What happens when the hospitals reach capacity?

[rainytreeleaves]

Just reading about NI nearly reaching bed capacity and a few places in the north as well. Hospital in Londonderry saying they are in a worse state than in the spring.

The hospital that I work in has been on black alert all week. The covid ward is full, no other wards can be repurposed as everywhere is full and (from tracing they believe) community transmission and via asymptomatic staff, there is a mass outbreak on our care of the elderly ward. Lots of staff self isolating so unsafe shifts and lots of patients infected. Also those elderly patients aren't now leaving to free beds up and no elderly patients can be admitted there for specialist input. It's a total mess.

Our local nightingale can't open as they don't have anyone to staff it. They are literally begging people throughout our region to go on the bank to staff it but there's not enough trained staff available.

I'm just not sure what will happen next....we are worse now than the spring. Slightly less covid so far but much greater bed need in general and more general transmission throughout making working really difficult.

If the nightingales are empty for lack of staff I'd imagine they will increase the rate of pay to the point it becomes attractive for agency workers. Everyone has a price.

This terrifies me, DP is having a Whipple's soon and without he'll die. My biggest fear is that they will close the hospitals before he gets his chance to live.

They start prioritising treatment for the young and healthy. They assess people based on a "frality score". Disabled people are told to remain at home and won't be treated.

Nice guidelines passed early on in the pandemic.

www.nice.org.uk/news/article/nice-updates-rapid-covid-19-guideline-on-critical-care

Well if it's staffing issues it looks like it's time for the government to conscript nonworking and part time nurses and doctors of working age to work full time (or make up their hours to full time) in the nightingale hospitals at usual rates of pay.

conscript?

I don’t think nurses, etc can be forced to work.

If you follow your own link it is clear that it's not as simple as 'those with disabilities' will be turned away.

"clinicians working in critical care should be aware of the limitations of using the CFS tool as the sole assessment of frailty. The CFS should not be used in younger people, people with stable long-term disabilities (for example, cerebral palsy), learning disabilities or autism. An individualised assessment is recommended in all cases where the CFS is not appropriate"

@StatisticalSense

Well if it's staffing issues it looks like it's time for the government to conscript nonworking and part time nurses and doctors of working age to work full time (or make up their hours to full time) in the nightingale hospitals at usual rates of pay.

😂😂

There are approx 1278 hospitals in the uk.. And 4323 in hospital with covid

That works out at less than 4 cases per hospital

They will have to look at their continue as normal at all costs policy, then tackle where this is actually spreading.

Very worrying. The obvious thing that can be done is cancelling all routine surgery which is awful but in the short term should free up beds?

My understanding is that back in March pretty much everything was cancelled which freed up a lot

Also right now the spread is not even throughout the UK so there maybe a possibility to move people to other parts of the country? Again not ideal at all.

It’s not about rate of pay or ‘conscription’

We lost 80% of our team to proven covid during wave 1. They were out of action for weeks. The rest of us worked like nothing on earth to carry on providing the service on 20% staff. There was no capability to move staff off to cover the nightingale too. We were already working a 1in 2 plus in hours plus covering all the missing staff’s work.

Disappointingly very few of us have antibodies so can’t count on it not happening again.

It was horrible. Since then we’ve been flat out trying to deal with the people with late presenting cancers and other serious conditions that stayed at home (like Boris said they should). And now it’s wave 2.

To solve the problem at source, it means closure of all leisure venues, possibly non-essential shops, ban on household mixing etc. Whatever you need to do to stop transmission. Even with that, number of admissions will continue to rise for a couple of weeks.

What will happen if the number of people needing admission literally cannot be accommodated? Some of them won’t be admitted, but will receive minimal palliative care at home. Much like would have happened if we had let the virus rip in March.

If people's lives mattered to this Government
they would not have systematically underfunded the NHS for ten years

If lives really mattered to the Government
they would have kept Nurse trainees on bursaries not loans

If health really mattered to this Government they would have excluded all health care workers from their shitty hostile environment visa rules

but hey
you knew what you were voting for in December 2019
and June 2016
own it

@frasersmummy

There are approx 1278 hospitals in the uk.. And 4323 in hospital with covid

That works out at less than 4 cases per hospital

We've got more than 4 and we're not in a high rate area! Tbh, it's not the covid on its own, it's the everything else that's filling up and it's really to have both under one roof.

If you already work full time, you just don't have the time to staff the nightingales. They need full time workers who can provide a proper service not just lots of randoms doing the odd shift, that leads to really poor governance.

@Frazzled2207

Very worrying. The obvious thing that can be done is cancelling all routine surgery which is awful but in the short term should free up beds?

My understanding is that back in March pretty much everything was cancelled which freed up a lot

Also right now the spread is not even throughout the UK so there maybe a possibility to move people to other parts of the country? Again not ideal at all.

Yes, EVERYTHING bar risk to life to cancelled in the spring and no one came to hospital through fear. We won't have that this time.

Has flu reared its ugly head this year yet - is it adding to hospitals filling? Or still too early for that?

Conscript nurses and doctors too funny

You may find people being moved to hospitals well out of their area

I had to look up conscript - 🤣🤣 totally laughable!

Not just doctors and nurses. You need HCAs, physios, OT, SALT, dietitians, phlebotomists, radiographers, pharmacists, discharge coordinators, ward clerks, consultants and juniors....the list goes on. Can't open a hospital without them all.

More people will die.
The average age of death will decrease.
More people will be left to die.

So basically, nothing good.

@frasersmummy

There are approx 1278 hospitals in the uk.. And 4323 in hospital with covid

That works out at less than 4 cases per hospital

4323 today, but it's not going to stay at 4323 is it. Exponential growth.

Conscription shouldn't have been the first option but the reason it needs to be considered are the large number of qualified nurses, who are either happily working their part time hours and who are unwilling to work a single second of overtime or who aren't working in any capacity despite being able to do so, who chose not to volunteer for extra duties when the carrot was offered so now need to be brought into the fold using the stick. When the country pays (I realise a small number of the most recently qualified were not funded) for your education for the good of society and you refuse to use that education to your full capability when it could save lives during a global pandemic you are being extremely selfish.

As a vulnerable family this really scares me. Will it be all over the news when hospitals are reaching capacity? I’m worried that it will be hushed up like cases in schools seem to be. I want to take my children out of school and baton down the hatches but people just keep telling me I’m worrying too much.