How are things in hospitals?

Greysparkles · 29/10/2020 22:02

but you get truer reports here I think

Well, that's debatable

Redolent · 29/10/2020 22:09

Depends on the hospital.

Here’s a heatmap of covid occupancy in every NHS trust:

mobile.twitter.com/LawrenceDunhill/status/1321818453406326788/photo/1

This is the situation in Blackburn, part of East Lancashire Trust, and just outside the top 10:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=nrue4AoEuGg

Original poster

lingle · 29/10/2020 22:11

Thanks redolent.

I just like crowdsourcing answers so this is where I like to ask

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PurpleDaisies · 29/10/2020 22:13

@lingle

I realise I can watch the news but you get truer reports here I think.

Tia

Based on what?

BikerWife · 29/10/2020 22:13

Doncaster and bassetlaw hospitals post a FB update most days on their public page and I know a few other trusts do the same.

I'm in a neighbouring area and our icu is bad, worst it has been with covid but our covid ward isn't as busy or as harrowing at it was april/may

JacobReesMogadishu · 29/10/2020 22:13

Pretty shit. Smallish hospital in a Lvl 1 area with over 40 current covid positive patients in the hospital. Visiting has just been suspended again.

Original poster

lingle · 29/10/2020 22:15

That’s very helpful link redolent, many thanks.

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shitonitbambinos · 29/10/2020 22:32

Awful in mine. Tier 1 area.

3 covid wards all full (so 3 speciality wards that can't admit to them as they don't exist anymore). Patients lining up with nowhere to go (not just covid, there just isn't any move,ent in the hospital due to covid wards displacing everything). Outbreaks on non covid wards. Huge amount of staff sickness (not just covid. Lots of self isolation / contacts and lots with stress). Redeployment will probably need to happen soon - we've started standing down all meetings, outpatients that are routine, some surgery (surgical ward is covid now) and expect it to get worse.

It's hideous tbh. Not the role I signed up for and most of my colleagues are retiring early or leaving as it's just too much.

SauvignonGrower · 29/10/2020 22:36

Best friend works in large south coast hospital so Tier 1. Said everything was manageable until two weeks ago but since then it's started to get crazy with COVID admissions displacing other patients in need of care.

I was pretty skeptical about tightening of lockdown until very recently but I've come to accept we are heading for a bad place again.

Madhairday · 29/10/2020 22:42

I'm so sorry @shitonitbambinos. That sounds hideous and so stressful for you and your team.

Original poster

lingle · 29/10/2020 22:42

We have 3 hospitals that friends work in. It was very variable during the first lockdown. One paediatrician with lowest ever workload. One other forced out of own speciality (gastro)into Covid in an area that stayed bad till July and is bad again.
And another friend has late-diagnosed cancer which normally gastro-dr would have been diagnosing but her team has been at half usual size.
That’s all I know

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Original poster

lingle · 29/10/2020 22:43

Purple -crowdsourcing.

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Enoughnowstop · 29/10/2020 22:45

Bad. Local hospital is stopping other surgeries now. Tier 3 area.

MostDisputesDieAndNoOneShoots · 29/10/2020 22:53

Friend who’s a paramedic says the last three weeks have felt like the first few weeks of March and things are bad again. Colleagues who’ve already had confirmed Covid have it again, so the antibody thing clearly doesn’t last. We are in a tier 2 area but based on that heat map are about 8th in the U.K. for hospital occupancy.

Lavenderseas · 29/10/2020 22:59

Are you a news reporter, op?

honkytonkheroe · 29/10/2020 23:01

Apparently our hospital has 3 patients with coronavirus in it. Was 2 and 1 admitted last night. I work for a construction company who works in the hospital (large town in the South West) and the Project Manager based there is giving us far to regular updates. He is practically living for the current situation, talks about nothing else with a real sense of importance and is absolutely living his best life.

GreenPlum · 29/10/2020 23:05

Leeds hospitals are at 98% capacity according to the chief exec on the news this evening. They currently have more covid patients than they did in April.
I think that's largely why West Yorkshire went up to tier 3.

RedToothBrush · 29/10/2020 23:13

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54718318
Coronavirus doctor's diary: 'Our hospital could soon be overwhelmed'

Doctor has been doing diary for bbc since March plus two other doctors:

We have 130 in-patients acutely ill with Covid-19, overtaking our peak at Easter. Fifty patients were admitted in the space of 48 hours. The pressures of finding beds and staff are huge. Over 200 staff are off sick and the school half term has compounded the situation as our clinicians take much-needed breaks or just child-mind at home.

And

This means the pressures on the hospital are different but as big and as worrying as they were in the first wave. Modelling shows if we continue on present trends, in three to four weeks we will have filled every bed in the hospital. What do we do after that?

Heat map of % covid patients in Bradford (where doctors in the article are from) seem to show Bradford is probably a week to ten days behind the worst hospitals atm - though numbers of cases in Liverpool seem to be dropping slightly.

But anywhere above Bradford on that list i'd be particularly worried about having an issue and soon.

Ive been keeping an eye on the numbers in the northwest and how much bullshit / politics theres been about capacity. It still seems under the radar in the worst places because the row about Greater Manchester got in the way.

My concern has been about running out of beds full stop and one of the consultants in the article above is genuinely concerned about this.

Everyone keeps talking about the wrong things - the bed shortage is the only relevant story at this point. This is the pinch point issue.

Original poster

lingle · 29/10/2020 23:19

“Are you a news reporter, op?”

Did you mean to be so rude? Try the search function then tell me the odds of lingle retraining as a journalist......

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Original poster

lingle · 29/10/2020 23:20

“He is practically living for the current situation, talks about nothing else with a real sense of importance and is absolutely living his best life. grin”

Lol thanks for the light relief :)

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Original poster

lingle · 29/10/2020 23:27

Not sure if this is light relief but one of my friends’ minor but irritating problems is that her male colleague (does exactly the same job) keeps leaving her to do the work whilst he heads off talk to the bbc again.

Which is another reason I ask on here.

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dollychopss · 29/10/2020 23:30

They are full but no more full than last year that is in the south

dollychopss · 29/10/2020 23:31

@shitonitbambinos

Awful in mine. Tier 1 area.

3 covid wards all full (so 3 speciality wards that can't admit to them as they don't exist anymore). Patients lining up with nowhere to go (not just covid, there just isn't any move,ent in the hospital due to covid wards displacing everything). Outbreaks on non covid wards. Huge amount of staff sickness (not just covid. Lots of self isolation / contacts and lots with stress). Redeployment will probably need to happen soon - we've started standing down all meetings, outpatients that are routine, some surgery (surgical ward is covid now) and expect it to get worse.

It's hideous tbh. Not the role I signed up for and most of my colleagues are retiring early or leaving as it's just too much.

Awful to hear ! Sorry x

Watermelon999 · 29/10/2020 23:43

@shitonitbambinos

Awful in mine. Tier 1 area.

3 covid wards all full (so 3 speciality wards that can't admit to them as they don't exist anymore). Patients lining up with nowhere to go (not just covid, there just isn't any move,ent in the hospital due to covid wards displacing everything). Outbreaks on non covid wards. Huge amount of staff sickness (not just covid. Lots of self isolation / contacts and lots with stress). Redeployment will probably need to happen soon - we've started standing down all meetings, outpatients that are routine, some surgery (surgical ward is covid now) and expect it to get worse.

It's hideous tbh. Not the role I signed up for and most of my colleagues are retiring early or leaving as it's just too much.

Same here @shitonitbambinos

We are tier 3 and have more positive patients now than ever in the first peak.

Lots of experienced staff opting for retirement...can understand that completely.

Routine services suspended already and redeployments which is ramping up staff anxiety and stress.

DougRossIsTheBoss · 30/10/2020 00:00

It's a worry about staffing in this second wave. Sure you can build more hospitals but without staff you can't run them.

Lots of staff agreed to come out of retirement the last time and there was a lot of good will towards the NHS but it seems like there is none of that blitz spirit this time. You can only keep it up so long and people are burnt out.

With the evidence of increased risk to BAME staff we now have and the deaths there have been I actually would not want to see some of my recently retired colleagues back at work. Older Asian male Drs would
be taking a huge risk.

I was willing to put life on hold and just focus solely on work the first time but I don't feel like I can do it all over again. Things never went back entirely to normal. There has been low level stress all the time even recently with worrying if there will be a case or an outbreak, constantly trying to adhere to ever changing policies etc etc. Services were only just starting to catch up and now it looks like it will all have to be disbanded again. It's just so depressing and demoralising.