Every patient admitted to hospitals within the South Tees NHS Foundation Trust is being swabbed for Covid-19 as health chiefs prepare for a potential “second surge” of the virus.

Despite this Sue Page, interim chief executive of the trust, said the number of patients currently in its care with coronavirus was in decline and it was “descending the mountain”.

A meeting of the trust’s board of directors was told numbers were currently in the upper 30s, which had come down from a high level.

A report prepared for the meeting said clinicians had begun to safely step-down some of its Covid-specific ward areas while maintaining the flexibility to swiftly open them again if cases were to rise.

The trust still remains at level four in terms of the operational pressures escalation levels framework set by the NHS, which means extreme pressure.

Ms Page said there was now an increasing number of non-Covid patients accessing accident and emergency services at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

“In the past couple of days we are back up at pre-Covid levels, something like 200 plus coming through the doors of A&E and there is a bit of pressure with beds,” she said.

“As we move to the next few weeks – and we don’t know what Covid will do and that is the unpredictability – we are beginning the journey to deliver more non-Covid related care where it can be done safely.

“The key thing throughout the whole response has been staff and patient safety.”

Adrian Clements, the trust’s deputy chief executive officer and medical director of urgent and emergency care, said: “The difficulty in recovery will be maintaining that discipline of protecting our staff and ensuring the pathways we put in place are as safe as they possibly can be for our patients.

“It is really difficult, having never worked in an environment with highly infectious disease when we are trying to deliver high quality care.

“The trust has responded in an incredible way to the first wave and surge, but recovery will be even harder as there are lots of people out there needing healthcare and operating in a covid environment is very difficult.

“But we have to maintain the rigour of only doing things when it is the right thing to do and we cannot rush this process.”

Mr Clements added that the trust had to be prepared for a potential second surge.

“We have got plans for potential re-escalation and we are ready and still equipping ourselves for that potential second surge, while needing to concentrate on recovery now,” he said.

He said the trust was maintaining coronavirus testing on all elective and non-elective patients.

Mr Clements said: “We have a very clear screening process for all in-patients – whichever route you access the trust through we are assured that any in-patient on site has had a covid swab.

“Before that patient is placed with other patients they are isolated, which causes some operational challenges for us because of our side room estate, but we have to maintain staff and patient safety.

“Patients will have a swab, we get the results back, and until that result is either covid positive or negative they are isolated.

“We are trying to create a safe bubble around our truly elective pathways where we put in place processes to shield those patients for two weeks prior to attendance, they are screened prior to attendance and they will come into an area where other patients are also shielded and are screened.

“That is working very well.”

Mr Clements added: “Our track record so far is very positive, but we need to keep vigilant, it is a difficult environment and this [the virus] is endemic in the community still.

“We need to do everything we possibly can to prevent any cross contamination of patients or patients to staff or staff to staff.”

The meeting also heard that despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic the majority of cancer treatments were still taking place.

Board members paid tribute to the first member of staff the trust had lost to coronavirus – Mark Lowe – with a respectful silence.

A book of condolence has also been opened for Mr Lowe, who worked as a porter with the radiology team at James Cook, and has been described as a “kind and brilliant colleague”.