This was a sobering, quite upsetting experience in a way.

I mean, I've been on to intensive care units before, but there was nothing like this.

These people were so unalterably desperately ill.

But one of the uplifting parts of this was just how smoothly and well a ll the staff work together.

And don't forget this.

Many of these people had never bean on to intensive care unit.

They're not even trained nurses or doctors.

They've been brought in to help.

But when I spoke to those staff, they too were really feeling some of the difficulties of this, like not being able to talk to the to the relatives, not having the relatives at the bedside.

Now let's get this straight.

The reason that we were allowed onto that intensive care unit film in the first place was because it serves as a warning a really morning that you simply do not want this to happen to you.

The front line wants an orthopedic center now a red zone, the entry to intensive care and in this changing world, once they were reception and admin staff.

Now they're the guardians, the protectors against Corona virus and This is how we get into the intensive care unit Epsom and sent hellions in south London.

And sorry, the wave of cover patients came to this trust earlier than the rest of the capital.

Or, indeed, the country.

This is Richard Hughes, the head of nursing.

One of the big things that's been said about I See you is that where it would be normally 1 to 1.

Support what staff ratio of you got now.

So for six, patients will have one eye.

Two units are supported by four minimum for trained staff members on bedside bodies.

Health care assistants as well.

The words of war are often used in this pandemic.

A battle they call it a fight.

But no theater of war was so calm.

Just the machines.

A nurse quietly speaking to a coma toes patient.

I saw you brushing her hair and looking.

I mean, it was not just down to a treatment.

It's about dignity.

Providing the best personal care mutations.

Yeah, I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I feel really privileged and see one combat, and she kept saying, Sorry, A cab.

It's really amazing.

You've talked with some of the staff have come back here who haven't seen along like you units is actually quite upsetting.

Quite emotional, quite.

Actually, it's a privilege to meet you.

There are so many statistics in this pandemic, and then there is the person in the bed right in front of you.

But it is worth saying that the survival rate here for patients on ventilators is now 60% which is above the national average.

Okay, so this this person is prone with which a lot of people have talked about later playing them on their front.

Just how does that help?

Help it reached because the fluid on the chest it gives it a different way.

Breathing again completely.

For the entire time we were on the ward, a team so many of them was dealing with this patient adjusting and replacing his breathing tubes, suctioning fluid.

Or he was presumably unaware of the intensity of his care.

Rebecca Ellis is the nurse we met earlier, caring so tenderly for her patient.

All the staff need to take regular breaks.

Wearing those masks for a long time is too hard.

These meals are donated every day and will be for the duration cakes, drinks, sandwiches If you want to see love and gratitude, it's here in abundance.

How's it being this morning?

It's okay.

What does?

I came in, Um, it's emotionally hard.

Yeah, well, it's come up there.

What?

What is it?

What is it that's intense.

Where they're all so sick.

Um, and so helpless.

Well, I think not.

Having family loaned is very, very difficult.

Speaking to family on the phone is quite tough, because it's really sad.

No.

One, they're not able to be here for them.

And I think that's difficult.

And there is a particular cruelty of this disease as they lie.

An intensive care that some of them near the end, their families can't be with, um, hold their hands, tell them they love.

Um, so this nurse does it for them.

There's something quite difficult about end of life conversations and trying to facilitate conversations off goodbye from families over loudspeaker on phone, for example, on dhe doing that important thing on behalf of a family when they ask you to give a message to their loved one on dhe there, I always take the names of the daughters sons, and I say exactly what they want me to say, even though their loved one's unconscious on a ventilator to say that but by on their behalf as being quite a privilege on, it's something I've taken really seriously.

So I've always done that, offered that for them and then gone back on the phone and reported back to say I've done it on You told him I held the hand, for example.

I've given the message on dhe sort of left you.

You were meeting some relatives this morning?

Yeah.

One of the family members literally showed me some pictures of her host burned with his grandchildren just to help me understand and share.

Have they were, is a person and how they were loved and valued by the whole family around them.

So was being quite important for me to do that as well.

Psychologically wear weeks and now to this epidemic.

Yet there is still that air off bewilderment.

How did we get to this?

Are we really doing this?

Is this where we've got to on?

That's the reality off it.

So it's just about gauging what was normal on it.

None of it's normal at the moment.

And what you see, you hit him here with the family and the key thing with we think about the family.

How hard?

But losing it, Mom, losing it down way we can get time to speak to the person.

Doctor, stop everyone.

How do you feel when you get home each night?

I feel like I still wear a mask.

You complete.

Still, you can feel it for the night on your face.

You know, it's just yet so tight with time.

Indeed, the marks left on their faces when they come off the ward like a badge of honor.

The pictures, the Children, the clapping, all of that's really kept us going and made a massive difference.

When we come through the other side of this, I think we'll all be really glad we were here.

And we were able to do what we've been able to do, maybe on the way we want to.

But we've been able to make some small difference along the way to the patients and their families.

Now Downing Street have said today that there will be an inquiry to investigate.

Wide appears that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are disproportionately affected by the Corona virus.

What could you tell us about that?

Victoria?

Yes, Well, Professor Chris Witty, the chief medical officer for England, said today that there are three risk factors age, and we'll hear more about that later being male and having an underlying health condition like cardiovascular disease.

But, he said, being a member off an ethnic minority group is less clear that the thing is, we are seeing day after day those galleries of photos off health care workers who are disproportionately.

It certainly appears to us off black and minority ethnic groups.

And now there's the time they have decided the government that they need to actually drill down and listen to have a look.

So the vast public health England and the N HS to do an investigation into this and to report back because we will need to know if this is the case, and it certainly looks like it is what can be done and what has caused this.

And Victoria, the Office for National Statistics really has released a more comprehensive breakdown of those who have died.

What we learned from those figures Well, this is just England, Wales to remind ourselves, but this was looking at sex, age and regions.

Now we can have learned.

But we already knew this, actually, that men are twice as likely to die and we could already as women, we could already see that from the China figures.

It was the third most common cause of death behind dementia, Alzheimer's and heart disease is s o not not in the top, but critically.

Just over 90% off.

People who died did have an underlying health condition and the factors the risk factor.

One of the big risk factors was the older you get, the higher your risk.