Did the Nightingale hospitals actually happen

[RunBackwards]

Or was that a figment of my imagination/some sort of weird hoax?

So they were built, yes? It was never clear (to me) how they were going to be staffed but they were apparently ready but never used. Yet our other hospitals are at breaking point and/or starting to cancel routine treatments again, in preparation for what's to come.

Why?

The Manchester one is reopening next week for rehab and recovery of COVID patients.

The others are mothballed, but apparently could be used. We know someone involved in one of them, and they had made an apparently workable staff rota for patient care, it just wasn't needed.

Not sure. We have one where I live and apparently it's getting ready to be used as Leeds hospitals are full and cant take anymore patients with the virus. ( source a friend who works in our local hospital).

I have seen so many sm posts about Covid 19 and things around it being hoaxes. It's actually worrying. I know frontline NHS workers and now, with the second wave - which is definitely happening - I know young people who have or have had it too.

Did you know there are Nightingale courts as well as hospitals now?

A lot of the staff in the nightingale hospitals and the covid wards in existing hospitals were redeployed from other departments. I've heard of several preparing to reopen, but I don't know how they're going to staff them as they want to try and keep other departments up and running this time, to try and catch up on the backlog of non-covid work.

All I know is they sucked up a lot of supplies from the NHS supply chain and places like hospices then struggled to get the basic stuff they need.
Lines for syringe pumps, laundry bags that dissolve for infected washing etc.
Stuff they wouldn't normally stockpile.
DoH took lots of clinical stores away to a supply chain that only major hospitals have access to, left the community teams and hospices pissing into The wind.

The one in Belfast was used last time and is already being used again.

They were definitely built. Just never used.

Yes they are built and ready for if/when we need them. It's a back up plan in case hospitals get overwhelmed. An actual sensible bit of forward planning. Thankfully we didn't need to use them last time infection rates rose but it looks like they will start to be needed now.

Of course they were built but they were never staffed (at all in some cases and inadequately in others). So without staff it is really hard to open them, but they could at best be used as field hospitals with skeleton and underqualified staff, but you definitely wouldn't want to end up in one if you were properly ill!

The Manchester one is reopening to be used for convalescence I think.

I also heard that staff was the reason they weren’t used before.

The one in Belfast wasn't used. It's just a few wards in the city hospital anyway. Most of the Belfast patients are in the Mater. Problem with them all is getting people to staff them.

Harrogate one at the end of my road looks pretty real.

The one in London was used, but patients admitted were already incubated. It didn’t have any operating theatres, which I understand is a problem as some with covid in hospital have existing conditions and have to be operated on.

@Unprecedentedusername

Harrogate one at the end of my road looks pretty real.

It is being used for MRI scanning isn't it?

@Ecosse

They were never used as hospitals were nowhere close to being overwhelmed. In fact nurses has time to film tiktok videos and use up PPE in some wards.

Yes, hospitals were overwhelmed. ICUs were massively expanded. Routine work was squeezed out. It’s happening again.

And what exactly is wrong with uploading morale boosting videos? Nurses (and indeed many other healthcare staff) regularly work unpaid overtime and do not get paid breaks, so it’s not as though their moments of free time were on the taxpayer.

Our local news up in Yorkshire reported that the Harrogate one was being put on standby last week.

They definitely exist.
The trouble is that we don’t have the staff.
Also a large proportion of people needing a hospital bed with Covid are seriously ill with something else and require access to different care/multi care.

'They were never used as hospitals were nowhere close to being overwhelmed. In fact nurses has time to film tiktok videos and use up PPE in some wards'

I must have imagined the patients that were admitted to the Manchester Nightingale then.

The hospitals may have coped but that's because they stopped doing so much of their regular work, as is happening again now. If the Nightingales are fit for purpose, why not use them so routine appointments can be kept?

I must also have imagined the massive amount of my colleagues/ex colleagues in theatres across Manchester that were redeployed to quickly expanded ICU's, most of whom had zero ICU experience, all of whom found it an awful and incredibly difficult experience.

There was a period where things were quiet for some staff in elective areas, it was when cases/admissions were climbing rapidly and everywhere was being reorganised, equipment being transported, people being redeployed with a days notice.

Hope you enjoyed the Tick Tock videos mind, @ecosse. How many NHS/Covid threads have you spouted this rubbish on now?

@CovidClara I doubt it would be used for for MRI, as (geek fun fact) the machines need to be in strictly temperature and humidity (and probably other stuff I don't understand) controlled rooms - it's one of the most expensive methods of diagnostics available, partly because of how controlled the environment it is housed in, has to be, so I wouldn't think it made sense to move it to an alternative, not purpose built facility. I got curious and Googled and didn't really find a definitive answer- it seems to have been used lightly for some non urgent (actually the wording was non important ) tests.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-53819935

I have reported Ecosse as I am sick of the copy paste shit on every Covid thread. Either a bot or an idiot.

I'd like to know what happened when the government called for anyone who could make a ventilator to make one. Were they inundated with ventilators which are now not being used as a lot of covid patients fare better on CPAP ?