What is the point of the Nightingale hospital

[Eastie77]

Reading this evening (Guardian, Independent) that the Nightingale hospital in East London has just 30 patients. Doctors and nurses working in over-stretched hospitals are saying the facility is failing to take any seriously ill patients and they cannot access vital pieces of medical equipment including ventilators and PPE which have been earmarked for the Nightingale but are sitting around unused

A lot of senior clinicians seem to think the whole project has been a pointless political exercise and I can see their point of view.
Since the Chief Medical Officer has said today we are 'probably' reaching our peak and the Nightingale is virtually empty doesn't it make sense to just close it and redeploy all of that vital equipment??

I think it’s because it takes a fair while to get better, so there will be all the people who got ill getting to the peak, all the ones at peak and all the ones on the way back down. So there are going to be tens of thousands of Covid patients over the next few weeks.

I think you're right Lilac Not enough staff or equipment.

I'd be delighted if they really weren't needed. Far better to have a hospital we don't currently need than need one we don't have. They'll be useful post pandemic. I don't feel they're not needed when I read about people being left to die at home with no treatment, still contagious patients being sent back to care homes...

I really hope the curve is flattening and that we won't ever need them. I worry the government is planning a too early end to lockdown - and I fear the consequent second wave.

I think the government is trying to increase NHS capacity hence building Nightingale hospitals. It’s because the government still pursues the idea of “herd immunity“ and want most of us get Covid -19.
If this wasn’t government’s aim they would have introduced stricter measures earlier.

And I agree with starlightgazers it won’t stay empty for long.

Toffee “ They'll be useful post pandemic”

But they won’t exist?

Look at how many routines and cancer treatments have been stopped.

My DH has had his post chemo check up cancelled. We now dont know if the chemo worked or not.

We'll need them when lockdown ends, when cases may rise a lot

• but they need to be kept properly staffed and ready to admit patients

They weren't supposed to be just for patients needing ventilation,
so it would be baffling if they aren't allowing in patients who only need oxygen and less dramatic measures, if other hospitals can't take them

I wish you were wrong Lilac but I suspect you're right. I think they should keep them after the pandemic but I don't suppose they will.

Toffee - how can they? You mean compensate the businesses to find other premises? The hospitals would need staffing if you’re talking about increasing the NHS generally.

Fred I’m so sorry. This is the worst thing - the stopping of regular essential treatment. I’ve had two friends have chemo cancelled. Like sitting at home listening to your cancer grow. A poster on another thread said her fathers hip op had been cancelled.

I got carried away with wishful thinking and forgot they were existing businesses. You're right.

My partner suppose to of had a operation to remove tissue to see if he has cancer.

Been cancelled

Such scary times

They won’t keep them post the pandemic (if that is what a PP meant). One of them is the Excel centre in London - a major conference and exhibition centre that hosts events and people from all over the world!

Perhaps we should be blamed!

Apparently we have adhered to lockdown guidelines far better than expected. So pace of contagion has been slower than predicted. So we have flattened the curve more than expected, and not needed the extra capacity we thought we would.

The Nightingale hospitals are not supposed to be for really acute patients, but to relieve pressure on other hospitals.

Trouble is there are only two viable exit strategies to lockdown: herd immunity or a vaccine. A vaccine is months away, and we dont even know yet what sort of immunity people will have and how long it will last. (That's why there are so many problems with producing antibody tests.) We are only at the beginning, and the social and economic costs of lockdown are such that it will have to be lifted at some point...and then possibly reimposed if the virus circulates too rapidly.

Wasn’t the Nightingale always designed to take the less seriously ill patients to free up beds fir the critically ill in the normal hospitals?

I thought some cancer treatments have been postponed because the risk of patients catching it from going to the hospital, is larger than delaying treatments?

@Needmoresleep Other exit strategy is mass testing, contact tracing and forced isolation.

So we have flattened the curve more than expected, and not needed the extra capacity we thought we would

It's way too early to say either of those things.

There were no fires this month in my town so I've started a petition to close the fire station.

A lot of senior clinicians seem to think the whole project has been a pointless political exercise and I can see their point of view.

A lot? Do you have a source for this?

“I thought some cancer treatments have been postponed because the risk of patients catching it from going to the hospital, is larger than delaying treatments?”

This is a tough one. Hospitals are divided into hot and cold zones. One friend was asked how she’d travel from treatment. When she said Uber, they weren’t happy. I think if she’d had a family member to drive her, that would have given her the okay.

With the family member on dialysis, he was told his treatments are reduced because of nurses redeployment to covid. This puts extra strain on his heart and kidneys and increases his risk of early death, when he was doing well.

There will be patients who are at greater risk of covid if they go to the hospital but I’m not sure if this applies to all.

Meanwhile, in Scotland

It’s so much better to have this resource and not use it, than not have it.

Perhaps our ICU are coping. Perhaps the fact those on ventilators will remain on those an average of 14 days, therefore nightingale will be used at near capacity within 2 weeks.

Who knows, but I’m glad we have potentially planned... for once.

@LilacTree1 Oh no, that is not good. People who are better getting treatments should still be getting it. I hadn't realised they were not doing such serious treatment when it was safer to go ahead with it. So it is clear we do not have enough medical staff.

“ So it is clear we do not have enough medical staff.”

Or we’ve redeployed too many. To deal with something we can’t control, while ignoring the patients who have medical needs that we can deal with quite well.

I think this would have been handled very differently before 24 hour news and social media.

Some interesting info on winter deaths

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/30/winter-deaths-hit-highest-level-40-years-experts-blame-ineffective/

If we published death rates daily, the public might not panic so much about the daily deaths, which are people dying with covid 19,
not of covid 19.