NHS workers - how are we all doing?

[frapefruit]

Haven't seen a thread for a while.

My hospital is way under capacity in a low numbers area. Doesn't stop the trust changing processes, plans and systems every 5 minutes. Wards and services moving on a daily basis for no clear reason. Crap communication. Mass redeployment which has been handled very badly with people having no clear idea what is expected of them or for how long. Lots of upset people who are so sick of being told 50 million different things per day that many have started handing notices in.

PPE has been an absolute farce. Still waiting for clear guidance and still being shouted at if you even look at surgical masks.

Care of patients is poor as the only thing cared about is getting people out or if they have corona or not. That's about it.

The thing most people are worried about is how on earth do we come back from this. All surgery, procedures, appointments cancelled. Most chemo, 2 week wait unless extremely obvious is cancelled. No ENT, no specialist services, no paediatric team etc. The list goes on. How will people ever be allowed to access non corona health care again? Management suggesting this is the way we will be long term....

Hate work. Hate my job now. Used to love it.

Anyone else?

Dh is still providing specialist services, just a bit reduced to allow covid time. People still bring treated for emergency stuff (stroke, heart attack plus maternity and paediatric). A lot of patients don't want to go in unless essential anyway.

Yes lots of stress and changes but I don't recognise what you describe. Nor does dh (I asked).

Are you writing an article?

I work in community mh. We are still seeing unwell people but not see stable people just phone contact. As you say it's changing daily and it's tough.

We’re under capacity too. Nothing like a crisis to keep the time wasters away!

I’m redeployed from my area to ED but in the same job role, specialist nurse, in the ‘clean’ area. It’s not too bad, we hear what comes into the covid side tho, 5 deaths in the department yesterday, most arrested on tubing and unable to get back. Not all elderly either.

We’re wearing standard pinny, gloves and a theatre mask for every patient we assess. We’ve also all been fit tested for if we have to go to the covid side. Seems to be plenty of stock tho which is one good thing.

The volume of services that has been withdrawn is crazy tho, yesterday we didn’t operate on a lady that we usually would have and now she is end of life. Also a young guy with a suspicious mass needs further investigations and mdt discussion, but non of this can be arranged at present.

It’s so scary, there’s going to be a lot of deaths due to covid but indirectly

@whipdido Thank you for all you are doing.

(And all other key workers).

I have a question - why are mental health discharging people on a section 2 suddenly (is this suddenly, we have never had it happen before)? It's so stressful for me to be in self isolation on the Government list and have to look after a family member from afar (I already broke my isolation once to get them to me safely and to the hospital). I am now stressed about that and stressed about them. The rest of our family are in Australia.

The doctors are telling me it's fine because he's on the section 2, but he is so far from fine...

@tilder no! Def not writing an article???!! About what??

I'm frontline NHS and having a pretty shit time. Was hoping for a bit of NHS solidarity and hoping it's just my trust being completely crap and things are better elsewhere.

@Wineislifex we only have surgical masks (and apron and gloves) for covid wards. FFP3 is only for ITU. It's pretty scary actually. We keep hearing that other hospitals have much better PPE are being protected more but management just keep telling us that they are following PHE and surgical masks are fine.

My trust - obviously, not working currently, have decided that no home cooked or home baked foods can be donated to NHS staff because of the risk of food poisoning.

Unfortunately, they are not publicising this to the wider community at present yet which means there is a truck load of food going to waste.

Our non covid icu at the moment has 1-2 patients (normally 8), covid over 20. What on earth has happened to the cardiac arrest patients, ones with comm acquired pneumonia, dka ? Really quite worrying, appreciate that all routine surgery has stopped but even so is very odd !

Yes, we've seen massive reduction in stroke, MI, sepsis etc. Virtually no frailty in the hospital - where are they all?

@Kurzgesagt unfortunately, given our experience with trying to get an ambulance the other night via 999, I suspect many will be dying before a call handler is able to answer the phone. Over forty minutes with no pick up at all (this was the "shorter call" that the second bystander made).

Not too bad here. Policy changes several times a shift. Get the feeling the managers who have never been near a patient feel the need to have constant meetings to feel like they're doing something. Wish they'd just let us get on with it.

Still seeing emergencies and doing theatre for cancer etc. I was absolutely petrified a few weeks ago but dont feel quite so bad now. Good team of staff keeping me going although obviously still nervous for what's still to come.

So on Monday we were sent on a training course for fit testing ffp3 masks...we all thought it was teaching us to suck eggs as we have been fit testing each other for years. Oh my days I was shocked we had all been doing it wrong for years. What's more the trainer said this is common in the whole of uk and he has seen medics with ffp3 on upside down etc on tv!
All our surgeries are cancelled although have been able to rush through an emergency list for this weekend I hope by some small miracle it goes ahead still as feel so sorry for the patients in pain and suffering waiting for surgery!

Our trust is definately planning for big things, wards and staff redeployed to the community hospitals, opening up wards that have been shut down for years, it’s scary thinking about what is to come. And then you read bloody threads on here about people moaning that McDonald’s is closed or popping out to the shops every day and I just want to scream!

We get a daily email from the chief exec with all the latest changes, not seen any management around tho...no change there tho!

@Iprefergin yy to managers needing meetings to look busy. For quite a while we were looking for direction and realised we are actually better off just getting on with it ourselves.

Our hospital is quite small and doesn't really have the infrastructure to cope with covid and other things like cancer / ortho surgery etc. They aren't turning emergencies away but not doing anything otherwise. Colleagues in bigger hospitals seem to be faring better where the resources are there.

I work on a high risk COVID ward, it's been full, lots of CPAP and patients moving on to be intubated in ITU. More death in the past week than I thought was possible, utterly heartbreaking. I was actually shocked to discover that A&E has been relatively quiet, and AMU and a lot of the other lower risk medical wards have a lot of empty beds, that probably won't last long though. I guess I've been in a bit of a COVID bubble. PPE is still apron and surgical mask unless dealing with a patient on NIV, nurses feel extremely vulnerable and so many are off sick with symptoms now. I'm terrified to go to work and yet can't relax when I'm off as I feel like I should be there.

We've been face fitting masks for weeks, now hearing that supplies of that mask are running low, so need to start again with a different mask. Ffp3 is only for AGPs @frapefruit, you don't need them for all covid patients.

I think the AGP thing is a bit misleading in regard to 'sputum inducing / cough' which could mean 'if they cough or you make them cough' which obviously a lot of patients are coughing! Then when feeding, doing mouth care etc - could cough....some hospitals are wearing them on all covid wards but others aren't. Probably based on supplies!

I also work in stroke , all our stroke patients have disappeared which is very odd.

@Badgersocks

Isn't a sputum inducing procedure a specific physio thing? It's not just about going something that happens to make someone cough?

I work in outpatients and have cancelled all
Appointments except those that if we didn’t see would end up presenting in A and
E/ gp
Surgery. I also
Work in a and you do wonder where all the patients are - but I guess the fractures etc - well most people have stopped sports to
Less
Scope for injury.

We were initially told that cpap was a big no no due to aerosol spray of the virus from the high flows of gas, if disconnected so patients literally went from 6 ltrs f/m with 6 ltrs Nc at same time to tubing. Can’t remember the rationale but we now have cpap, had a few issues with patients getting hypoxic and pulling masks off Now been told we can gently sedate patients....luckily we are well provided for re ppe but the viral load could be huge

We have nurses on the doors to ED preventing walk ins, if it’s not life threatening people are turned away. GPs must be discuss patients with the intended speciality prior to sending in too, so that will be contributing to lower patient numbers. Only those who really need to be seen come in!

I'm finding work difficult as, although I manage a hospital OOH as site manager I can't go to all areas and, TBH, feel marginalised. We have changed all the wards around and have red and green zones. We are focused on trying to keep patients out of ITU and on CPAP instead. I really want to help my colleagues and it's really odd to be only able to communicate by phone or video link. I feel like I'm working blind, and it's very worrying, but, on the positive side our hospital and its fantastic staff are well prepared.

dd working in a London hospital has said she is going to publish a book with all the emails she's received about PPE. Currently working alternately in ITU (after a 4 hour crash course) and on a "non-Covid" surgical ward that has at least one patient rapidly transferred each shift after testing positive.

On the non-Covid ward is still wearing uniform and washing it at home. Surgical masks that (latest instructions) have to be worn "until wet" ie for at least 4 hours at a time.

Her major wish would be for food (any sort of food) during night shifts. She no longer has proper access to a common room, so is working 14+ hours some nights with just a sandwich. And has a roaring UTI due to lack of water and loo breaks.

Hospital overflowing. Hopefully NHS Nightingale will help.