What is the real situation in hospitals?

[Purplehaze34]

It’s hard to tell from the media and I have no friends or family who work for the NHS.

Does anyone work in a hospital? What is it like regarding the Covid situation there? Are ICUs/critical care extremely busy?

[MissAHannigan]

If someone comes to hospital for one thing, e.g. they've fallen and broken their leg but are found to have covid on admission what happens? Do hospitals have separate facilities for treating patients like this?

[Cailleach]

Was in a Gynae ward last week for an emergency op - asked the staff how things were across the rest of the hospital and they said that their main issue was staff sickness. Otherwise things were "bad but not desperate" in ICU. It was much worse earlier in the year, apparently .

This is in South Yorkshire.

[ptumbi]

DP works in a hospital, SE, low numbers here. He says we have 12 Covid cases atm, none on ventilators.

At least, that was the situ on Thursday when we last had the conversation, we talk more about the Shitshow Brexit coming up - where the medicines, much less any vaccine, can't get into the country. The ports are already clogged up and blocking imports NOW, and this is before the paperwork needed to come into Britain which comes into force on 1st Jan (the paperwork is unlikely to be approved before MidMarch...)

[IrmaFayLear]

MissAHannigan - that's my question too.

What if someone tests positive on the maternity ward? Or the cancer ward? Presumably if there's a private room available they can isolate them in there, but if there are several what do they do?

I have to go to hospital this week and I am nervous about covid positive people trundling around the hospital [scared face]

[PiccalilliChilli]

Friend of DH, an A&E doctor, works in a south London hospital. Reports he's never had so much time on his hands.

[ChasingRainbows19]

The hospital current series on bbc 1 is hoping the difficulties in housing covid patients and keeping services run.

This article is interesting. Bolton was hit hard with positive a month or two ago and now the hospital is very busy. Obviously if in a an area that’s not had as high cases it may not be this bad.... 150 patients is potentially 6 wards just for one illness.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/royal-bolton-hospital-second-wave-frontline_uk_5fae823ec5b663b496db6b0b

[goldenharvest]

Local hospital ICU now almost full of covid patients as well as respiratory ward. It's not good.

[QueenCoral]

Southwest here. Our hospital has 70 covid patients. Lots of staff beginning to get it or isolating due to household members having it or needing to take time off as school bubbles burst.

[TheDogsMother]

I've waited four months to get a telephone consultation with a specialist in a Surrey hospital and my face to face appointment with him is in three months time (non urgent thankfully). During the phone call he said 'its very strange because we seem to be seeing hardly anyone right now'. Someone I know was speaking to a surgeon from our local hospital in Sussex. As of three weeks ago they had one Covid patient and they weren't on a ventilator. Unfortunately cases appear to be climbing everywhere but I think its a very mixed bag.

[sallysparrow157]

I work in paeds ICU, it’s interesting how the mix of respiratory viruses has changed this winter - loads of rhinovirus and almost no RSV - presumably due to social distancing and how various viruses are transmitted. Adult ICU and the medical wards are very busy with covid, our nurses are frequently being redeployed to help out.
It varies from area to area. In the north west the first peak was later and smaller than London but it never completely went away before rising again this autumn. Also I think the NHS is used to working with bed capacity issues - we’ve always triaged patients in the ambulances on busy days where there’s been no room in a&e, kept icu patients in theatre recovery/cancelled elective cases cause icu is full etc - it’s just happening on a bigger scale, so the nhs is coping and getting on with it

[Ginfilledcats]

@IrmaFayLear re maternity and +ve cases, in my hospital (that I work in and gave birth in in the summer) they had repurposed one of the postnatal wards as covid only ward, and some of the labour rooms as covid rooms. In summer they had barely been used (but I think that's because at the time the guidance was pretty much all pregnant women in 3rd trimester to isolate at home. Don't know what it's like now!

[Ginfilledcats]

@sallysparrow157 I second what you've written. Currently on mat leave but worked in medicine in small local north west hospital. Always had bed crises and icu demand but it's on a larger, scarier and unrelenting scale with this. Also much higher staff absence due to covid, isolating, childcare when kids are sent home from school, and sadly now burn out and stress too.

Hope you're doing ok Sally! X

[PandemicAtTheDisco]

There are covid infection hotspots across the country.

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map

Hull has high levels of infection (dark purple areas) - some in thousands.

The hospitals are busier in dark purple areas but as infection rates vary across the country - there are many hospitals in areas of lower infection levels that have available beds and other resources. Beds have been freed to handle covid surges. I think they are managing.

There is a calmer feeling in the two hospitals I've been in this last week. A friend with non-covid health issues got a bed straight away in a hospital in a covid hotspot. She was the only patient in a 6 bed room.

[wonkylegs]

NE - busier than they'd like but less than they were anticipating they can cope but it's stressful.
DH is back on the CV19 ward rota which means they are cutting back on elective work
He says the numbers are higher than they would like in order to be able to cope with other work which is a worry and puts pressure on them being able to catch up with the backlog this sustained pressure has had on the service over the year.
They've had outbreaks in the hospital which has put pressure as they now have big staff shortages in some departments.
They can run at 100% but it's exhausting and stressful and the cracks are showing.

[HakeCod]

The vast majority of hospitals are no busier than they usually would be at this time of year.

[LMW1990]

West Yorkshire here. We are full. ICU, acute respiratory, critical care. We're fighting for more staff. It's a dire situation

[Toddlerteaplease]

@sallysparrow157 yes. I've noticed the lack of RSV this year. Last year was so bad that my surgical ward had two 'bronch' bays. And picu was rammed with them. This year every single patient in PICU is a long termer and no bronchs

[Toddlerteaplease]

I've also noticed that 70 is the average number of patients in our ED. Pre Covid it was rarely below 120.

[LottieDot]

Sorry a really naïve and silly question but if some hospitals are super busy and others are quiet - can they not redistribute patients? Or does that risk outbreaks in the quieter hospitals?

[PrayingandHoping]

@LottieDot our trust has set up a "covid safe" hospital where no covid patients are treated. I hope all trusts are doing this as it makes patients like my vulnerable baby much safer to have their appointments

As a parent of a baby who have an RSV/Bronc baby in PICU last Christmas I hope those on this thread continue to have a better season than last year where getting a PICU bed in a hospital close to home was pure luck as they were all so rammed!!! We were lucky we did get one 1 hr away (in our region).

[LargeProsecco]

ICU here is at double capacity - in a tier 3 hospital in the east of Scotland where cases are fairly low.

I have heard of treble capacity recently in some of the tier 3 hospitals in the west. I suspect these will move on to tier 4/lockdown as they are under so much pressure.

[amicissimma]

There are 223 trusts in England with 1257 hospitals. Not all are general or acute hospitals, but there are still a lot. So you would expect quite a big difference in busyness under any circumstances. In January 2017 the papers were full of the fact that 23 trusts were on 'black alert'.

[Pomegranatespompom]

We’re on red - ie no beds. Not unusual tbh.
We have ward areas within different specialties for + patients, ie cancer services/ cardiac etc

[ChasingRainbows19]

My trust has been in and out of black and red status for months now, not just covid related. Covid has made things very difficult logistically to keep people safe and keep things going as long as possible, but as patients increase more services are stopping as beds and/or staff needed.

Yes hospitals are always often very busy
this time of year. However this is a different busy. Taking up lots of beds all for one illness, staffing is a massive issue with covid positives, isolations and also staff off sick with other things besides covid. The weather is mild and winter bugs aren’t as prevalent yet.

[Toddlerteaplease]

@LottieDot some patients, you can move. But the very sick ones, not very easily. And moving patients along way from home is horrible for the patients. We take patients from all the surrounding district general hospitals. And one of them is a 90 minute drive away. And we don't provide transport to get you home again except in exceptional circumstances.