To feel more than horrified for this 2 year and the treatment by the NHS

[diaimchlo]

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10691684/Sick-child-on-a-drip-was-forced-to-sleep-on-plastic-hospital-chairs.html

Cannot believe this

fayrazzled thought it was pretty obvious I was talking about in general...

I don't know why people are a bit sneery about the parents going to the media. The media publicising a story is much more likely to get results than a complaint which spends months slowly moving through the hospital complaints department. Maybe the parents felt the world should know how some hospitals are operating some of the time?

It's very easy to suggest getting an empty bed from another ward, but they are very rare these days.

Our hospital is always full with patients, that's why you always see ambulances outside unable to handover patients. There are literally no beds.

I don't know why people are a bit sneery about the parents going to the media

I agree. I would fully encourage it because it's the only way something will be done. But it never does :(

would it be better for staff to refuse to treat and turn the child away due to lack of bed - forcing the child to be taken to another hospital further away that does have beds?

NHS does not have enough funding. If its wasted in the wrong places as people always trot out, it's on constant govt reorganisation and blatant disrespect towards frontline clinicians.

The general consensus seems to be that there are never enough beds.. OK then buy some instead of putting expensive works of art both inside and outside, paying out for fancy reception areas etc... there are many areas in which funding can be cut that will not affect patient care.

As some posters have mentioned it is definitely management and the Government that are to blame here.

Also do those of you who are having a go about the media being contacted and the fact that the hospital didn't know. Have you ever had to lodge a formal complaint with a hospital, it takes months........

Buy more beds?

Where would you put them?

Build more wards? With what money?

Increase the bed numbers, you have to increase the staff numbers.

There isn't enough staff as it is.

He had a bed... In A&E but was taken off it at the magic 4hrs so he wouldn't breach and then he didn't have a bed for further 6hrs...

Unacceptable

He should not have been moved out of A&E without a bed - they should have transferred him out or allowed the breach to occur... Instead they fixed the 'problem' at the expense of a child's safety and wellbeing to hide what was effectively a 10hr wait for a bed.

It's not good enough care. This a very poorly two year old - he should have no function in a POLITICAL picture of targets, procedure and cuts in services... He was treated like an unimportant pawn and it is not ok, even if the NHS is struggling

I agree fayrazzled.

I'm distressed by the number of people internalising this.

"Oh, what do you expect people to do, the NHS is like that."

We have to decide what's actually important to us as a country. We're a rich nation still. We get to make these choices.

^"Oh, what do you expect people to do, the NHS is like that."

We have to decide what's actually important to us as a country. We're a rich nation still. We get to make these choices^

When you work in the NHS and see it failing people, failing patients, failing staff it breaks your bloody heart. When you know there's nothing you can do.

Thing is we don't get to make choices, not the ones that matter.

He was removed from A&E to a ward because he no longer needed to be in A&E and the bed was required for other patients who may require it more - imagine the screaming abdabs if one of your relatives having a heart attack or stroke died because they couldn't get a bed because a child was waiting in it despite not needing to be there whilst a bed was being looked for.

The child went up to the ward and 4.30pm and was found a bed by 10:30pm. Granted it's not ideal but he was found a bed by night time so it's not as if the child was prevented from a normal sleeping pattern, albeit 10:30pm being slightly later. It is not unreasonable for a family to be shown to the waiting area - nurses and medical staff were still available should they have been required.

It's because of the ridiculous suing culture which has developed which meant this child was not able to use a camp bed. He was six years old and, as several of you have pointed out, ill. Ill children are restless children - if the parents had not been paying attention and the child rolled out of bed and hurt himself, there'd be even more hell to pay.

It's a bad issue - but until more money is and resources are put into the NHS this will not improve. Too many people are too dependent on A&E for wholly inappropriate things - including coughs, colds, headaches, toothaches and general malaise - and this affects the entire process. Likewise, there's a lot of "bed blocking" - patients who need occy health or community support and can't get it so are left in hospital waiting til it can be sorted.

Hotdog

Yes buy more beds!!!!!!

In our hospital there are wards that have been closed, so new ones would not have to be built.... I have also seen beds lined up in corridors that need some repair, maybe they could be repaired and used.

Yes they would need staffing but hey sack the over paid people at the top and employ those who can provide the care. It would also save money if they actually employed more permanent staff than relying on more expensive agency staff...

"Oh, what do you expect people to do, the NHS is like that."

No Parsing, I don't think anyone is suggesting this is ok at all.

We are simply pointing out the many, many factors that are preventing good care to the posters who think it's a case of just buying new beds.

It will only get worse now because of clause 119

Or maybe it will get better for that reason.

Usually when there's resistance to closing anything, it's NIMBYism versus central planning, so if we make the (admittedly very generous assumption) that central planning know what they are doing, giving in to nimbyism results in resources in the wrong place, so shortages that shouldn't exist.

(This is just a general point, I have no specific knowledge of the Lewisham situation.)

Shine a light if it was only all that easy ey diaimchlo

Y'know what one of the NHS aims for 2013/2014 was? 'we will expect that as a minimum no patient experiences a trolley wait of longer than 12 hours'

I wonder if the people creating these aims and funding our hospitals have ever been on a trolley in pain for an hour, let alone 12.

fraidy

In all honesty I don't have the hope. They're talking about shutting our A&E which means our patients will have to ferry to the next local A&E which is 35 minutes away. 35 minutes. People are going to die.

Hospitals do get overstretched and run out of beds. I have had to be transferred to other hospitals with my son when the local paediatric ward has had no available beds.
I would probably just be glad that my son was getting some treatment whilst we were waiting for a bed and I probably would have had his pushchair with me (seeing as he is a poorly two year old) so I would have lay him back in that.
Hospitals usually do a wonderful job in often very difficult and overstretched circumstances.
I'm sure they could have considered giving the little boy a camp bed, but they might not have had the space to put one as they usually go right next to patients beds and you couldn't put two sick children that close to each other.

It's not just a case of buying more beds.

You need bed spaces to put them in, with oxygen, suction, call bells, emergency buzzers and lamps. You need nurses and doctors to staff them. You need toilet and bathroom facilities to accommodate the increased numbers of patients. You need more theatre time if you wish to increase surgical beds. More staff in X-ray, phlebotomy and pharmacy to deal with the additional work.

Do you not think if there were the staff available to reopen and run wards they would do it?

The NHS needs massive injections of cash (as well as better management) but unless the politicians review tax and wealth distribution it isn't going to happen. In the meantime situations like this will happen.

Exactly Nursey

Surely Wyldechylde being put on 2 plastic chairs was more of a risk, the 2 year old had a blood infection so would be exhibiting a temperature, if he moved he could have separated the chairs, unless they were bolted down, they too had no sides except the backs which by the look of the photo were against the wall. If he had been given the camp bed it would have been made of breathable material and much closer to the floor, which could have been padded out with pillows, much less risk of a law suit.

The camp beds in hospitals are not made of a breathable material - they are wipeable plastic for hygiene reasons.

The problem with your last bit diaimchlo is the hospital wouldn't be liable for the chairs as it was the parents that put him on them. If they had provided a camp bed and he'd rolled off - liable.

Some wards close because they are moved to newer, more modern wards/hospitals where specialist services/clinicians are.

For example, our hospital is in the process of becoming the second biggest university hospital in the Trust. The old hospitals are closing as the facilities are no longer appropriate.
The new specialist units are now all in one place, which then provides better care for the patients as the best clinicians and equipmemt are all on one site.

Diamchlo - as NurseyWursey said, the hospital cannot give him a plastic camp bed (wipeable for infection prevention control purposes) because if he falls, they are liable to be sued. If the parents choose to put him on the chairs and he falls, they cannot sue.