Nightingales

[Bouncycastle12]

Why is there so much emphasis on hospitals filling up but nothing about shifting people to the Nightingale hospitals? Are they all mothballed? What was the point in them?

I’m confused by that too. I guess they don’t have the staff?
I was under the impression they were on standby. But I guess staffing is an issue because they would then take staff away from ‘normal nhs business’ which is the bigger problem. Which is why we don’t want our ‘main’ hospitals to over fill

But if they don’t have the staff, what was the point in building them?

@Bouncycastle12

But if they don’t have the staff, what was the point in building them?

You might well ask.

They’re readying them again at the mo. Our local one is being prepared right now.

@Bouncycastle12

But if they don’t have the staff, what was the point in building them?

Because then they could say they'd built them, and impress people.

And probably also so they could slip a couple of billion quid of public money to their mates under the guise of "preparing hospitals".*

• disclaimer: I have no proof of this

They are a last defence. If things become so bad that the hospitals are over flowing then they will be used. Staff will be minimal but so care virtually non existant innthem and in hospitals but it will be somewhere to take the sick

I think they would run with medical students, student nurses and a few qualified staff and offer minimal palliative care only.

Our hospitals will be expected to staff the Nightingale, and this will be a last resort after opening every available area and cancelling planned surgery. At that point I wouldn't say we will be staffing safely. We will be below minimum staffing ratios, and of course our staff will be massively impacted by covid personally and for their families.

A consultant I know described the Nightengales as field medicine

I think the point wa they could be run as giant infectious disease hospitals, with many ITU staff being moved over as they filled, plus surge capacity staff.

Leaving other hospitals able to do 'clean' non-Covid work

Having worked in one it is basically a field hospital, no facilities, minimal equipment, staffed mainly through retirees, NHSP, school nurses, health visitors etc. No one wants to be there unless it is absolutely necessary, the quality of care and outcomes would be far below what it would be in a proper hospital.

Apparently the Manchester one is being prepared and will be ready in a week (HCP journalist on Twitter). No idea where the staff will come from though (I thought Manchester hospitals were already short staffed, hence recent headlines about 'running out of beds' but it wasn't so much a bed shortage but a staffing one?)

'Apparently the Manchester one is being prepared and will be ready in a week'

It is, I had a call today asking me to return (I won't, we have a staffing crisis where I am now) The majority of nursing staff will come from NHSP (provider of bank staff to the NHS) they will poach a few from local hospitals too.

Nightingale Birmingham was being readied last month to re-open: www.standard.co.uk/news/health/birmingham-nightingale-hospital-high-alert-reopen-a4550886.html

Frankly they are not yet open because hospitals are not yet overwhelmed across the vast majority of the country. Even in Manchester, ICU occupancy is where it usually would be at this time of year.

This second wave looks to be a lot more regionalised so there should be ample opportunity to move NHS staff to where they are needed around the country. We cannot have nurses sitting idle in Plymouth when they could be staffing Birmingham nightingale.

Shielding should also be reintroduced on a voluntary and funded basis to reduce hospital admissions where necessary.

@Ecosse

Frankly they are not yet open because hospitals are not yet overwhelmed across the vast majority of the country. Even in Manchester, ICU occupancy is where it usually would be at this time of year.

This second wave looks to be a lot more regionalised so there should be ample opportunity to move NHS staff to where they are needed around the country. We cannot have nurses sitting idle in Plymouth when they could be staffing Birmingham nightingale.

Shielding should also be reintroduced on a voluntary and funded basis to reduce hospital admissions where necessary.

"cannot have nurses sitting idle"

Sorry what? You know nurses still work if they're not treating covid patients. And really damn hard. They're not sitting there thinking "ah great there aren't many covid patients, I can just get back to doing absolutely nothing all day"

What an offensive insinuation to the extremely hard working nurses that the nhs are lucky to have !

All of my clinical team have been recalled on standby for the Harrogate one, so things are moving. The problem is the government will be under pressure to only utilise them for what they were intended. But during this period hospitals start to clog up anyway due to winter pressures. There will be many patients who are effectively an excess bed day because they cannot go into intermediate care, or perhaps into a care home. The solution could be to shift some of these patients into the nightingales, but then that would create speculation that the nhs is at breaking point and there would be a media frenzy. So, they can only currently be used by Covid patients, and at the moment hospitals seem to be coping.

Love the idea that nurses are sitting idle!

I'm not sure how many of them (plus Drs, HCAs, cleaners, security etc) are volunteering to leave their families and get shifted around the country - even Boris hasn't the brass neck to suggest this!
I guess we could ask the EU?

It shouldn’t be about volunteering @goisey. I think the government should amend NHS contracts to allow staff to be temporarily relocated across the country where needed.

Of course the government should provide all necessary accommodation and childcare to the relocated staff.

Many staff in different industries are expected to relocate for a few weeks according to business need.

When DH was a trainee solicitor he arrived in the office on a Monday morning to be told to go and back as he was relocating for a month.

They've never been staffed. Don't get excited about the nightingales, they won't make any difference.

But the hospitals are not “filling up”. At least not the ICU wards. They are not much busier than they would normally be. The Nightingales are supposed to be for ventilated patients. They are not needed.

@UnmentionedElephantDildo

I think the point wa they could be run as giant infectious disease hospitals, with many ITU staff being moved over as they filled, plus surge capacity staff.

Leaving other hospitals able to do 'clean' non-Covid work

Agree with this entirely.

Did they ever have sufficient staff? If not, why did they build them? Just a massive exercise in gaslighting?

@Bouncycastle12

But if they don’t have the staff, what was the point in building them?

PR ....so the UK could say they built a 4000 bed hospital quicker than the Chinese, the fact they had a building ready to go and only ever had 500 beds ready (but no staff) gets ignored.

@Ecosse Keeps banging on about moving nurses around the UK but forgets that Derriford in Plymouth shuts all elective surgery on a regular basis during the winter period (some ES gets done across the road in the 'Nuffield) its AE will often treat patients in corridors too.

My mum had a stroke in june, pre covid, Derriford had little to no space, Ecosse is talking out of her arse.

110k vacancies in the NHS, over 40k nursing ones, the idea nurses are standing around on their phones is very wrong and frankly insulting.

Not this again about moving nurses around the country. They are not Land Girls! Plus they are at risk from catching the virus themselves.

Ecosse has got a right bee in its bonnet about nurses sitting idle and rants about it on lots of threads!

@janetmendoza

Ecosse has got a right bee in its bonnet about nurses sitting idle and rants about it on lots of threads!

Ecosse is a bee in a bonnet