A top emergency doctor stated on Thursday that British hospitals, particularly those in London, are struggling to maintain staffing levels owing to the large number of patients being isolated with COVID-19.

With a new highly transmissible omicron version of the virus on the rise, Britain recorded its greatest number of daily coronavirus cases since the pandemic began on Wednesday, with 78,610 COVID-19 infections confirmed.

“The main problem is essentially one of staffing,” Katherine Henderson, a London-based emergency doctor and President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told BBC Radio.

“Even if we haven’t seen a significant increase in hospitalizations yet, we are already experiencing the consequences of not having enough personnel to manage shifts correctly and safely.” So we’re concerned about patient injury because we just don’t have the staff.”

According to Henderson, London was particularly heavily impacted.

“We are looking at probably about 10% staff, that is doctors and nurses, who are having to be off.”