Milburn, said yesterday. However, a leading flu expert has disputed the use of the word "epidemic" to describe the current outbreak, while some doctors and health services have said a shortage of beds and not the high number of flu cases has increased the pressure on the NHS.
As the NHS struggles to cope with the additional strain caused by the outbreak, revised figures show the level of flu cases in Britain has quadrupled from 40 per 100,000 last month to more than 197 per 100,000. Hospitals in London, Leeds, Bristol and Newcastle are among those that have suspended elective surgery to concentrate on emergency flu cases.
In a statement to MPs as they returned to Westminster after the Christmas recess, Mr Milburn admitted the flu outbreak had put "very real pressure" on NHS services, but doctors and nurses were dealing with the pressure.
Anticipating a rise in the level of cases, he said that on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer, Prof Liam Donaldson - who has described the outbreak as of "epidemic proportions" and put the figure at about 300 per 100,000 - the Department of Health figure reflected only those people who had consulted their doctors. The Health Secretary admitted the figure underestimated the true size of the problem.
The difficulty in reaching an accurate figure for the number of flu cases is because official figures mask the number of people calling the NHS helpline for medical advice and those who are simply not bothering to contact their doctors.
Flu levels would have to reach 400 per 100,00 to qualify as an epidemic, according to the Department of Health. It is a view shared by the Royal College of GPs. It said yesterday that although its figures, compiled from the number of people visiting their GP with flu symptoms, had risen a third from 144 per 100,000 last week to about 192 per 100,000 this week, it was not an epidemic.
The shadow health secretary, Mr Liam Fox, accused the government of breaking its election promises to improve the NHS, saying that people would ask: "How can it be that with the world's fifth-biggest economy, at the beginning of the 21st century, that something as predictable, as cyclical and as common as flu can cause the system to be breaking apart at the seams?"
Dr Douglas Fleming, director of the Birmingham Research Unit of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said he was concerned about the description of the flu outbreak as an epidemic. "The figures used to describe an epidemic are a convention and were agreed by the Department of Health," he said. "I would like to know what the reason is for calling this an epidemic if the figures have not been changed and it does concern me slightly."
Meanwhile, Dr Peter Hawker, chairman of the consultants' committee of the British Medical Association, said the underlying pressure on the NHS this winter was caused by the familiar problem of too few beds, doctors and nurses rather than the increase in flu cases.