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??

So it is clear we do not have enough medical staff

No it is not clear

Nurses were brought out of retirement or moved back into nursing temporarily from their current jobs which they cannot be sacked from. I think student nurses will also be being trained for specific roles.

Legislation was passed a while ago on this and for truck drivers to work longer hours etc. This was what the emergency bill was about. It was also being discussed months ago on these boards in various topics.

Also posters saying operations and treatments have been "cancelled" or "stopped" don't seem to read past headlines. They have not been cancelled, they have been postponed

It's as if some in the media want the government plans, months in the making, to fail. Looking at papers like you The Guardian

Chris Whitt’s said we are starting to reach the peak... just starting. The peak could last for weeks. Just because it’s not full now does not mean it won’t be soon so let’s all just wait and see what happens #stayathome

@LilacTree1 There was a lot in the media about it when the flu vaccine failed. I remember being worried about it. Remember though we had that level of deaths without any lock down, hand washing campaign, nothing.
We would have far more covid 19 deaths if we had done nothing. Prediction was half a million.
In good years we have had as few as 400 flu deaths.

@Flaxmeadow I posted that in response to a poster talking about dialysis treatment. I am not talking about headlines but about an individuals experience of being told there are not enough staff to do dialysis often enough.

In terms of treatments being “postponed”

My friend’s Stage 2 cancer will probably hit Stage 3 while she waits, we call it “listening to cancer grow”.

A poster above has said her husband is not having the tissue tested to see if it’s cancer - a delay yes, but a medically sensible choice?

A poster on another thread said her fathers hip replacement has been postponed indefinitely. His chances of disability and losing fitness for the operation are very high. And we don’t know the figures of people dying
of covid 19. We know the figures with covid 19, which is not remotely the same.

It's partly also because other attendances at A/E dropped I think by 30%. So basically more people have probably either died at home with heart attacks, strokes etc or got better. COPD patients don't seem to be as ill ( partly due to improvement in air quality). So there has been capacity in the main hospitals that they didn't anticipate.

LilacTree1

But surely this is the whole point of the Nightingale strategy. To take the pressure off the hospitals.

This is not a static situation. Everyday brings something new. Policy changes, as statiistics and events change.

Non of us know for sure what the numbers are going to be tomorrow or in a couple of days, never mind a week. They could suddenly surge again, or hopefully keep flattening out.

Every govenrment, not just ours, is in uncharted waters.

People are scared to go in I think

www.ft.com/content/d5ac0a79-6647-4f49-bb64-d1cc66362043

Flax - I’m not the poster who asked why we have the Nightingale. I think it’s good we have it.

I’m not convinced that the balance of priority is correct at the moment. I know it’s a hard balance to strike, but there are basics being neglected.

@LilacTree1 I think the nature of Covid-19 is you feel better then take a very bad turn. People are being conscious of the NHS coping. There was a gentleman in the paper today that was reported to feel better then the next day needed an ambulance, he died outside his house in the ambulance. It’s awful.

Eehbyegum, yes, mum’s girding herself for that friend to die. His daughter is a nurse and lives with him so he had no chance of avoiding it really.

It's very likely that when the lockdown ends the virus will start spreading again and many more people will get seriously ill and need hospital treatment. This virus is not just going to go away in a few weeks time. Those hospitals could still very much be needed in the coming months. Reaching our peak and numbers falling doesn't mean it's over.

It's so damn nasty on so many levels and still so many things we just don't understand about it yet.

We keep looking back I think to the terrible scenes we saw in Wuhan and Lombardy but at least we had those few precious weeks to prepare, but then it wasn't that long ago really. If that makes sense, and now here we are with our own terribly sad stories in the press.

Its strange how time seems to be getting all mixed up. Days, and even whole weeks go by and make no sense. Storm Ciara and Denis seem like ages ago, but it was only in mid February. Now, 8 weeks later, we are only in mid April.

@LilacTree1, saw this tweeted by a FT journalist.

And these two graphs.

Sorry I wrongly posted the first photo in my second comment. Meant to post this screenshot.

@Fairylillie yes you’re right, there is a 2nd wave hitting China now, largely unreported.

I'd guess they've been established so they're there already in situ in case they are needed vs having a scramble to set up under pressure. The main problem is nobody knows an outcome long term yet? Yes, it's one thing whilst the majority of the population are on lockdown for virus containment, but eventually as that's filtered back out (which has to happen) the numbers may well jump significantly so surely its better to have plan B vs relying on no plan at all?

There's also testing centres that have been established within the past week for symptomatic front line health care workers (considering its very hard currently to get tested). So IMHO the lockdown was just to get the initial masses off the streets and out of the workplace to buy time to establish a proper set up. I believe the nightingale strategy is a part of the long term (potential) outcome vs 'hoping' it'll all just go away in a few weeks. Bearing in mind the figures may well be vastly under estimated because so many people aren't coming into contact to transmit the virus atm.

@Flaxmeadow
People are talking about real life situations, You are talking about reading behind the headlines then stating operations have just been postponed. The is only half the story. Referrals for new patients needing operations were cancelled. I was one of them. I have had 2 major surgeries and need another. The way the nhs works means that I need to see a consultant to confirm I need the surgery I know I need and I am being treated the same as someone, who needs day surgery - this time I don’t fit the criteria for needing surgery urgently when last time I did.

I paid to see the consultant, who performed my last op privately before lockdown. And paid for a scan. Just to get myself in the system. It was only his quick thinking, which put me in the nhs system. Not that it will do much good. It’s not likely I can wait for my op. The classification system is in a mess.

So please don’t talk about ops just being postponed, when some of them are much needed operations, including cancer patients, who are going to be far ahead of me on the list. It’s really insulting.

Whitty said yesterday we aren’t at the peak and reported deaths are likely to rise today/tomorrow. It’s likely this disease will have multiple peaks - we can’t stay in stasis until a vaccine comes, we’ll need to emerge/lockdown/peak a few times. Each wave will bring the possibility of needing the overflow hospitals.

Our regional Nightingale has no staff. They keep begging us to volunteer to move but we are needed in our current roles so we can't.

The Nightingales would be seeing more use if we had them staffed, and if we actually admitted all patients in need rather than just leaving them to die if they are in a care home

The Dragon's Heart hospital in Cardiff (aka the Principality Stadium) has.more beds than Wales's largest hospital.

I've been wondering for a long time why so many beds are needed. If you look at the current situation, the rate of infections and the anticipated curve it seems that all these field hospitals are definitely overkill.

And if existing hospitals are grossly understaffed (which they are, especially as so many frontline staff have contracted CV-19), how the hell do they expect to staff the field hospitals.

These are all things which simply have not been addressed.

What is wrong with people they were projections of 1000's of beds need they built these field hospital. People still not happy we will have surges in cases.
Staffing they have brought people out of retirement new nurses training accelerated. So all you experts on here what more should they have done.

Please remember that when they started planning these hospitals, the government did not know if lockdown would be adhered to. Remember the Mothers' Day weekend, when the government asked people (rather than telling people) to stay home, yet half the country decided to go for a walk in the park or a day out at the sea side?

The fact these hospitals have not yet been needed at scale, does not mean they were unnecessary. The government''s aim has always been to keep the number of people requiring treatment within the capacity of the NHS. The approach is reduce the number of people needing treatment via social distancing, and increase the NHS capacity by making changes to existing hospitals and creating new ones. So having the extra hospital capacity on standby could reduce the risk of easing some of the social distancing measures, knowing that if this does lead to more cases, there are hospital beds available.

Not a waste of time at all - in fact one of the few things the government has done really well during this crisis.