The hospital I work in is so quiet

[QuietHospital]

London hospital.
Half empty. Some wards have less than a handful of patients, some wards are closed. Most staff have been moved to wards so are falling over selves. While their regular work goes undone.
A&E very quiet. I’ve sent patients there who are seen immediately. The heart attacks, strokes and appendicitis cases are presenting too late. People with covid are waiting too long to present. If you get breathless then for goodness sake come in. I’m so cross at the initial advice to stay home until struggling.
Had a look through covid ward lists and vast majority patients are aged over 70. Hardly any patients under 60, those who are have underlying health problems for the most part. Lots more men than women affected.
It’s just a snapshot but echoed by colleagues in other hospitals.
I think we can / should start to move back to normal life soon for the well young people among us. I fear for the short and longer term economic hit. It’s crazy to have all these young well people furloughed or made redundant.

Are such decisions made nationally or locally? Are decisions being made using over-populated. Densely populated London as the model?

Nail on the head there. By all accounts, London has been badly affected. As usual, it appears nowhere else matters. Yes, decisions affecting the whole country are being based solely on London experience. Different parts of the country have different experiences, different resource availability etc., but none of that is being taken into account. In other countries, different areas have different action plans, but as usual, in the UK, only London matters and everywhere else just has to follow. I really wish the city mayors were taking a stronger lead to get localised action plans - Andy Burnham in Manchester has been very vocal when it comes to public transport in the past, but is silent about covid - strange!

Some of the posters here have an agenda. Nhs is trying to protect you, you are much more likely to get Covid in hospital. People with no underlying conditions have died. It’s a difficult balance/ if we’d carried on as normal, more people would have died. Is your routine appointment worse this risk?

Btw all scanning, urgent surgery and cancer treatments is continuing where I work.

@BovaryX I am honestly not being defensive, I just can't explain why the Government decided to use this particular phrase. Perhaps a journalist could ask at today's briefing ?

It would be good to get some clarity about attending A&E, pre the Covid pandemic, someone really struggling to breathe would have been seen as an emergency ?

there’s been this whole “protect the NHS” thing for years.

Yes, wondering guiltily if you should be trying to get that hard-to-come-by GP appointment for something that's been concerning you about your DC. Really, in such a wealthy country there should be an adequate system for getting medical advice for your child when you want it.

My daughter had an accident a couple of years ago which resulted in a refusal to eat. After a few days, she clearly became unwell. Couldn't get in to see a GP but saw a nurse practitioner twice who was concerned about her but couldn't get her in front of a GP. Eventually an out-of-hours doctor on the phone told us to go to A&E. They made us sit in A&E for 4 hours until she'd drunk a diaoralyte (which she refused and spat out, as she had refused at home for days!). Eventually after something in her test results was flagged as a concern they said they would get a doctor to admit her but then there was a shift change and we had to start the whole shebang again.

Eventually she was admitted to the children's ward where the consultant said she was very unwell and berated us for not bringing her sooner!

Maternity wards are still part of hospitals though and numerous people on here have said its spreading in wards and you are most likely to get it in hospital. Its really upsetting to feel like its not a safe place to give birth

Are you suggesting that someone struggling to breathe and seriously ill with Covid should not be allowed medical care in a hospital?
I’m suggesting they should be cared for in isolation away from non-Covid patients. The NHS agrees with that.

Ezira if you were home with a child or partner struggling to breathe and no help was coming due to back log what would you do?
Go to the appropriate emergency section at hospital - the red section or the portacabin or whatever that particular hospital has. I wouldn’t just waltz into A&E among uninfected people. For one thing I wouldn’t be allowed in so it would be pointless.

@user1497207191

If you only lockdown London you have a flood of people going "home" to other areas of the country and creating a problem.

The slogan is “Save Our NHS”. “Our” is what is said in every statement and briefing. It’s ownership of it by us, but without any input into what it does, is the problem. Discussion and other opinions are closed down.

It wasn’t just the professor from Oxford on Newsnight. The other professor was from Edinburgh. Opinions differ but I’m glad to have diverse opinions on data. Otherwise it’s doom and gloom for years. We do need people to give opinions and advice on lifting restrictions. I welcome it.

Ezira
Well that’s easy isn’t it why all your ott aggression? It’s what others would do. Some posters really are unpleasant on here.

Lots of London residents have already escaped! In my village several London residents have visited and stayed with parents. One a doctor. Another a journalist.

Bubbles people will seek out information that coincides with what they want to happen.

I don’t know his position in advising the government though.

@BubblesBuddy

Right but if London was the only city lockdown the situation would be worse. In Italy you literally had packed trains full of people fleeing Milan, not just one or two.

What I hope this does is to make the public sit up and take much more notice of how their NHS is funded and run. All through the austerity years the public swallowed the Government line that spending on the public sector must be restricted. The effects of that were devastating in terms of lack of investment and improvement in services, lack of staff, demoralised staff leaving in droves etc. But also the lack of primary care, not enough GPs and what GPs we have being discouraged from referring patients to secondary care because of lack of capacity there. It’s become a vicious circle.
People need to demand better when all this is over. I fear they will just turn a blind eye again.

Some of the posters here have an agenda. Nhs is trying to protect you, you are much more likely to get Covid in hospital

I don't know, I feel the NHS is UK's religion.

You are not allowed to criticise it, to change it, now you are not even allowed to use it.

We are told to protect it, with the price of millions of jobs, and trillions of debt and the risk of ruining our economy and we can't even use it.

Even before this fuck up getting any appointments has been a real struggle.

Now we read there are empty wards and hospitals but the COVID19 patient aren't even getting to them.

You couldn't make it up.

Nail on the head there. By all accounts, London has been badly affected. As usual, it appears nowhere else matters. Yes, decisions affecting the whole country are being based solely on London experience. Different parts of the country have different experiences, different resource availability etc., but none of that is being taken into account

I have the same concerns over lockdown measures. Will all decisions be made for the country based on the timings of what works for London?

The UK has numbers I would expect of a country with an overwhelmed health system. If that isn't the case I'd be asking some serious questions about why so many are dying if doctors are twiddling their thumbs. And if you're an NHS worker or know one who is liking the quiet how are you or your family/friends explaining these stats?

Wow, I didn’t realise Germany fares worse than us for general health. I suspect that as usual with the NHS it’s down to poor management. Some areas are overrun with Covid, some are nearly empty. I haven’t specifically asked my friend what they think of the death rate but I know they were so bored at work that they asked to be transferred to a London hospital that was overrun whilst theirs was nearly empty. Red tape wouldn’t allow it. They wanted to go to nightingale, told it would have to be voluntary. As a young fit doctor they feel completely helpless. They want to be on the front line.

'Nhs is trying to protect you, you are much more likely to get Covid in hospital. People with no underlying conditions have died. It’s a difficult balance/ if we’d carried on as normal, more people would have died.'

Yes we haven't ended up overwhelmed like Italy and Spain. The strategy worked that is surely a good thing?! Routine NHS procedures will resume and as Pomegranate said the urgent scans and treatment have still continued.

Like many I have family and friends in the NHS and the resources and planning involved to manage this crisis has been impressive but it doesn't suit the media's agenda to focus on that.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

perhaps the slogan was misguided, the focus is on protecting you. Honestly - from what I’ve seen, the fact 2 of my colleagues are intubated, I’d stay home if I could to protect my family.

Only read some of thread.

Assuming we know that a very high percentage, 80%?, of all treatment in NHS is for the elderly, and elderly are being shielded it is no surprise that "clean" side hospitals are quiet.

Having said that Nan dislocated her hip last week, quick ambulance, a&we, straight to x-Ray, operation that night, tested for Covid, negative, and discharged. Receiving follow ups at home. She is 86 and has very high shielding issues. So great care if you need it, but you have to go in.

My parents, 90's, in care home have already decided they are not going in for anything. One has constant UTI's and sepsis three times, has decided not to bother next time.

There is a move to hot and cold hospitals, but I hear local management are resistant. They don't want a change to their status!!!!!

I'm in NI, havent read the full thread. But we are the same here, falling over ourselves, units closed, empty beds...6 covid patients in ICU. Rarely more.
We need to get more patients in and start treating people again. I was amazed they extended the lockdown again here, we have very few cases.

Surely if the (non Covid) wards are usually busy this is not a good thing??

The patients are being sent home instead of admitted?

The slogan doesn’t particularly bother me.

The 111 triage does absolutely.

I'm in an area where there are low numbers of cases and working with 5 hospitals. All are practically empty apart from a few covid patients.
Our GP practices are so quiet GPs are doing CPD.
Paramedics not being called out.
Everyone is really, really worried about the patients out there who are not presenting for heart attacks, strokes, cancer etc. and are very worried about the impact of this delayed workload on them and the services.
The messaging to keep people away from the NHS is working in the most unfortunate way.

@MarshaBradyo is this evidenced?
Just 2 reports on here.

Excuse my grammar on earlier post please !

For those who want to continue with the lockdown, when would you start to relax and how? The evidence is that the NHS is not overwhelmed and that the side-effects of the lockdown on deaths from other causes are starting to mount. If the NHS has spare capacity, should we not start to use it?