How are things in hospitals?

[lingle]

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

Tia

@feesh

I live overseas, but regularly watch the ITV and BBC news. What I have found very odd and fascinating since the start of this pandemic, is the British media’s dramatic and sometimes upsetting capture of images from the very coalface (ie Covid wards) of overseas hospitals, but they never (or very rarely) do the same from the U.K. wards. When they are filming at a U.K. hospital, it’s nearly always broadcast in much more measured tones from outside the hospital. It’s weird.

It’s an effort not to ‘scare’ the population and our obsession with privacy laws.

I’m increasingly of the mind people need to see it - not that it’d do much good for those firmly bunkered down their rabbit holes.

Paeditiatrics here. Clusters of staff going off with covid more than in March time. No change in patients but we thankfully didn't see the same pattern as adult hospitals in March.....fingers crossed we are as lucky this time. Oh and a strong sense of impending doom.

According to Andy Burnham in press conference earlier GM hospitals ICU currently running at about 84% capacity which is similar to normal this time of year. Yes some hospitals in GM are full but in terms of the wider system (hospitals work together to even out capacity) they are not. Some other stuff being cancelled but not yet.

That sounds a bit too good to be true tbh.

@Frazzled2207

That sounds a bit too good to be true tbh.

Why? Because it doesn’t fit in with the media scaremongering and narrative from the lockdown fanatics on here that hospitals are overwhelmed?

The vast majority of hospitals are no busier than they would normally be at this time of year. We also have dozens of Nightingales with not a single patient in them.

If we can keep a lid on it over November, December and January, when the usual bed crisis in the NHS kicks in , we might just scrape through the worst of the Winter without too many unnecessary deaths.

We also have dozens of Nightingales with not a single patient in them

@Ecosse there are 10 across the whole of the UK , hardly dozens, but them being empty is a fair point.

@Northernsoulgirl45 thank you

Yes @ShinyGreenElephant I too wanted to say that I am sorry your grandmother is ill and I hope she recovers, and that your grandfather doesn’t also catch it. They sound lovely.

[quote Ecosse]@Frazzled2207

That sounds a bit too good to be true tbh.

Why? Because it doesn’t fit in with the media scaremongering and narrative from the lockdown fanatics on here that hospitals are overwhelmed?

The vast majority of hospitals are no busier than they would normally be at this time of year. We also have dozens of Nightingales with not a single patient in them.[/quote]
@Ecosse nightingales haven't got patients because they aren't open. No staff. Or did you think they were open with staff sat twiddling their thumbs? But that doesn't fit your narrative of the NHS you claim to know so much about but don't work in.

Don't claim that 'lockdown fanatics' are telling lies about hospitals. I work in one, it's far far busier than any other of my 18 years service. I don't want a lockdown but I do want my patients to receive proper care.

Nice to see you've stop saying we should all be conscripted and sent round the country so we aren't idle in Plymouth anymore 🙄. Just give up, everyone knows you know nothing about the NHS. Or at least name change and try again.

Ecosse please stop it.

DD2 had teeth out under GA last week. She had been waiting since October 2019. She was offered a slot in July, but we couldn't take it. The next slot was October.

They only had 2 on the operating list. They said it had been really hard to get things going with all the restrictions.

I'm sure they will be putting them all on hold again, though, as admissions go up.

I’m in Scotland and we have about 25 in hospital with covid and 3 in ITU. Lots of non covid work still going on thankfully as many patients have suffered greatly due to cancelled operations

SE my trust has just 2 positive patients however they do crop up in unexpected places, patients testing negative on admission then positive on re swab. We are busy in A&E and that is a direct result of people waiting too long for treatment or not able to access GP. My patients are now really sick and stay in hospital for much longer. We do also allow visitors.

Our icu is full, critical shortage of staff this evening due to Covid. My paramedic friend was on shift last night. 2 major hospitals nearby were closed for admissions and diverting to our hospital. Severely ill patients were sat outside in ambulances for 3 hours plus before they even got through the doors. My other friend has just disclosed 50% of nurses oN her ward have called in sick due to covid today and they’re probably going to have to close the ward. It’s critical and scary rolled in one.

@whatisgoingtohappen thank you. She made it through the night at least

ICU in the north, very busy, both covid and non covid. A hospital in a neighbouring town was struggling to cope yesterday. We were told that admissions would be diverted to our unit.
One thing that is noticeable this time round is the age range of covid patients, 40s to 60s, mostly male, our unit has predominantly male asian covid patients, but neighbouring area mainly white male.

Go onto Facebook to see people saying the figures are being manipulated and they know nobody with covid and I want to bang my head against a brick wall

Absolutely

I watched comments under a news post about a large West Yorkahire hospital last night on FB. A woman on there was spouting off about how she was waiting for an ambulance for her DH (non covid related) and why were they still waiting for it for hours, when her mate had just posted a snapchat of the hospitals "empty" A&E. She continued in this vein for quite some time. Ranting and raving. Getting loads of likes. This is huge hospital in a place that has consistently had high numbers since March

After a lull in her rants, she posted that they had eventually reached A&E, said she was posting from A&E and that "its packed out" and described scenes of chaos. Fair play to her for admitting she had been wrong, but what was worrying was the amount of people who had originally agreed with her that hospitals were empty, that there was no covid problem and a lockdown isnt necessary.

Nearly 150 positive patients, has been rising rapidly over past 2-3 weeks. Tier 3.

@Flaxmeadow

The vast majority of hospitals are not overwhelmed. There is ample capacity across the NHS, even before we get to the dozens of Nightingales lying empty.

We have staff off with confirmed COVID in 3/4 of our psychiatric inpatient wards now across the Trust with others having to also be isolating at home due to having been in close contact with the infected staff members. Bad times.

50% of our crisis team are self isolating also.

I think as a layperson the best(only?) data you can use to make a judgment is stuff like delays in scheduled operations.

All the rest, I am coming to think, requires at least a basic understanding of how hospitals are organised and how predictions are made.

Local trust has 160 Covid patients, 12 in ICU. The issue will be A&E bottlenecking as beds fill up (the one in one out situation so common in winter) and ICU capacity as numbers increase. They have 28 ICU beds, but generated 4 X this capacity in late March/April.

They cannot do this this time if they want to keep cancelled surgery going to clear the backlog, although the reality in winter for many trusts is that all but urgent surgery is cancelled and often urgent (not emergency) surgery is also cancelled. Also paediatric HDU/ICU's will be busier at this time of year so extra ventilators, beds and nurses used from these areas won't be available.

This time there are not extra doctors and nurses from GP settings, medical students, final year student nurses and community nurses to help manage staffing. Staff are having to isolate due to outbreaks in wards and also due to children developing symptoms in their households which was reduced before as schools were closed and also children tend to have respiratory viruses more often at this time of year anyway.

It is not so simple as we have the beds, they also need to specialist staff to make sure patients are safe. This has been a problem coming for a while due to experienced staff retiring, difficulty getting new staff into training, shortage of nurses and doctors, increasing age of population and increasing need for these services.

Regional workforce reports for intensive care www.ficm.ac.uk/local-engagements/reports

www.cc3n.org.uk/uploads/9/8/4/2/98425184/national_critical_care_nursing_and_outreach_workforce_survey_report_2018_final.pdf. National CC nursing workforce survey showing 8% vacancy rate in 2017.

Ruralish area of Scotland here. Hospital has less than 10 with suspected covid and