Protecting the NHS?

[Racoonworld]

Back in March we were told lockdown was to protect the NHS, would be reviewed every 3 weeks and likely to be for up to 12 weeks. Well it is now 5 months later, the NHS never got overwelmed, and we are still in lockdown. Yes I know things are opening up but we still have massive restrictions on our lives, including not being able to hug family and friends and not being able to see more than one household inside (England), which over summer is fine but coming up to winter is obviously not going to be sustainable for most people. Many have had education disrupted, healthcare disrupted, jobs lost, family and friends separated, and I'm sure many more consequences.

What are we all/the government waiting for? There may never be a vaccine or effective treatment. Do they really expect people to live like this for years if there is no vaccine? Surely they need to give us a plan and timeline for what they expect of us or no one will stick to the rules for much longer.

@OhTheRoses

According to Zoe there are 11 cases in my borough at present. Continues to be difficult to get a Drs or dentist apt and none of us need treatment. Few routine hospital appointments. What are all the staff doing exactly?

With dentists, they can not physically see as many patients due to distancing and they have a backlog from lockdown. They have to prioritise urgent cases. If they missed all appts during lockdown, but can only see 50% of normal number of patients now, they will take 6 months to clear a 3 month lockdown backlog.

Dentistry is extremely high risk for the dentist, so some procedures have been stopped altogether.

I think people need to stop taking this personally and understand how complicated the problem we face is.

Stomping feet and whining saying 'I want my life back' is very childish. I am sure the dentist wants to get their life back too. But you can't seriously ask a dentist to just be willing to have tiny sprayed particles of spit from 100 people per week, can you?

We have had a global system shock, yes it'll take a long time to get back to normal. Why is this a surprise to people? Do they not read newspapers or watch the news?

Ohthegoats tell that to the people who carried on working in the nhs throughout. Including myself, face to face time with patients non- Covid related throughout.

@latticechaos I have sympathy for the dentists actually and do get their difficulties. I would, however like to know what is going on in hospitals with so many delayed appointments, etc. Especially I'd like to know what hospital admin/outpatient staff have been doing throughout the pandemic. I assume every sheet of paper must now be filed and every missing bit of paperwork found!

@latticechaos with all due respect, coukd you please point out where I whinge or stomped my feet.

We have a marvellous dentist who closed pretty much from March to July. The practice continues to be open 9-5. I have worked 12 hour days throughout lockdown to keep my service and institution afloat. If my dentist stayed open until 7pm they would likely see an additional 15 patients per week and deal more quickly with the backlog.

Those who work in medicine and allied functions at present are very lucky to have job security. The rest of us don't. That isn't a whinge; it's a statement of fact.

Non- urgent stuff was delayed. So now there is a backlog. It’s pretty obvious why there is a backlog. In my department I am working my contracted hours and a bit more.

[quote OhTheRoses]@latticechaos I have sympathy for the dentists actually and do get their difficulties. I would, however like to know what is going on in hospitals with so many delayed appointments, etc. Especially I'd like to know what hospital admin/outpatient staff have been doing throughout the pandemic. I assume every sheet of paper must now be filed and every missing bit of paperwork found![/quote]
Do you work?

I have worked throughout but the enormous disruption created a lot of extra work, I am still dealing with increased workload - even though covid stopped our core activity.

I know. I hate it. My mental health is at an all time low and I am deeply depressed and can't see a reason to get up everyday.

The joy has been taken out of everything. I plucked up the strength to go to a takeaway cafe yesterday, the server couldn't understand a word I was saying through my mask so she kept shouting at me.

I walked out.

@latticechaos with all due respect, coukd you please point out where I whinge or stomped my feet.

The whole thread is a whinge.

And complaining about relative job security is irrelevant to this. My DP has had no work since March. I can still understand why dentists are not open as normal.

Yes, I'd leave a place where someone was shouting, because shouting and singing are held to be more risky than speaking.

I work in cancer services, we carried on throughout, albeit with much smaller staffing as so many were deployed to covid work in the first month or so, also had a lot of sickness (no testing available for a long time) or vulnerable staff working from home. 30% of staff have tested positive for antibodies which shows how little protection most of us had both at work and travelling to work.

We restricted some high risk (increased exposure to covid or heavily immune suppressive) treatments during the peak but ONLY if benefits in doing so outweighed risks (life threatening treatment went ahead) and new recruitment to trials was halted. Surgical work did take a hit and we’re behind with procedures. Those things are getting back up and running again. Outpatient work is happening both by telephone and face to face. The latter is restricted as we’re expected to socially distance patients and there just isn’t room in the tiny waiting areas to run at the old capacity. Plus patients have to travel by public transport to get to us, potentially exposing them further.

The lockdown went on too long in my opinion but we are where we are. My relative is waiting for a non urgent hip replacement and just got scheduled so Hospital clinicians really are focussed on catching up.

GPs are a mixed bag. I’ve found some to be brilliant, will see patients in person. I even had one tell me off for bringing a patient to the hospital as she could have seen them (we needed to see them but I was glad she cared). On the other hand some GPs have refused to see patients in person or do home visits or even phone calls to palliative patients. We’ve also noticed some GPs asking patients to call us to manage conditions that they would have treated before the pandemic.

I'm done I think. I can cope without going to crowded places but I can't cope going so long without seeing loved ones. We've started having family over for visits now and then and we are hugging. We'll just pay fines if we have to, it's not like there is anything better to do with money now. We are meeting friends outdoors but the weather is going to get colder and wetter so we'll probably start indoors soon especially if the toddler groups don't restart.

That lockdown was one of the lowest points of my life.

I'm not blaming the NHS, I'm blaming the government for prioritising Covid over everything else. Why does someone with Covid take precedence over someone with something else for healthcare?

This is what I can't get my head around. We burrows a family member last week because his cancer treatment was cancelled, then pushed back and then they told him there was nothing they could do for him after months of waiting for treatment.
Why was his life less important? The hospitals here are basically empty. I know this because I know several people who work in the hospital. So why was his treatment cancelled, when there was absolutely no reason not to have him in hospital.

@Latticechaos "do I work?" Yes 12 hours a day at Director level trying to keep my institutuion afloat as noted in my post.

Perhaps I should ask "can you read?" Or "did you mean to be so rude?" "Or precisely ho do you think you are?" Or perhaps it just comes naturally to you if you are an HCP of some sort.

@KnobChops

I work in cancer services, we carried on throughout, albeit with much smaller staffing as so many were deployed to covid work in the first month or so, also had a lot of sickness (no testing available for a long time) or vulnerable staff working from home. 30% of staff have tested positive for antibodies which shows how little protection most of us had both at work and travelling to work.

We restricted some high risk (increased exposure to covid or heavily immune suppressive) treatments during the peak but ONLY if benefits in doing so outweighed risks (life threatening treatment went ahead) and new recruitment to trials was halted. Surgical work did take a hit and we’re behind with procedures. Those things are getting back up and running again. Outpatient work is happening both by telephone and face to face. The latter is restricted as we’re expected to socially distance patients and there just isn’t room in the tiny waiting areas to run at the old capacity. Plus patients have to travel by public transport to get to us, potentially exposing them further.

The lockdown went on too long in my opinion but we are where we are. My relative is waiting for a non urgent hip replacement and just got scheduled so Hospital clinicians really are focussed on catching up.

GPs are a mixed bag. I’ve found some to be brilliant, will see patients in person. I even had one tell me off for bringing a patient to the hospital as she could have seen them (we needed to see them but I was glad she cared). On the other hand some GPs have refused to see patients in person or do home visits or even phone calls to palliative patients. We’ve also noticed some GPs asking patients to call us to manage conditions that they would have treated before the pandemic.

Just wanted to add to my post.

Other treatments were restricted at the beginning, for reasons of capacity and minimising exposure to otherwise well or vulnerable patients, the entire hospital was meant to fill up with covid except for a few floors.

The hospital didn’t quite fill up as expected but It emptied out really quickly (the covid wave was over in a month). It has taken a while to get everything up and running. Initially because we had very limited testing capacity (couldn’t test any staff so any with symptoms had to take a week off, if they had a contact it was 2 weeks) or outpatients. We were working with restricted staffing, then couldn’t guarantee that patients wouldn’t be exposed. With the exception of a few services we’re pretty much back up and running normally now. I’m surprised to hear that lots of places aren’t.

[quote OhTheRoses]@Latticechaos "do I work?" Yes 12 hours a day at Director level trying to keep my institutuion afloat as noted in my post.

Perhaps I should ask "can you read?" Or "did you mean to be so rude?" "Or precisely ho do you think you are?" Or perhaps it just comes naturally to you if you are an HCP of some sort.[/quote]
Wow! You're very snippy. Maybe this herbal tea will calm you down.

I hadn't seen that when I posted, it was a neutral question.

I don't work in health btw, totally different field.

I can read, I sometimes miss things when reading threads at night though!

The issue is that with covid it can rise very rapidly. Yes 1183 is not huge, but what will it be in 3 weeks? In 6 weeks? Cancer, suicide, accidents, dementia, heart disease, sepsis are not contagious.

Except it hasn't been rising very rapidly despite people mixing extensively over the last few months. Restaurants, gyms, hotels open....no rise in deaths, so it isn't by any means that straightforward.

Oh and suicide is contagious actually. In a far more minimal way than this virus obviously, but it is contagious and rates have risen thanks to the last few months. And cancer isn't contagious but there is a significant concern around how many thousands of screenings and tests haven't been carried out in recent months too. I think we are going to be shocked a year from now by the significant rise in deaths from cancers that would usually be preventable. It just isn't an issue we can see at the moment. There are various oncologists on Twitter desperately trying to draw attention to this because they have more of a sense than most as to how catastrophic this will be. I was supporting a man through lockdown who had all his cancer treatment postponed - he had a wife with dementia to care for and absolutely everything was ditched bar phone appointments. There are lots of others with similar stories.

OP I think the odds are there is going to be a vaccine and for people in the UK it's looking like there will have been a mass vaccination programme by the winter of 2021 but I do agree with you in that lockdown dragged on too long and has done its own serious damage.

This exactly!

Except it hasn't been rising very rapidly despite people mixing extensively over the last few months

It did rise quite rapidly in the lockdown areas. If they hadn't locked back down (partially) it could have quickly escalated.

Ooh, I meant to include a quote from lattice chaos saying it needs more ( and better) government investment but that they won't do it!

@KnobChops I also work in cancer services and we continued as normal. There were a very small number of patients, no more than 5 that we paused treatment because they were so vulnerable. This was done in full discussion and agreement with patient/family. There’s a lot of anger now being directed at the nhs, honestly where I work, we pretty much carried on as normal but in much more difficult circumstances, fewer staff and no admin support.
All scans/ investigations/ surgery continued normal. The elective non cancer surgery was postponed. Outpatients was limited by numbers, we did lots of telephone/video consults, the patients have been happy so far. We saw everyone who needed to be face to face.

I've been attending hospital outpatients since July & clinics are empty, same for MRI as well, I could practically name the day & time I wanted, I went to the walk in phlebotomy clinic, I was the only one in there, usually you can expect at least an hour wait.

@RunningAwaywiththeCircus

Because no civilised society will stomach masses of people dying at home and being refused admission.

But this is precisely what the NHS did - it didn’t admit people who could still breathe well enough to talk to 111 (if they could get through). Some of those people died. (Admittedly it made an exception for that odious cretin Doris - more’s the fucking pity).

How many people have to die at home before we can agree that our health service is uncivilized?

And like a PP I am wondering what on earth admin staff are doing? We’re still on a waiting list to get on a waiting list for DS. I chased recently and a Karen from hospital admin tutted at me and just said he’s not even on the waiting list waiting list yet, “cos of Covid”. Try again in 3 months.

“Covid” is now a euphemism for “I can’t be fucked to do my job properly”. See also GP’s. (Or rather, don’t see them...)

Fair point.

This is a scandal that is yet to be fully discussed, of course (111's role in the pandemic).