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 feel like I owe it to the people who worked on the wards and those who died to watch it even though I dont want to.

I had a partially very different (to me) experience of later parts of the pandemic from another angle of healthcare that felt like hope in some ways in the darkness? I was directly involved with the very first wave of vaccinations and I will never forget it. Seeing hundreds/thousands of very elderly people shuffling afraid and silently in lines who hadn’t left their homes in months or seen any one used to make me cry. They were so afraid. But I also remember being so angry, all my colleagues were angry too.

We made sure we brought in every single public facing worker (police, bus, pharmacy, care home, HCP, ANYONE at risk) we could find - even though it was against fucking ‘guidelines’ for eligibility half the time we didn’t care, we were just calling up random people for hours on end, running out down streets into pharmacies, calling up police and fire Sargents telling them to get their staff down to us, friends of friends - anyone. Just to try to do SOMETHING to help.

We did break some of the stupid rules 🤭 (safely I will add) which I won’t go into any details but we pushed and pushed on higher ups for more vaccines and more support and just had to believe it would help in some way.

We got out PPE to wherever we were able to - they (central NHS) were giving us more than you can ever imagine, rooms full to the ceiling of the stuff, more than we could ever use so we would give it away to care homes, anyone who needed it.

This thread was asking NHS staff about their opinions on covid. My response was to a poster who (paraphrasing) said it wasn't so hard, they could skip the queue for the supermarket.

I'm sorry your husband had to work long hours. This is a very common experience I understand.

I suggest if you are upset about working from home and people thinking ot was easier than working in Hot Wards you should start a thread to discuss it.

This thread is about NHS front line staff and how realistic the tv show is.

I am glad to see this. I had to turn it off half way through the second episode. It brought back so much I had forgotten. My ds was the same age as Abbey's son and he said the same to me. We had one of our nursing colleagues in ITU and she is permanently disabled.
I want to watch it and, felt a bit silly being upset but, when I spoke to other nurses they said the same. It is so accurate it took me right back to things I have tried hard to forget.

All those lost lives and grieving families 💕.

I'm not NHS but my son's partner was, and still is, an A&E nurse. She worked throughout Covid and I still remember the bruising on her face from the PPE, when they eventually got some. One of her colleagues, a very young, fit, male nurse contracted Covid very early on and sadly died. She and her colleagues were devastated.
I feel I need to watch the programme, though I don't want to, as just reading this thread has made me upset and angry.
What a shame Johnson wasn't given standard NHS care rather than having two dedicated nursing staff caring for him and him alone. One would have thought after having had Covid he would have been more understanding of the situation but he, along with his cronies were and are shameless.

Just watching it now because of this thread, I'm an A&E nurse and it is accurate. Wearing masks which don't fit, lack of isolation, being refused crucial test's because of "guidance". It was an absolute shit show and thank god none of my colleagues died.

Thank you.

And before anyone flames this poster for what they did with the vaccines I’ll remind everyone that at the time the vaccine was incredibly precious and had an incredibly short shelf life once thawed, and even shorter once diluted. So the idea of throwing away doses left at the end of the clinic was appalling to everyone involved.

My own (adult) DS got a vaccine ahead of schedule because his dad’s vaccination centre had some thawed vials going out of date and they were ringing the police, fire stations and then family to see who could get there within the next 20 mins.

You did the right thing ❤️

I remember being in full PPE visor & all, and us observing the minute's silence for other NHS colleagues who had died from COVID. The ward clerk ringing the bell and just hearing the noises of the patients breathing around me. Me and a colleague just stared at each other with tears in our eyes. Completely surreal. I'll never forget it.

I can't bring myself to watch it. I ended my NHS career after working front like during the pandemic - the treatment was utterly appalling - we were refused PPE at the start and cited it was in patient interest to see our facial expressions (utter BS) otherwise there would be a communication breakdown. Colleagues died, others admitted to ICU and left with life changing illnesses, unable to work. Putting children in childcare they had not previously been to (nursery age and their nursery closed), fear of passing on illness. By May/June, masks became compulsory and we were threatened with disciplinary action for taking them off to eat/drink water if there was someone less than 2m away from us. Unfortunately, our limited office space did not allow social distancing and nor were there any places open to go eat food. I count myself fortunate not to have had to make the life/death decisions others

What made it even worse was logging onto here to see comments like that from @peakygold - how unfair it was that our children went into school, everyone had a neighbour/sister/friend working for NHS and got to do no work yet abused the supermarket queue jumps etc etc. Whenever I logged into social media, all I saw were my friends spending time with their children - of course they will have had tough times through it all as well but it was certainly a kick in the teeth seeing comments on here

I too am utterly shocked and appalled at the comments made by @ peakygold.

It is harrowing to watch this tv drama and very humbling. I do not work for the NHS or any front line role. It seems unimaginable how you were expected to work and cope with the pressures of your roles with the basic lack of PPE and all other associated problems.

My admiration and gratitude to all who worked in these awful conditions simply knows no bounds. Please ignore the ignorant, nasty and downright disgusting attitude of the person who has made such disparaging comments. I simply do not believe they reflect the beliefs of the majority of the nation.

Watching this drama and how it then cuts back to some of the live briefings from government is truly shameful.

It certainly is not an enjoyable or "entertaining" watch to view, but actually I am glad that it is showing an insight into the truly awful circumstances that NHS staff had to work under. It is also a snapshot of an awful historical event that is being shown to a wider audience who lived through such times.

@SnakesAndArrows let anyone flame me! We will never be sorry for what we did to try to help, felt like a tiny drop in the ocean but also like a big FUCK YOU to the Tories. Don’t leave us lefties in charge of vaccine and PPE that can be stretched further and start giving people their lives back or protections if you don’t want to see some rule breaking.

We all knew what had been happening inside hospitals and to other staff working with the public and it was horrifying and felt completely helpless with no way to help people, and so angry.

The public were mostly amazing. We had old ladies making scrubs and all kinds of places helping make screens and masks. Yes so we did get free food at times but I had also been wearing horrible PPE for 12+ hours on my feet non stop and needed to eat something so it wasn’t an exciting social event. It was just usually a simple act of kindness, from people who didn’t know how else to help. So don’t judge who gave it or accepted it.

Just watching it. My friend's daughter was a nurse on a covid ward in Wales. She was so traumatised she left the NHS.

Then you see the idiots on social media saying its all exaggerated and vaccination is for sheep.

A very polarised issue.

Whilst what you've said here is harsh, I can totally understand why you've said it.

In an NHS that was overwhelmed, where did that GP find the time to write a book?
Where did overworked nurses find the time to rehearse group TikTok dances?
Why were there live streams on social media of 'overrun' hospitals looking more like like ghost towns?

All perfectly legitimate questions that people would like the answers to...

Is there really any need.

Hospitals looked like ghost towns because visitors were banned and social distancing meant outpatients and elective surgery were restricted numbers. I went round doing chest X-rays on theatres which had been turned into itus with colleagues who looked like aliens had invaded and had to stay in that get up all day. They certainly didn’t look like ghost towns, neither did the Covid wards with doctors and hc workers all crammed in trying to update notes and care for their patients. The doctor found time to write down what was happening in her diary at the end of the day-vital to decompress if you’re having to get up and do it all again tomorrow. We found time to make videos to cheer us all up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t even work in ITU yet still this programme has brought back things which I’d buried. How would you have liked to have intimate contact with multiple people who you have no idea whether they have Covid or not when they came in-and then go home to your family? And we get told we have questions to answer because we made up a dance routine. Jeez.

Haven't seen it yet. Not sure I will.
I hope it causes as much outcry as the post office programme did.
I'm not NHS but was in supported housing/care at the time and it was fucking unbelievably frightening. No PPE for us. No guidelines. No freebies or anything like that.
I still have traumatic flashbacks from my son being bluelighted, unconcious, into A&E in 2020 and it was quite honestly horrific. Have never been able to look at a rainbow the same way since.
My best friends work in the NHS and both are receiving counselling for the atrocities they witnessed.
Fuck the tories

I will not be watching it as i have blanked out a lot of what i saw and did during that time and i am afraid it will bring it all back. I am a radiographer and we were almost the forgotten profession but had such an important job as every covid patient that came into the hospital needed and chest xray or a CT scan of their lungs. The things i saw and did has left a lasting impression on me.
Working 50-60 hour weeks with no breaks during the shift.
Scanning patients only for them to die a couple of hours later or sometimes on the bed in front of you.
Telling my family to stay away from me because i wanted to go in the shower before they went near me when i got home from work.
Standing at 5am in the morning outside the supermarket with my other NHS collegues because they opened early for us so we could buy toilet roll because there was nothing left for us if we tried to shop after work.
Doing all the shopping to keep my family safe.
Seeing all those sick patients lying prone in ITU and trying to get the best imaging possible to give them a fighting chance of getting better.

I have never been so scared in my life and even now when i think about things, i cry.

I did not take any freebies nor did i have any time for tiktok dancing.

According to some people, covid didnt exist or it was just a cold. This is something i cant get my head around. I went every day to work because its my job and i love my job but i will never get over the fact that some people think we were lying about how serious it was.

Thanks for explaining, I appreciate it. This stuff won't be known to members of the public; the millions who were ordered to stay at home to protect the NHS. Do you not see how some of those people - upon then seeing TT videos of dancing nurses on wards - may have had questions?

Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor and a writer. She has had two careers for some time. She wrote a diary while she was working on wards through COVID. Are you saying that Drs shouldn’t have kept diaries and had a little bit of a life during 2020? Seriously?

Some (a very small number of) nurses used their down time to make TikTok videos. Nurses are allowed to do whatever they like outside their rostered hours to keep themselves sane.

Whoever was filming those empty hospitals was not in A&E, not in the respiratory wards, not in ICU, not in theatres that had been converted into ICUs. Routine clinics were cancelled to free up staff to go to the hot zones, and some clinics were held remotely. The public was not allowed inside the hospitals, there was no visiting. So the corridors were obviously empty.

Do you really think that the TV programme is not an accurate representation of what it was like?

You know nothing, you’re spreading lies, and you make yourself look very foolish to the people on this thread who know how it was.

Stopping families from visiting yet journalists were allowed in to film.

Not really because it was 4 years ago and all those accusations you are making about “empty hospitals” and people “making videos” have been explained and answered time and time again

"I believe that the doctor who wrote the book is a palliative care doctor and also Labour activist, so there is probably political motivation in writing it (although I do also think the Government handled it terribly)."

Labour activist seems to be a term that's used to lessen the credibility of anyone who isn't a true blue Tory these days. Why is no-one ever called a Tory Activist? Fiona Bruce and Laura Kuenssberg (sp?) would absolutely fit the bill. Jacob Rees Mogg accused a reporter of 'Lefty questioning' the other day because the man asked a question he didn't like.

"What a shame Johnson wasn't given standard NHS care rather than having two dedicated nursing staff caring for him and him alone. One would have thought after having had Covid he would have been more understanding of the situation but he, along with his cronies were and are shameless."

Another question for NHS staff here. I've always been suspicious of Boris's 'almost dying' of Covid. Do you think that his illness was, at the very least, highly exaggerated?

I have been on too many partygate thread to recognise that excuse.

Questions because some nurses made a video during their break? Next you are going to complain about them eating cake.