Why is A&E empty but building 4000 people hospitals?

[Luci459]

Been to A&E and it was dead!

Went to a children's hospital and it was also dead. We were the only people in there.

The media are saying the hospitals are over run? Groups of nurses and doctors huddling round in the hospitals I was in.

My dad was taken by ambulance to a&e at the weekend due to a non-Covid emergency and there was a Green side where he was where their were so few patients he said it was strange. But the nurses also told him on the red/Covid side of the hospital it was busy and stressful. Might have been the same in your hospital, you just never saw it .

Depending where you are in the country some hospitals are quiet. I have family working in Glasgow and the hospital they work at is loads quieter as all nonemergency operations have been cancelled.

My sister works in a hospital in the North of England that won't be taking Covid patients but she does expect to have staff redeployed from that hospital to the ones treating Covid in the area. So far that hasn't been necessary. She did say that admissions were down generally and they and her colleagues find it interesting but also worrying - it could be that sick patients who should be in hospital with conditions unrelated to Covid are staying away.

I know someone who is an a&e nurse and she says there’s a massive drop in people accesses their service. No people under the influence, fewer accidents, plus people are ‘distracted’ by CV and keeping away.

@Bubblebu sorry, it wasn’t supposed to sound sarcastic! Am trying to reassure you. Obviously all trusts work slightly differently, but no one should mind you asking this type of question.

Calm before the storm.

Fewer people getting pissed on a night out.

Fewer kids damaging themselves in PE.

Fewer cars = fewer road accidents.

Fewer twats who think A&E = a easy way to get seen sooner than the GP.

Fewer post-minor surgery complications.

Fewer I'm waiting for a hospital appointment but I'm in too much pain/I hope I'll be able to skip the waiting list visits.

Fewer I'm not sure, but just in case visits.

Fewer work related injuries.

Less weekend sport/football/rugby/MAMIL activity.

The weather hasn't been too bad = fewer slips, trips and falls.

And, the main one - the design of newer A&E departments. They separate waiting areas in such a way that you do not see everything that's going on. The last time we were in A&E, we were in the urgent/serious section, which was noisy and so crowded on a Tuesday night that people were sitting on the floor and staff were running up and down. Children's (which we had to walk past) was fairly busy. But the waiting room was quiet. We came via ambulance, not the waiting room and it was packed.

By cancelling clinics, surgery, non urgent procedures and tests, they've freed up a lot in time for a surge, rather than still trying to handle everything until they're overrun with the desperately sick.

i imagine there are less accidents. we ended up in A&E Twice in one year due to work related accidents. obviously as building sites are not working. less accidents.

All routine surgery etc cancelled, even cancer treatment. It's called social distancing op

Now that pubs are shut there’s goung to be less drink fuelled violence, especially at weekends. Less strain on the police too now that town centres are dead.

Cold Ive just taken my temperature. It is 36.4 and I have emailed my nurse. I do feel hot tho like I have a temperature.
But I did take a paracetamol in the night because my surgery was hurting. And I literally have not slept all night due to lack of exercise.
And yes the menopause inducing monthly injections (which I cannot now have - God please don't let that mean I am going to go back to pre menopause and then have to do the menopause thing all again once this is over) do cause me hot flushes on and off for months. So it could be that.

But back on topic.
I am sure NHS staff are facing something very unenviable in the coming weeks. But also I think the public are being kept in the dark in some way - not sure by who - I don't know. Maybe it is all in my imagination.

When this all started to kick off I was fully expecting the gmt to say at least to start with "over 70s and vulnerable people (like myself) stay at home". But then they went full on if you can work from home do it to everyone and stay at home at all times which caused a lot of confusion about what to do in a situation which otherwise would have been for example an emergency (health related or not).

Genuinely my reaction has been one of extreme isolation (and terror); which I suspect is the same with many others: hence on my walk yesterday I did not see one single person.

Unfortunately, people who NEED treatment are also being refused and kept out of hospital/GP surgeries with bugger all support.

My OH has cancer and his treatment was cancelled. Just a curt phone call saying it was cancelled. No information as to how long it's delayed. Repeated phone calls to the dept asking for information have been fobbed off with a "someone will ring you back" but no one ever does. He has complications and say with GP surgery - they are useless, won't get a GP to call us and just keep referring him back to the cancer dept at the hospital.

He's basically been thrown to the wolves. Very worrying time as only a month ago, the consultant was saying the treatment was urgent and they expedited it. Now, apparently, it doesn't matter anymore.

I was in hospital at the weekend. According to the news reports my local hospital is a hotspot.

I asked nurses, doctors, HCAs how it was was and how they were doing. To a one, they said variations of "its nice, its quiet".

I'm confused.

,I just don't understand why - is she twiddling her thumbs? I really don't want to waste her time.
In normal days of course I would have sent her my readings and if she said so I would have travelled into hospital as requested for post cancer care.
It is so confusing trying to second guess what the NHS is doing and what is deemed serious and what is not.

You are not wasting her time and you don't need d to second guess anything. She has specifically asked you to do something and you haven't done it because " you might be wasting her time'. Did you not think that her chasing you for something she asked for is wasting her time. You have had cancer surgery, maybe staying on top of your obs is essential?. Please do.as the professional asks you to and don't waste time becasue you think you know better what is important to do then they do.

"All routine surgery etc cancelled, even cancer treatment. It's called social distancing"

exactly my point - and hence paranoia in the mind of the public. I guess I got in at the very last minute but now I do not know whether my radiotherapy will be going ahead

"Now that pubs are shut there’s goung to be less drink fuelled violence"

Less drink fuelled, but more and increasingly much more "all staying at home at once" violence.

By far the most common strain on A&E is drinkers and worried well. We aren’t seeing any of those. Children’s hospitals are extremely quiet - all non-urgent treatment has been cancelled and as children aren’t commonly prone to COVID they aren’t coming in for that. Staff in children’s hospitals are mostly waiting anxiously for the children’s wards to be filled with adult COVID patients. All A&Es are operating triage systems and have a red and a green area, so if you are in green A&E you won’t see any COVID patients at all.

@Bubblebu please be sensible. Please listen to your nurse. As others have said, the reason she’s asking all this of you is two-fold: firstly, it’s really crucial to keep you out of hospital if at all possible to avoid you picking up COVID on site. Secondly, if you have been exposed to COVID some other way, you would need to be monitored and treated as soon as possible.

Bubble is it Zoladex injections?
I'm a practice nurse and we've been told to keep bringing patients in for these.

"and don't waste time becasue you think you know better what is important to do then they do"

I absolutely do NOT think I know better than the professional does.

But I also absolutely do NOT want her to then tell me to get on public transport right now to go and see her in hospital because she thinks my temperature is too high. Isn't that what social distancing is all about? I have never ever during the whole of my cancer experience called an ambulance, (I imagine they are in short supply at the moment?) occasionally a neighbour kindly offered me a lift (I do not have a car) but up to literally 10 March 2020 the NHS was telling me whilst I was on chemo to get on public transport and travel in for treatment which I did (terrified of C19 tho I was).

And I also absolutely do NOT know what the position is on my cancer treatment going forward.

That is all.

I really am not confident... that between now and 12 April at some unknown time I will not get absolute radio silence phone wise from all NHS staff I have had contact with.

Is it a fear of feeling abandoned that means you're not following these simple instructions?

I havent RTFT, so this may have already been explained.

I'm an A&E nurse in a very busy department, we've now got a 'clean' and 'dirty' side of the department. Walls have been thrown up in the space of hours to make this possible, no one other than staff or a ?covid-19 patient would see the 'dirty' side, no relatives allowed. The queue outside the department of patients in ambulances waiting to come in to a spare cubicle (waiting up to 3 hours, sometimes more) means that yes the department is extremely busy, we can't clean spaces quickly enough to allow the next patients in. However, unless you are working inside that department you wouldn't know that, you would just think ah ambulances outside a&e. I left a shift recently after 12.5 hours with a full ?covid-19 'dirty' department, and 6 ambulances waiting outside with more patients, yet the 'clean' side was running smoothly and all patients seen. We are fast running out of space.

Attendances are down as a whole, I imagine people are staying away due to the climate. Some time wasters clearly, but it's the people who need to come to a&e, who are choosing not to out of fear, that weighs heavily on my mind.

A little while back - a fortnight or so - when this was all starting to get bigger MIL took FIL to a and e with the paramedics. It was a Sunday morning and A and E would normally be packed but it was empty. But the main a and e on a Sunday is the left overs of a Saturday night out and sports injuries on a Sunday morning. Even a fortnight ago they weren't happening so made a big difference.

The trend shows 3-4k dead by the weekend, if it continues to follow we would be 6-8k by the following weekend - it will her worse, they need to be ready for that point, not be trying to build it when at that stage

Yes zolodex.

But no, I've been told to stay at home and totally self isolate which I am doing (apart from my half an hour stroll round the totally empty locked down village I live in which up the thread you will see someone said I should not even be doing that).

We went in the weekend before last and it was dead. They were saying they were worried they’d miss a serious paediatric case as the numbers had dropped so much. In our case, my baby was triggering triage via 111 but not poorly enough for admission but we were in and out within 20 mins. A few months ago the wait would have been 6-7 hours even in paediatric A&E.

@Luci459. You hit the nail on the head .
My DH works for the NHS A&E and walk in after hours doctors centre and he has been going on for the last 2 weeks about how all the regular attendees and complete time wasters seemed to have disappeared .
From being over run with very trivial and I’m talking about “ very runny nose “ complaints to not a single patient presented on some nights ..

"Is it a fear of feeling abandoned that means you're not following these simple instructions?"

Are you saying all other NHS patients will not be abandoned at some point in the next few weeks / months?

There are still the dihard time wasters come to A&E,like a man who called an ambulance for abdominal pain,brought into A&E,a few questions and it turned out he wanted treatment for constipation!