To wonder if the Nightingale Hospitals are open?

[christmaspigeon]

I keep watching the BBC news and seeing how hospitals are at capacity and people waiting in ambulance bats. Does anyone know if they are using the new Nightingale hospitals? I suppose even if they are open there's only so many staff to go round. I feel so sorry for the NHS workers rushed off their feet

Don't take this as gospel, however when I was speaking with my mum (she works within the NHS) she mentioned that the Nightingale hospitals were not being used because they didn't even have enough staff in the normal hospitals, let alone extras to go run the Nightingales.

This may be personal sentiment more than anything, but lack of staffing makes sense.

The above is 100% true. Staffing levels are stretched thin in most hospitals right now, so there are no extra staff to put in the nightingale.

Nightingale in Exeter is open

The Excel Nightingale Hospital has been stripped bare.

Yes they haven’t got the staff to open them up. Seems like a big white elephant to me.

Exeter is open, but yes I've heard that staffing is the major issue in most places.

There’s a Nightingale being used in South Wales to rehabilitate recovering Covid sufferers.

Where would they get the staff?? It’s just not possible to open them and I don’t think it ever was. The NHS hospitals do not have enough staff, lots of staff are sick / exhausted there are no spare staff! It’s not just a shortage of beds that’s the problem, part of being “overwhelmed” is not having the staff needed for the workload.

The one in Harrogate is being used for non covid work.

If you look back through news archives on BBC or other sites you will see that the NHS hospitals are at maximum capacity most winters. This report from 2018 showed bed occupancy at over 92%. www.rcseng.ac.uk/news-and-events/media-centre/press-releases/nhs-bed-occupancy-rates/

Glasgow's is open. Being used for covid vaccine delivery.

If there’s not enough staff to operate the nightingale hospitals, why were they built in the first place? Surely the first thing you do before undertaking a multi million pound adventure is ensure there will be the staff to run it?

Ours (N Wales) has a few convalescing covid patients, but is mostly being used as a vaccination hub at the moment.

The only way I could even conceive it would be if you used them as rehabilitation (as pp said above) or step down (whilst waiting for social care packages). And advertise for care staff, even then you would need Doctors on call - maybe locums?? To be honest none of that sounds like a great or particularly safe idea.

They were built because the government want to look good in front of other world leaders and other governments

Smoke and mirrors. Besides it’s easy to spend someone else’s money

@PerhapsOverlyWorried

If there’s not enough staff to operate the nightingale hospitals, why were they built in the first place? Surely the first thing you do before undertaking a multi million pound adventure is ensure there will be the staff to run it?

The appearance of doing something

@PerhapsOverlyWorried Ha ha! Yes you would think so wouldn’t you?! But little things like that wouldn’t stop Boris and his mates from wasting millions - PPE debacle anyone??
It was a grand gesture, designed to reassure joe public that the government had “got this”.

The Nightingales are useless white elephants dreamed up in a frenzy of PR and spin to create a good news story and make it look as if the government were "Doing Something"

Moving beds into exhibition halls doesn't create a hospital. They don't even have the most basic facilities such as toilets. Or staff.

Only Exeter is used for patients I believe. Some have been dismantled. There was talk of using them as vaccination hubs but they're not any use for that either generally. Ditto temporary morgue overflow . Refrigerated trucks are better.

The London one isn't even there anymore.

Ah thanks all, I genuinely thought perhaps there had been a mass exodus of doctors/nurses that I’d missed! Really struggle to believe the government would have wasted all that time and money for appearances sake, but after the year we’ve had with them in charge I really shouldn’t be so naive anymore!

@Alarae

Don't take this as gospel, however when I was speaking with my mum (she works within the NHS) she mentioned that the Nightingale hospitals were not being used because they didn't even have enough staff in the normal hospitals, let alone extras to go run the Nightingales.

This may be personal sentiment more than anything, but lack of staffing makes sense.

Exactly this!

There are numerous issues with the use of Nightingale and Seacole hospitals. Not least they aren't actually proper hospitals.
There are insufficient staff to use them. Exeter I believe has about 20 patients, but no staff to take more and no real need in South West at the moment. There never were enough staff; it was always propaganda and false claims to brilliant success stories that didn't bear closer inspection. Trusts sending ventilated patients were required to send a critical care team as well. This would leave their own units understaffed.
There are no Nightingales where there is greatest need. Kent has none and cannot escalate to London. All super surge beds are in Southampton and Oxford for Kent - although they are trying to manage within the Integrated care System - so neighbouring trusts first.
Nightingales are not suitable for most patients. Most patients are frail elderly. Imagine what a noisy corridor of 200 beds might do to the slightly confused. They do not have the facilities or multidisciplinary teams necessary to manage frail elderly people with pneumonia or fractured neck of femurs. They do not have operating theatres. They do not have adequate washing and bathing facilities, nor adequate lavatories. Privacy is an issue for conscious patients.
Ambulances are pretty stretched doing usual work let alone delivering ventilated patients to clinical warehouses.
Some might be doing some outpatient work but not much more; most elective non-Covid work is either being suspended or moved to independent hospitals where safe to do so.
They were always a bit of a white elephant/propaganda tool to appease the masses.

London one closed. What a farce.

There has definitely been activity at Excel Nightingale. I saw 6 unmanned parked ambulances last week, the NHS signs on the service road are back up with people outside. I’ve not been in but something is definitely happening after it seemed to be mothballed during summer.

@PerhapsOverlyWorried yes you would think. The Nightingales have been a facade from the start.