What could we do to make things easier for NHS frontline staff?

[MyHipsDontLieUnfortunately]

While I'm worrying about working in a very germy environment and hoping we'll be closed as the situation ramps up, I'm very conscious that NHS frontline staff have no such safety net in prospect.

What can I/we do to help you? I don't have that many parent friends and the ones I do have mostly have a SAHP; otherwise I'd offer childcare. What about cooking / laundry / some sort of cleaning? That all sounds very trivial bit it's the sort of thing we currently end up spending our free time doing and wouldn't bear thinking about at the end of a nightmare shift.

Any better suggestions?

1. Don't panic

That's all.

Stop buying all the masks and hand gel

I’m a GP nurse.

Please, please, please don’t come into the surgery if you think you have CV. It potentially puts many vulnerable people at risk and takes up hours and hours of our time.

Stay away from the hospital unless critically ill

Wash your hands

Send wine

I'm an ED Nurse.

Think about where the appropriate place is to get medical help. Do not come to A&E if your condition is not genuinely urgent - an accident/injury or a medical/mental health emergency.

And wash your hands!

Wash your hands.
Stay away
If you do phone with questions, treat the people on the other end of the phone with kindness don't shout at them!

Self isolate. Don’t attend A&E unless you have had an accident or an emergency. Turning up at any primary care surgery/clinic etc with mild symptoms of cold/flu is a waste of time follow advice and ring 111.

Wash you hands.

Don't go to A&E unless essential.

If you think you have coronavirus, do not come to your GP / A&E! Phone 111 and follow their advice.

Stop stealing hand gels and masks from the wards (yes this has actually happened on our ward)!

I second KitKat1985.....stop stealing/prising handgel dispensers off walls & patient beds...more for you means less for us....
& if (when) non-urgent & routine surgery is postponed.....don’t take it out on us...we’ll be busy deployed elsewhere not twiddling our thumbs for 12 hr shifts.....sorry about the rant but its a scary prospect for the average NHS worker! (Me!)

We have to delay this thing as much as possible to avoid the NHS being swamped. Wash hands. Don't go to places with loads of vulnerable people if you have symptoms.

Offer to look after children so frontline staff can work?

One really great thing you could do is let friends who work for the NHS know your availability for childcare. They'll be under pressure to keep working if the schools and nurseries shut.
Otherwise -
Follow NHS advice and official information from Gov.UK.
Don't share unverified information on social media, it just causes panic.
Don't steal hand gel from hospitals (this is actually happening)
Don't go to the Dr or A&E unless it's absolutely essential, and not at all if you have any flu like symptoms. Call 111

Do not steal our supplies. The NHS does not have a magic never ending box of resources. Stealing face masks & hand gel causes big problems.

Thank you for a lovely thread

👍TinnedPearsforPudding.....to all NHS colleagues...tough times ahead but we are & will be amazing!

See attached re self isolation. Wash your hands

I have recently let my nurse registration lapse but would come and help out as a HCA ( if allowed) to ease pressure or free others up who are ITU trained. I'm half expecting to be contacted but maybe not?

Stop panicking. Stop using up resources and justifying it by saying "I know I'm being silly but..........." and still expecting unnecessary treatment. Look at facts and not media born hysteria, and stop buying toilet rolls in bulk....

Agree with all the above (especially the wine )

Don't panic.
Don't scaremonger.
Don't dress scaremongering up as advising people for their own good.
Listen/ search for advice on who should seek help if they develop symptoms or you could be blocking a genuine case getting through/ seen.
Don't post dodgy sources as fact.
Stop nicking hospital supplies/ buying all the hand gel.
Leave it to the experts, not some twat on reddit/ arse doctor, sorry .. proctologist on twitter/ journos offering clickbait.
Do not try and work out anything from worldometer. and present as factor. The epidemiologists/ statisticians who work out mortality/ morbidity rates spent years training to do that, they didn't use a little calculator to do it for a reason.

That was all...

The spike in cases we have been seeing has been related to anxiety and MH issues, NOT covid-19.

*fact

Please stop buying every over the counter pain medication you can get your hands on just in case you need it. People who do need them for illness/injury will instead Have to get a prescription from a GP. This is both costly for the NHS and patient as well as taking up an appointment which someone else could use and wasting a medical experts time

I have recently let my nurse registration lapse but would come and help out as a HCA ( if allowed) to ease pressure or free others up who are ITU trained. I'm half expecting to be contacted but maybe not?

Obviously depends where you are, but not yet I wouldn't have thought. Don't do it though unless you have to ... We recently ran out of masks and were told to treat suspected cases as if they have flu

The spike in cases we have been seeing has been related to anxiety and MH issues, NOT covid-19.

Can u explain this? It’s not a case unless confirmed and anxiety doesn’t make someone test positive? Am I missing the point?

@missmeg3leg - and back to you - we are fucking great, the lot of us

@Thepigeonsarecoming - brilliant advice.

Can u explain this?

Sorry - I thought I already had but

It’s not a case unless confirmed

I know that and can't work out where I said otherwise. My point was - if you have symptoms, look up the advice for that at that time ie, whether or not you are in a specified high risk group. If not, you won't be tested and are wasting a call handlers/ GP's etc time. They are too busy too be telling people information that was already available to them before they rang/ saw them.

anxiety doesn’t make someone test positive?

Of course not, but it can often mean someone with a cough/ fever panics and turns up at A and E/ the GP, putting themselves at risk and wasting HCP's very valuable time.

To be clearer, we have been seeing an increased number of people presenting with anxiety etc. So many people suffer with the most awful anxiety and reading some of the wild claims made by many is exacerbating that. I wish people would think of who might be reading what they are saying, and the awful effect it may have on them.