NHS Nightingale Harrogate closes

[pocketem]

Nightingale Harrogate, which was opened by Captain Tom Moore just last week, has now been closed due to a lack of patients. Staff that had been seconded to work there have been sent back to their usual workplaces and told that they will not be needed for at least a fortnight, and thereafter will be given at least 4 days notice if the hospital is to re-open. Capacity in the major ICUs in the region is still well over demand with around 20-25% of critical care beds empty, following the expansion of beds last month.

Seriously? This is just a joke. All this setting up stuff, ruining people's lives and for what?

Is it in the news, OP?

Noeuf - it was a contingency. At the time it was planned we didn't know how bad it would get - hospitals in Northern Italy were overwhelmed. It's a good thing that the Nightingales have not been needed.

The Harrogate Nightingale, unlike some others, was always set up to provide only critical care and ventilation, with the plan that patients would be transferred back to general hospitals within 24 hours of being extubated. Other Nightingales have been set up more as step-down placements where patients who do not require critical care any more could go for recovery and rehab. If the Nightingales are all converted to that model, it's possible that we could begin to restart some routine NHS work again.

We need to be cautious. In the next few weeks the NHS urgently needs to start operating its wider services. Much of the spare capacity in hospitals was made by using other wards as ICU, theatres were used as they had ventilators in. It is expected Covid cases will be in the hundreds each day for a while. So possible the Nightingale Hospitals will be needed for overspill once the hospitals open areas back up. Just think no cancer operations or invasive screenings have been done for 5 weeks now. There is a huge backlog.

@BakedCam internal NHS comms emailed to staff this morning

Because if we didn’t have the back up then what would happen more people would die

In Italy and Spain they simply didn’t have enough bed spaces in ICU or ventilators

And we may get a second wave (we shall to down degree) far better to be prepared than not

That’s for patients and for staff

Yes I don't get why the nightingales weren't set up for all covid patients. I think this is massive overkill for something they are now back to saying will be a mild illness for most people (recent press conferences language has changed)

It's great that it wasn't needed. Much more preferable to the predictions of the NHS being overwhelmed and patients dying in corridors. If the public can continue adhering to the lockdown requirements hopefully things can start getting back to some sort of normal.

I think it’s much better to have the Nightingale hospitals a don’t use them than have people potentially lying on beds in hospital corridors
Without Lockdown (or even with it) the NHS could ave been totally overwhelmed and it’s been very reassuring to know that there was extra capacity if needed
Plus the pandemic is very far from over and as lockdown Is eased and/or people get careless we may we’ll need these hospitals

What are considered mild symptoms some people they are still very very ill.

I would like to see more people being admitted to hospital earlier so they can get medical care. Germany admitted patients earlier and along with a rigorous test and tracing system have had far fewer deaths

We had to be this well prepared. We saw the new from Italy where they had icu patients set up in corridors and doctors telling reporters that they were having to make the terrible decision on what patient should be given the ventilator

So why close it? Seems ridiculous to set it up and then decide it's not needed when we are still in lockdown

I did wonder if these nightingales were set up to deal with the second waves? I'm surprised it's closed already, but I guess it's a good thing and that they are prepared if there's another sudden influx of patients.

Why don’t they make it a step down place rather than close it?

@Noeuf Staff that had been seconded to work there have been sent back to their usual workplaces and told that they will not be needed for at least a fortnight, and thereafter will be given at least 4 days notice if the hospital is to re-open So not closed closed, likely just temporary unless the second wave is manageable once the wider hospital services are back up and running.

@pocketem they should use your graph on the coronavirus briefing. Might help people actual get what all the efforts have been for

We had to set the Nightingales up as we didn't know just how badly we were going to be affected...particularly as we didn't lockdown very quickly! What I would like to see starting to happen from now is the quarantining to covid patients at regional centres so that more normal service within the NHS can start to resume. Obviously everything has to be done with caution due to the risk of a second wave.

I feel worse for all the 2nd and 3rd year student nurses that have had all their nursing programmes rearranged so that they can go and be part of the workforce to now be told by ward areas that they aren't really needed!

Its not closed. Closed would imply its closed permanently.

Its not needed at the moment and staff have been deployed to somewhere there actually is some work for them.

Entirely sensible. Not like they can't all go back if needed.

I do think it would be better to use these to treat all covid patients, where there is a nightingale and leave hospitals to non covid treatments.

But I am guessing there is a reason they aren't doing this.

I think this is fantastic news. How horrific if it had had hundreds of patients.

Surely this can only be considered good news?

OP thanks for this

I hope it goes in online news somewhere. I’ve still got friends who don’t believe me that the Birmingham one has no patients.

Thanks, @pocketem

Well, it's a good thing that it wasn't required, even if I'm somewhat sceptical about the whole Nightingale concept.

That's odd. Chris Whitty seemed to suggest last week that, whilst it was good news the Nightingale hospitals hadn't been needed much, they would come into their own once the NHS goes back to "normal". I.e they would become the specialist coronavirus hospitals when the NHS goes back to routine ops etc.

So it's not closed to never open again, it is closed because the staff have been redeployed back to their usual areas?

@SunnyStroll that was my understanding too. Following easing of the lockdown, it was that Nightingales would be Covid-19 centres as other areas gradually opened up again.