To wonder when the NHS is going to start protecting all the people it dumped back in March?

[Noextremes2017]

Simply that?

@BolloxtoGender

It seems the Nightingale hospitals were not much use for anything other that a Johnson Government PR stunt.

Badly sick Covid patients required much more equipment than they had and were / are better off in properly equipped hospitals.

And

Life saving surgery was never stopped, cancer surgery has restarted.

Thank you Fridaysgirl for doing the job you do. There aren't the words to convey the gratitude and awe I feel for you and your colleagues

I don't get all this misdirected anger at the NHS, why not the government they're the ones who've ballsed up testing, PPE, drained the NHS of resources for years? And it's not just the NHS that's been affected lack of PPE is also affecting dentists and optometrists.

And this is the government who has handled the Coronavirus crisis so badly that latest figures have UK as leading in deaths per million across the world, followed closely by that beloved country of the anti-lockdown brigade Sweden! Figures that were released while the PM was busy making excuses for his mate Cummings:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-uk-death-toll-rate-world-map-tracked-a9532286.html

As already said - I am talking about the system - not the people.

Read the thread title. NHS. It.

The Government runs the NHS so in that sense you are right.

The Government applauds the NHS when it suits; and pisses on it when it suits.

Watch for a Lancet paper out this week- I'm sure the press will pick up in it. This shows if you have minor elective surgery and you are under the age of 70- the chance of you dying if you get COVID is 7%. This goes up to 45% if you are over 70 and have major elective surgery: would you want an elective operation with those statistics? Or would you rather wait a few months?

I'd rather read those statistics in conjunction with likelihood of acquiring COVID in hospital.
Obviously it takes time and resources to get adequate testing and isolation procedures in place (before and after, to avoid infection while recovering) to be certain, but at this point surely people shouldn't be at huge risk of hospital-acquired CV should they...so those percentages need multiplying by that (fractional) risk.

You are using a broad brush to make a political point. It wasn't all stopped at all. My df has several chronic illnesses and actually I was very impressed how the NHS managed to get him sorted with what he needed , managing infection control and time.

Now listen , by all means kick the Tories, that's your right and politically your thing but you are deliberately using hyperbolic concepts to make your political point.

Yes some services were halted , again I have friends and family who were waiting for operations but at the time it was necessary and many of the services came back online and people were supported. It wasn't perfect, but what the hell has been in the last 12 weeks.

If you want to kick the government have the wherewithal to do it in an upfront way. Not bringing this deliberately emotive aspect into it.

My ds had an appt at our local children's hospital yesterday for something extremely non-urgent. I was very surprised that it went ahead but the nurse said they're working on clearing the lists now, so things are moving in our area 🤷‍♂️

I think most of the Thursday clappers go out for something to do and have a chat with the neighbours - (no disrespect to the NHS before anybody accuses me of it).

OP, the NHS is its people. It has been running on goodwill for years. It's also not a monolithic entity normally - individual CCGs make their own choices and handle funding streams quite differently. You really should have worded your post title a lot better to clarify where you feel responsibility lies.

Going back to our Trust - we actually suspended very, very few services fully. Some do now have long waiting lists, others do not - because they had staff redeployed in to them due to the expectation of having to deal with COVID complications (which has happened).

To the posted who proposed COVID-free hospitals: this isn't a practical suggestion because

1. there are not enough people to staff two parallel systems
2. the moment someone comes into a 'COVID free' hospital with asymptomatic COVID and tests positive, business as usual (i.e. efficient, no constant donning and doffing of PPE which delays metters) will end there.

It just isn't possible.

As for money - yes, money has been forthcoming. But it isn't enough for hospitals not to have required donations of PPE and for staff to have ended up buying it with their own money. And let's not forget that one of the ideas for economic recovery mooted by the government has been a pay freeze for the public sector.

@ErrolTheDragon

So what is the chance of getting CV is you are 62 and have a CABG?

@pointythings

I don't understand how staff are paying for PPE. Do they have sources for it that the NHS doesn't? Does the NHS refuse to refund them?

But don't NHS effectively try to run the hospitals in a covid-free way now (doesn't matter what you call it)? I mean is the real risk of Covid infection in hospital so high that it would not be wise to resume services?

Or is the risk perceived/imagined, and is keeping /scaring patients away?

I'm not sure which scenario it is.

So what is the chance of getting CV is you are 62 and have a CABG?

I'd have thought that would depend mostly on the isolation/hygiene rather than your age and condition ... if a hospital was able to do things meticulously then close to zero, one would hope?

@pointythings

Regarding your point that there are not enough staff to man two parallel systems. Makes sense.

But why then did we build 5 or 6 Nightingale hospitals that couldn't be staffed (irrespective of their other shortcomings). Just a Government PR stunt?

@BolloxtoGender

I think the answer to your question depends if you have had a hospital acquired infection before. I have and I wouldn't want another - particularly this one.

At the moment Covid is still out there in the community. Therefore every patient who comes in may have Covid. Tests take at least 24hrs to get back. Emergency work still continues - someone coming in with a heart attack, broken bone or in labour may be incubating covid and therefore can spread it around the hospital. Plans suggested involve elective patients being tested then isolating so their chance of being covid positive is as low as possible. Can’t do that with emergencies. And if someone develops shortness of breath requiring admission there are many things this could be. So does the ambulance take them to a covid or non-covid hospital

That’s why it’s not so easy to separate Covid and non-Covid hospitals.

The Nightingales were set up purely for ventilated ITU patients in case we ran out of ITU beds (as happened elsewhere). Thank god they weren’t needed. But they aren’t suitable for anything else

Ok - what I take from this is:

1 Right now don't go into a hospital unless you really have to.

2 If you are waiting for elective non-urgent surgery be prepared for potentially a much longer wait.

Fari?

Fair!

Yes fair.

But we must do better at educating the public about when they should seek medical help.
We successfully terrified many so they did not seek help when they should have. Mortality from heart attacks, stroke and cancer will be higher I am sure.

Genuine question and not snarky but I understand ITU beds are 12% occupied with Covid patients and I’m not sure about the % of general hospital beds. Why, then, can organ transplants for example not be put back on the table?

I had a phone call today about a surgery appointment which was meant to go ahead in March (definitely not urgent though). They are ringing round and proposing a 'covid light' hospital. You have to self isolate for 14 days prior to going and there are covid tests available a few days before. Obviously this is done on priority basis but it does seem like things are starting to move in my area.