Today, NHS England medical director Prof Sir Stephen Powis has said a sharp rise in flu cases “are adding to our 'quad-demic' worries”. What is a quad-demic and how worried is the NHS? Adam is joined by BBC health editor Hugh Pym and Nick Hulme, the Chief Executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, to discuss the rise in hospital flu cases as well as problems caused by Covid, RSV and Norovirus, and how hospitals will cope with the strain. Plus, Keir Starmer has doubled down on his housebuilding targets, promising “builders not blockers” for the planning system. Alex explains the jigsaw puzzle of planning regulations, local government and politics. You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Miranda Slade with Nancy Geddes. The technical producer was Hannah Montgomery. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.
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Hello there.
I've been firing up all my old armchair epidemiological skills from the COVID era because one of the big news stories today is about what the NHS have called the quademic, which is four conditions that are in danger of, well, they're not quite saying swamping the nhs, but it has been called a tsunami.
And the four conditions are Covid influenza, rsv, which is that other winter respiratory virus, and norovirus.
And the combination of those four things at the scale they're at now is posing real challenges for the NHS right now.
So that is what we'll focus on on this episode of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.
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Blimey.
Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio and shortly we'll cross over to Westminster to catch up with Alex Versice, because one of the other big news stories today is the Government's fairly big reforms to the planning system in England, with the idea being that they could get more houses built by leaning a bit on local councils in England.
But first of all, let's talk about the NHS and this so called quademic, which is those four viruses which are putting real pressure on hospitals and have been the subject of some quite serious warnings from NHS bosses today.