St George's Hospital staff: "We have people in their 40s, 30s, 20s on our intensive care unit dying of Covid"

In an exclusive interview with BBC News a day before the national lockdown was announced, nurses from St George's Hospital described the terror they face everyday at work with overwhelming amounts of admissions.

Chloe, a senior staff nurse at St George's, describes her shift as one of the worst in her entire life.

Chloe told BBC: "I'm looking after many more sick patients than I'd normally look after.

"It's just overwhelming, the whole situation.

"You see the videos of the anti-covid people and you just think to yourself, 'what am I even doing?' "

"I've never felt so demoralised in my life.

Dr Spray, a consultant at St Georges, told BBC reporters: "They have to bite their lips when they're out and about these days.

"They are seeing people congregating in groups, they are seeing people at playgrounds, they are seeing people not wearing their masks, mixing, hearing of people having other people round to their houses.

"And they have to bite their lips because they might not see the effects of it when you're doing that but we see the effects of it.

"We have people in their 40s, their 30s, their 20s on our intensive care unit, dying of Covid.

"We are having to think about if we do cancer surgery, we are having to postpone cancer surgery because of the number of Covid patients we have in."

Jane Evans, a consultant in charge of acute medicines, told BBC: "There were many staff back in March who said, 'I could never do this again'.

"And then here we are, facing what seems at the moment to be a worse surge of sort of patients with Covid and you see people are very tired, very stressed.

"And that's a real worry to us because we just do have to keep going because we have to because we have to be here for our patients.

"But I do worry, you know, about the scars that will leave some of our staff with."

Hannah Packham, a nurse in charge of the shift, told BBC that her fellow nurses and herself are suffering with sleep problems.

"You just have to relax on your days off as best you can, ready, prepping yourself to come back again, is what I would say," Hannah said.