Thread for NHS staff

[LucheroTena]

How prepared do you think your place of work is? I work clinically in large teaching hospital and not at all confident we’re ready. Outside of wards there is very little planning and yet we have massive outpatient services. Elective stuff is being limited now but nowhere near enough capacity will be created. Millions in deficit so we’re operating on skeleton workforce and even when we can recruit no one wants to work here. Dozens of calls to our small team each day from worried patients, it’s taking up so much time to answer them all on top of already manic workload. Loads of staff with symptoms that are concerning but we’re not swabbing them and 111 uninterested unless they’ve travelled. Admin staff gleeful that they might soon be ‘working’ from home when truth is it’s difficult to get them to do much work on site let alone unsupervised. It doesn’t feel as though there is much consideration for clinical staff and now we’ll no doubt also be burdened with doing the jobs of admin. Never been as close to saying stuff it and quitting.

Just me then?

Sounds pathetic from me but can I hop on and say thank you.

I work in primary dental care, both nhs and private as well as clinical teaching.
So far all is normal, it’s a bit strange. Calm before the storm?

Sisters a doc she's been in training for an outbreak a lot this week with hazmat suits etc

We've had a couple of confirmed cases, generally the atmosphere isn't too frantic although I think the idea that anyone working for the nhs self isolating is ridiculous, we'd have no staff left.

Frontline we have a couple of isolation tents and we have meet and greet teams going out to treat/swab people in their cars. We have an escalation plan.

I can't say that it won't all go to shit, but it's not making me panic yet.

I work in a clinical role mental health so wont be exactly front line - but lots of implications none the less. So far all non essential meetings have been cancelled (actually brilliant for me as I can catch up on other stuff.) Plans are being made about staffing the inpatient wards if there are large numbers of staff absence due to sikness/schools closing/self isolation. Other than that pretty much bsuiness as usual. Oh, and they keep emailing round the link to the trusts infection control policy! I think there is more planning going on behind the scenes but we havent been told yet, which is frustrating but typical of our trust. It does worry me how we will cope with increased staff shortages. We are already massively understaffed and cant recruit staff for love nor money at the minute so I imagin further reduction in staffing will have massive implications for patient care.

I work in nhs but not technically frontline. We will be face fitted for masks. And encouraging hand washing and gel use for clients and staff. But otherwise...

We’ve put some signs up asking people to wash their hands 🤷‍♀️

NHS HCP here. My Trust has confirmed cases. We were already struggling for beds (and staff). I’m not concerned about catching it - I probably will- I’m concerned that we will be working pretty much 24/7 after next week.
The physical and emotional toll is going to be fucking hard.

Have been fitted for a face mask but they don’t fit so told I have to have a hood. There are no hoods. Manager has made a list of people with historic skills so we may be deployed to other areas if required which I’m a bit unhappy about as my skills are ancient but I’ll do my best and hope it’s good enough. I’m worried for my team who consist of 10 people with 4 being over 60. Nobody has any info on what happens if one of us gets it. We will all have been in close contact over the previous few days so do we all need to self isolate? There is a bit of a conflict between “you must stay home if you are at any risk of having it” and “we can’t leave the whole hospital without a radiology service”

Not just you at all. I'm in a GP Practice in Scotland, I think currently the only NHS board with no cases but it's only a matter of time.
According to the BBC yesterday we have all our PPE - we don't, only 1 box of masks arrived. We can't order alcohol gel etc as out of stock.
We are being inundated with emails and updates several times a day as the guidance is changing so rapidly. The amount of info is overwhelming.
I was feeling laid back about it, take precautions but really we'll be fine. But as of Monday my mindset has changed dramatically.

Hi there, work in a teaching position hospital (dental) no plans as yet, waiting to see what happens, I'm asthmatic so slightly worried.

CorianderLord yes I’ve heard this is what they’re doing. Luckily the NHS has some extremely dedicated staff who will totally step up to this. They are amazing and I hope, once this is all over, they will get the recognition they deserve.

On Facebook for eg, there’s more than enough stupid jokes about loo roll etc but I was expecting by now to see something that celebrates the commitment of the NHS staff that will be on the frontline. Nothing.

Whether there are enough staff, space and resources is questionable. Every country will struggle with this.

I work for a mental health trust. They've done literally nothing other than forwarding us the cascade emails from NHS England/PHE. We ran out of alcohol gel this week and will be rationed going forward. No advice to staff on how to handle home visits. No signs in the waiting room to tell people to wash their hands. No notification to patients to tell them not to come if they have symptoms of a cold. Literally nothing. I'm raging

loppy very similar to our trust. Absolutely no guidance on home visits. All routine OP appointments carrying on regardles. and yes, not so much as a sign in the waiting room.Oh and yes, we have also run out of hand gel and cant order more, as for PPE - no way !!

There's one page of guidance for home visits in the "non Healthcare setting" guidance from health protection Scotland. Most of focus seems to be on plans for acute services, what about the majority being cares for at home?? What about social care?????

I don't work for the NHS but wanted to say thank you to you all. You're the best hope we have (especially with the morons in government) and I know you're being under appreciated as always. Thank you for doing what you do.

I'm frontline, home visits and community clinics. No guidance yet which I'm not surprised about as nhs is usually quite slow of this sort of thing in the community setting.

Patients are worried and asking, had a fair few cancellations, so would be good to give more information from the trust but there you go.

At least one of the major London hospitals declared an "internal major incident" yesterday due to the amount of Corona in their A&E. All admissions with any respiratory symptoms must be admitted to a side rooms now (new policy) which is fine except there are only a few side rooms per ward. Therefore pts wait in A&E, more people keep coming to A&E.....no room at the inn

@IheartNilesYeah lets bash NHS admin staff OP - brilliant attitude from you as clinical staff there. You do know admin functions are are overworkled, underfunded and demoralised as every other hospital department too?

No. We have some guidance but no PPE to go with it

I'm self employed in the private sector and applied to join NHS Professionals in Jan. Even though I've had 20 years in the NHS I'm jumping through some ridiculous hoops with OH and mandatory training. They want me to attend a training day with 50 other people (!)

They are clueless. I rejoined to be available if I was needed but my god, I have no confidence the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

rosehip good point. My admin staff are fabulous. My secretary was totally overwhelemed the other day and still carrying on amazingly. Having to cancel clinics and contact lots of pts for 2 staff memebers who were self isolating and still doing all her other work too. They are just as stressed as clinical staff and we couldnt actually function at all without them.

I'm a clinical nurse specialist working for a large community NHS trust. I work with patients with chronic diseases so end stage COPD and heart failure mainly.

Our Trust are giving us daily briefings and a weekly conference call. They have set up 4 drive through units across the Trust to prevent people having to enter buildings.

I get the feeling we are teetering on the edge of something massive here. A lot of staff nervous about school closures, some immune compromised staff. I also think they need to suspend all non essential visits (I do a lot of reviews with patients that could be done over the phone).

District nurse teams are ALWAYS struggling with staffing so god knows how this will play out.

I'd also like to jump in say thank you. While we're all preparing to stay home, we need to remember those who won't.

Your all amazing and I hope the next weeks, months will prove better then expected xxx