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.

35.6 is low. Normal body rem is 37

Temp. Not rem

If you have problems taking your temperature you have to tell the nurse, not randoms on mumsnet tbh.

But that does not take away the fact that the public have to read conflicting and ever changing information about diagnosis of the virus in the press every day (because what else do you do indoors all day long apart from read the press for information).

That has absolutely no bearing on your treatment though. You are not someone who is having to judge things for themselves - you are under the care of a nurse specialist, who has given you clear instructions to monitor your symptoms.

If you want to stay well, just follow what they say. Don't try to conclude on your own what you need to do, ignore their requests/instructions and then accuse them of being confusing.

@Bananaplant one of our doctors said there was a 10 day old baby who should have been admitted with ?sepsis. But the gp refused to see him because he had a temperature. That is seriously worrying. Fortunately I think he was ok.

I worked in a busy inner city A&E in the 80s. I say busy, it was very rare to see anybody waiting for more than 30mins. There was always a steady stream of patients but we also a specialist A&E hospital in the city.
When they closed down all the specialist hospitals in the city they diluted the staff to general hospitals. It has never been the same. Short term it saved money but long term we lost a unique service.
P
Historically there was always an isolation/infectious hospital in each town, set up for the epidemics of TB, Polio, smallpox and others. Because they understood the seriousness of isolation they were effective in reducing infection rates before vaccination and antibiotics became a more effective way of controlling disease.
Maybe we will learn from historic solutions to perhaps design and build convalescent homes to move well but needing care patients to in order to free up acute beds in hospitals. These could be used at time of future pandemics as isolation units that can quickly control infection.
Or now we have loads of ventilators maybe winter flu hospitals. This would leave general hospitals room and time to get on with the acute unwell.

My friend is a nurse working in a hospital with strict visiting orders put in place last weeek, one visitor per patient for an hour a day, families have been asked to have only one member calling in the morning to ask how theie family member is.
She says she is leaving work physically tired but nowhere near as mentally tired, not having to deal with dozens of visitors all day, no more being abused, no more refereeing between family members that dont get on, no more being interuped when doing patient obs or dispensing drugs has made her day much much easier.
Her patients are having more rest and are getting better quicker and all of them have said the prefer the one hour visiting rule.
But the most important thing she said was that the patients that were dying are allowed to die in peace, no visitors shouting, no children running around the ward screaming. She says it is a much easier and peacful death for the patient, the family and the nursing staff.
She has said that when they go back to normal "dayout for a picnic" visiting she will be leaving he job. She says she cant watch her patients not being able to rest any longer.

My husband and my NDN work at different hospitals and they have both had non urgent clinic appointments cancelled. This is to keep patients away from the hospital for their own safety and, importantly, because staff may have to be redeployed (possibly even to one of the Nightingale hospitals) when Covid19 hits its peak.

I've just had a call from the hospital checking I am coming in for my usual weekly fun. She said they were having lots of people just not turning up.

Interesting. I wonder if all the time wasters are staying home now ?

That - and fewer drunks, fights, car crashes, kid's injuries from doing stupid things to impress their mates . . .

. . . could be a few more DIY ones in a couple of weeks, though.

I was under the impression that A&E was often overrun with drunks. Bars shut, nobody doing anything much so fewer accidents, less driving - basically less chance to hurt yourself. And yeah, I’m sure people are concerned about going to A&E so more likely to do a ‘wait and see’ than a ‘less get it checked’.

She says she is leaving work physically tired but nowhere near as mentally tired, not having to deal with dozens of visitors all day, no more being abused, no more refereeing between family members that dont get on, no more being interuped when doing patient obs or dispensing drugs has made her day much much easier.

The unlimited visitors rule has always been a stupid one - you saw entire families camped in the hospital for the day sometimes - and the racket was horrendous, not to mention the risk of infection.

Should go back, and stay back to the old "two visitors to a bed" and a specified visiting hour.

A&E must be lovely without the whole extended families turning up for patients with a stubbed toe.

@casino218
You are correct, I have just heard of a friend that returned from Malaysia,
early in March, coming into Heathrow no checks, she spent time in London in her London flat .
I have just heard today she traveled back to the Yorkshire coast to her second home on Friday, then straight to the local shops to stock up, she has been in the East end of London, where the virus is prevalent .
Selfish .

And taking ll of the seats, BananaPlant, so that the elderly gent who has had a nasty lawnmower accident and sliced through his foot has to stand leaning against the wall.

And then, of course, they complain when he is seen before their poor wounded soldier.

@dorisdances I had one of those calls. I'm not sure whether to cancel or not though.

Because most of the people who usually block up A&E realise that actually they can just stick a plaster on it or drink a lemsip. Not much road traffic so few car crashes. No one at the pubs so fewer drunken busy ups over a girl/did you just look at me funny?

All I hear round here though is bird song and ambulances, presumably they are heading somewhere, I think suspected CV patients aren’t going through A&E.

It's tricky @myfav I am immunosuppresed so have one of the letters. The question is whether the risks outweigh the treatment benefits and of course, the consultant can't make any guarantees. Wishing you well whatever you decide

bubblu if you are taking your temperature consistently every day then it shouldn’t matter too much- you will establish a normal and get a rise.

But why sit stewing about this? Email your temp (& if you’ve had paracetamol in the preceding 8 hours) and add ‘can you tell me how you are using this information? I feel very in the dark about the likely follow up options, and frightened about catching public transport given my high risk status. So if I’m going to have to come to hospital again, id rather be able to think this through in advance. Will you call me in for a high temp?’

Oh ffs us nhs workers just don’t need you on our backs. Please go and complain about your children’s school work or the bins not being collected. The wards are heaving with positive patients and the wards are also being emptied. Creating a state of readiness takes a lot of effort. So excuse us for chatting to a colleague in the corridor. Your a disgrace.

Bubblebu.......I still had to go to hospital for chemo and scans. But what I was told in veiled terms was....you need to isolate straight away no going out at all apart from appointments to do with your treatment because if you catch it it will be life threatening for you ( in other words do not go out even for exercise) ICU is short if resources...( You may not or probably won't, be priority for a ventilator), go home now and stay indoors ( go home to save your life because soon we may not be able to). Obviously you have to go to appointments/treatment nothing ' cold' in what I said. I don't intend to waste all the money and effort the NHS put into saving my life into any jeopardy. Stop moaning think yourself lucky we have an NHS!

Pubs shut, work places shut, general outpatients mostly shut, elective surgery suspended. Large numbers of staff being retrained ready for redeployment . So less traffic, cycling, workplace and alcohol related injuries. Certainly where I am things like broken bones are being seen directly by orthopedics as a lot of their surgical and Rota time is now free.

Poor choice of words ,op.

Bubble are you trying to be obtuse? If you've had 6 rounds of chemo you shouldn't have travelled to any of them on public transport. If you have a temperature and are told by your cancer nurse to go to a&e its because they suspect you have sepsis and need antibiotics within an hour and they DO NOT expect you to get there on public transport. None of the many cancer nurses I know would have a patient on chemo or possibly septic on public transport, it'd be lift, taxi, hospital transport or last resort an ambulance. If you have no one to give you a lift and no money, you get an HC1 form and claim the travel costs back Does your CNS know this is how you got to chemo? I can't see the point of the NHS trying to save your life if you're going to decide you know better, or that what they ask you to do isn't necessary. Do you think they 'order' immunocompromised patients to a&e for a laugh? Your nurse is trying to keep you well, how about you let them instead of assuming you know better?

Because the peak hasn't happened yet. Within a few weeks there will be thousands more cases

I would have thought this was totally obvious.

Most people aren't going to a hospital now unless they absolutely have to so all the normal time wasters will be out of the picture and and coronavirus patients will be straight in to dedicated areas, not sitting around in A&E or public areas.

Plus peak not expected for 2-3 weeks.