Locals,
As far as I’m aware and I try and watch the daily briefings, especially when either Prof Chris Whitty who is our Chief Medical Officer, Sir Patrick Vallance who is the Chief Scientific Advisor and Prof Johnathan Van Dam who is the Deputy CMO so that I get the information straight from the horses mouth.
They have stated that both ICU and HCU beds have always been available, in fact they built at lightening speed the Nightingale Hospitals to deal with a potential overflow of Covid patients, which thankfully have hardly been touched.
I can’t comment on your friends father, except if he needed medical treatment he would of got it, admittance to hospital would be based on the risk of further complications by catching Covid outweighed the benefits of being admitted, if let’s say he had a terminal condition that just required medication to manage pain etc it would be better for him to be at home with his family, rather than being admitted, catching the virus and still dying in an ICU with no friends or family by his side. I’m sure it was a clinical decision by the Drs based on his medical issue.