To ask what NHS frontline staff think of Breathtaking?

[CloudyYellow]

I have watched all 3 episodes. I worked on the frontline during Covid. I found it very triggering and my fury is back.

I can't speak for anybody else but for me the thing that kept me going in and on was very simple. If we weren't there, all of us, doctors, nurses and HCAs, pharmacy, physio and AHP, admin, managers, procurement,portering, estates, catering,domestics, midwives, ODPs, physiologists, lab med, radiographers, mortuary technicians and medical engineering - then who would be? The only thing that was more scary than what we saw was the thought of what would happen to everybody if we weren't. It was our job. We weren't going to let you all down.

Which is why the hate, the hospitals are empty, you're all liars stuff was and is so hurtful. Because it was a million miles away from the terrifying and awful truth.

@Supernova23 i agree. The inns and outs of mechanical ventilation are complex and take longer than an afternoon teaching session to master as does experience piggy backing, coping with a desaturating patient or a haemofilter playing up. We supported people as best as we could. Wasn’t perfect and a lot of our care was lacking due to sheer numbers of patients but it is what it is and we were grateful for it.

I don’t feel that’s entirely true.
I’m an anaesthetist who worked in the UK, Aus and Singapore during the pandemic.
Unfortunately being in those countries when they experienced their Covid surge and accompanying increased ICU requirement.

The UK felt by far and away the most chaotic with non-sensical rules.
FFP3 use was compulsory within the hospital in Australia from the moment you walked in. Air filtration units were everywhere. I had to be FIT tested before I could start work.

In comparison in the UK, we were originally told not to wear any sort of mask in the hospital at the start of the pandemic and there was this bizarre reluctance to accept aerosolisation was important.

The UK had poor leadership, not only from the government and DoH, but also from within NHS England.

You worked in the UK, Aus and Singapore during the pandemic? Wow that's some travelling.

I think if you compare us to actual comparable countries like Italy etc (close by in Europe) you'll find similar experiences. Italy had a state of the art healthcare system yet were ventilating in corridors. That was avoided here, hospitals weren't ever overwhelmed.

Of course in hindsight some things could have been done differently but they did what they did with the available information and resources at the time.

I grew up in Singapore and partner has Australian citizenship so it was more returning home.

I would disagree that UK hospitals were never overwhelmed. We were ventilating patients in theatres, on slightly suspect ventilators with endoscopy nurses looking after them. I would definitely say we did not maintain normal standards of care.

I haven't yet seen the programme, just read some of the reviews/commentary, but it doesn't surprise me at all that NHS England provided catastrophically bad leadership.

Having worked for NHS England, it had the most toxic, bullying culture that I've ever experienced in the workplace (I've also worked for acute trusts, the civil service, and in the private sector). There is also an extreme lack of competence right up to very senior levels. I got out as quickly as I could, and I would never, ever go back.

(And bizarrely, the roles at NHS England seem to get banded 2 bands higher under A4C than they would be for equivalent responsibility/work in a Trust. It's the only part of the NHS that I would describe as "overpaid".)

UK hospitals weren’t ever overwhelmed?? Please do confirm what your profession is and which one you worked in as my experience was very much of overwhelm

The more you post, the more it sounds like you contributed towards the terrible decisions made

I don't really blame anyone
We didn't know much about the virus so no-one knew what to do for the best hence the every changing guidance
If there's a scandal it's that the country was not prepared.

We would have been prepared, but Johnson scrapped the relevant committee. Brexit was taking up all the bandwidth.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8416075/Boris-Johnson-scrapped-Cabinet-Ministers-pandemic-team-six-months-coronavirus-hit-Britain.html

There’s still people on my Facebook saying this program is propaganda. That the people who did die were murdered by staff with midazolam. That they just want more people to have “the clot shot”. I feel so sad not just for all the staff who lived through this but whose trauma isn’t being fully recognised. It annoys me that I have to see this shit on fb and I’m not involved in this, I nearly lost a friend to covid and had to shield but that’s it. I can’t imagine watching patients die and then hearing that covid never killed anyone and that staff killed people with Midazolam. I also remember when I was really unwell years ago the bit of relief the combo of midazolam and diamorphine injections gave!

In comparison in the UK, we were originally told not to wear any sort of mask in the hospital

That is absolutely nonsensical, crazy.
Even I can figure out that if there's a respiratory disease doing the rounds, you'd want to protect yourself from it?!
What on earth was the reasoning behind that one?!

I’m not watching but I’ll always be thankful to everyone who played a role in it, from those who kept the nhs going to those volunteers who queued for hours at the pharmacy to deliver medications to shielding people they had never met or picked up shopping for them.

Basically there wasn’t any, so they were saving what they had for A&E and ICU…

I think the justification on paper from NHSE was that masks scared people, but we all know that was bollocks (we wear masks for other resp infections), and our trust management didn’t bother pretending otherwise, they were quite clear that they needed to protect A&E and ICU staff ir the hospital would collapse, and the ward staff could go hang as we were easily replaced by redeployed staff from elsewhere.

We quadrupled our ICU beds. We ran out of CVVH machines. People died as a result. Nationally, the NHS almost ran out of CVVH fluid. I would call that “overwhelmed”.

Oh, I almost forgot, several hospitals ran out of oxygen didn’t they? I’d also describe that as “overwhelmed”.

Initially, we were denied masks so we opened the resus/defib box and found a few. Then it was masks in clinical areas but not in corridors or waiting rooms. I was helping the porters for a couple of days while my department decided what to do with the staff (routine work was cancelled) and was taking a patient back to their ward. I was reprimanded in the corridor by a (non clinical) member of staff as I had forgotten to remove my mask in a public area. Then when we were allowed to wear them, we had to wear the same one all morning as there weren’t enough to change after each patient. FFP3s we’re only allowed for intimate contact with a known Covid patient.

We were threatened with disciplinary action for wearing one at the start of the pandemic. Apparently they hindered communication and scared patients. If caught wearing one, we should expect a warning.

2 months later, 38 degree heat, no fans in our office and we were threatened with disciplinary action if we temporarily removed a mask to have a sip of water.

So ridiculous that you couldn’t make it up

'would disagree that UK hospitals were never overwhelmed. We were ventilating patients in theatres, on slightly suspect ventilators with endoscopy nurses looking after them. I would definitely say we did not maintain normal standards of care.'

All routine lists cancelled to accommodate the surge. It's hardly ventilating in corridors is it? Experienced theatre staff and aneasthetists looking after patients on perfectly adequate ventilators in recovery rooms is not being overwhelmed at all its called dealing with a pandemic. Why are theatre vents 'suspect'. You need to reoort yours to your boss stat if you are an aneasthetist.

@Janiie most of us had no proper training on anaesthetic vents which work very differently. We were given very basic training (if you can call it that) on the job but none of us were aware of potential safety issues associated with them which had a big impact on patient progress. For one thing the way they process co2 is very different and they are certainly not ideal for long term ventilation. Fwiw we normally accommodated 8 level 3 patients. At one point we were tripled up and had 32 vented patients. The unit took over 4 wards who weren’t equipped with the right equipment like decent o2 supply, suction etc It was pandemonium most of the time. If you weren’t there really don’t bother commenting.

Exactly. We nearly ran out of sedation and resorted to putting benzos down NGTs to reduce usage. We used scuba masks from decathlon to create makeshift CPAP masks. We were rationing oxygen to a certain extent.

'We quadrupled our ICU beds. We ran out of CVVH machines. People died as a result. Nationally, the NHS almost ran out of CVVH fluid. I would call that “overwhelmed”'

Yes, quadrupled to cope with a pandemic! Being overwhelmed would have been not quadrupling ICU beds and ventilating in carparks. That didnt happen.. Critical care had a blank cheque chucked at it and staff redeployed to help to manage the surge.

Of course it was busy, hectic, horrible etc etc as it was in every other country but the NHS did indeed cope with the surge. At a cost obviously to routine care but patient care needed prioritising.

@Janiie why are you wanting to deny that people died through inadequate care and equipment?

I'm enjoying it - it brings back the fear at the start and the PPE confusion and the O2/ Ceiling of care/ discharge decisions etc but it's great

Very realistic

And your profession is what exactly Janiie? Someone asked you down thread and you haven't responded.

Your hospital that may have been the case but.....................

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/19/bbcs-covid-19-reporters-i-wanted-to-show-the-reality-but-was-deeply-troubled-by-what-i-saw