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

@KitKat1985

Staffing was always the issue with the Nightingale hospitals. There was a national shortage of nurses etc before covid, and now with high numbers off sick, with covid, or self-isolating, the situation is now dire. Critical care / ITU staff are highly trained and so you can't just train people up to run them overnight. Many hospitals have been struggling to staff their ITUs as it is and have been 'borrowing' staff from other wards / non-emergency surgery to cover. I know some staff that have been sent to ITUs that had never previously worked a shift in ITU in their life. There was never going to be enough staff to cover the Nightingales. The whole thing was mostly a PR exercise.

It's the same reason some people have wandered into hospitals stating that the hospitals are 'quiet' and so this is all a hoax. Eventually when staffing gets critically low you cancel all planned operations, outpatient clinics etc to divert clinical staff to emergency care only. Even A&E's have a limit and will eventually just divert patients to other A&Es. So yes many hospitals worst hit will seem 'quiet' because there's no staff to run them properly and so most things have been cancelled. So yes if you just wander in off the street with an untrained eye it would look 'quiet'.

Once again people are making comments and assumptions about things they know very little about.

The Nightingales were not designed to be run alongside normal hospitals functioning as usual with all elective treatment etc still functioning. They were set up in response to the horrific images coming out of Italy and China with patients lying on camp beds in tents, or being locked in their houses and denied treatment entirely.

The Nightingale model is not the same as a typical ICU model, as they are designed for when normal ICUs are filled way past capacity. Obviously we cannot magic up more ICU nurses and consultants, but we can work out how to deliver the best care we can to as many people as possible.

The usual ICU model is one to one nursing with a specialist ICU nurse. This obviously could not be maintained if the system was completely overwhelmed so the Nightingale model was/is one ICU nurse to six patients, supported by three other nurses and several less qualified people (ranging from non-nursing NHS staff such as radiographers to complete volunteers). There is also specified ratios of ICU/anesthetic consultants and other doctors.

Cant expect little Matthew's rich mates to make more money by his party actually funding the health service properly.

Can people please stop saying there are no toilets , I am at work at the nightingale in manchester TODAY , am on my break . Just been to canteen and also used the imaginary toilet . Stop peddling lies and talking about things you know nothing about . More importantly, ask yourself why you would want to make up lies about such things - what are you actually achieving ? These are challenging times , why add to the stress . I have been a nurse for 26 years and I love my job , wouldn't want to do any other job . This thread has seriously pissed me off .
Just stop talking about things you don't know anything about

@MrsRusselBrand

Can people please stop saying there are no toilets , I am at work at the nightingale in manchester TODAY , am on my break . Just been to canteen and also used the imaginary toilet . Stop peddling lies and talking about things you know nothing about . More importantly, ask yourself why you would want to make up lies about such things - what are you actually achieving ? These are challenging times , why add to the stress . I have been a nurse for 26 years and I love my job , wouldn't want to do any other job . This thread has seriously pissed me off . Just stop talking about things you don't know anything about

@MrsRusselBrand hear hear!