My local hospital is overwhelmed

[WeirdWomble]

Local hospital has tonight said that is struggling with the number of covid 19 patients and is asking people to think carefully whether they actually need to go to hospital.

I'm so worried. Surely the Christmas mixing when we're already in trouble is going to be an absolute disaster?

The vaccine has been such good news yet it still feels like we've got so much further to go.

Not sure why I'm posting, just needed to vent

@OpheliasCrayon

Because Boris doesn't have the guts to do what the right thing is.

Too worried about his own political reputation to actually cancel Christmas.

I'm no Boris fan - but Wales is devolved. The decisions about management of the NHS and COVID restrictions have been down to Drakeford et al.

Dm local hospital was closed to being overwhelmed few weeks ago. They started discharging people very early, in my opinion. Well I’m only basing it on my dsis. She had surgery and they sent her home 48hr after it. Even though she at that time could only lift her head of the bed with assistance (my other dsis took annual leave to help care for her).

During that admission they had also kept her in emergency short stay bay for three days while they were looking for a bed for her.

My DD works for the county council in adult social care, and they are having massive issues with care homes taking in new patients from the main county hospital. So a lot of elderly patients are bed-blocking as they can't be discharged - which happens every winter only this year it's much worse earlier on.

The NHS was already failing in the winter - hence the "Covid only" treatment policy that's currently happening.

We were saying this back in the north September/October/november. The replies were oh well we are very low on covid in these parts, very few cases etc. ‘People in the north aren’t ill owing the rules.’

Our peak was probably late October/November and cases in hospital were finally dropping a little in the last few weeks. A&e is still consistently busy with other things besides covid and despite covid decreasing are still seeing positive cases all the time.

Yes winter is normally a shit show in the nhs I’ve worked 15 of them. Not enough beds, ambulances queuing etc. Always on black or red alert for beds. However it was very rare to have that happen so early in the year. Logistically covid is a nightmare.

The hospital is full despite cancelling planned non urgent. (Trusts are using private facilities for cancer etc)

We don’t normally need several wards for just flu. Which we know how to treat. Flu patients are often isolated and cohosted like covid is. Patients can be swabbed for flu. But they never take up this much space all at once. Luckily social distancing etc and has helped with flu so far this year ( in my area anyway!)

Covid patients are thankfully receiving better known treatments and earlier but that this often means longer stays so beds don’t become available. Lots are elderly who need safe places to return to. Care homes rightly don’t want positive patients back but people can test positive for weeks.( latest thoughts are not contagious at this point)

Critical care beds need to be separate from normal icu. Trusts have created extra capacity but not always extra staff available. These staff need to be highly trained and skilled to nurse vented and sick patients.

Staffing is dire, off sick, isolating, long term impacts of covid including mental health, kids isolating etc. Agency staff being used but even struggling to fill those posts, surprisingly not everyone wants to work on a covid ward.

So yes the NHS is always bad in winter but this is a pandemic and is very different to that normal that we are used to and can just get on with it.

@unicornparty

I saw something today that said SAGE were begging the Government to reconsider the Xmas 3 bubble idea as it's too risky. Wonder if they'll listen.

Also seen this but I think the truth is people will stop listening to the government if they keep changing the rules (which frankly is happening anyway ). Best to give people a bit of freedom to make their own decisions over Christmas as long as it comes with a warning IMO.

The biggest issue this government is facing (well apart from brexit) is lack of trust.

@ImAllOut the rules for Christmas are exactly the same across the whole UK.
3 households in Christmas bubble.
Including Wales.

[quote poshme]@ImAllOut the rules for Christmas are exactly the same across the whole UK.
3 households in Christmas bubble.
Including Wales. [/quote]
Sorry I was responding to a PP who was talking about 3 households already meeting, not the planned Christmas rules relaxation.

Ah ok

There are lots of things adding to winter pressures this year. NHS staff are home testing twice a week so asymptomatic cases are being picked up. That is great but means that in a team of just 7 Occupational Therapists, I have 3 off this next week with asymptomatic Covid. Add to that 4 X F1's on our Covid ward all positive this week. Add to that care homes and Care Agencies saying they will not accept patient home until they test negative( despite evidence being that you won't be contagious after 10-14 days and that you can test positive for up to 90 days post Covid) . We had got to a point earlier in the year where we had Covid results prior to warding patients but now admissions are increasing, they are having to take chances and ward patients on non Covid wards if they have no symptoms and awaiting test results. These sometimes then return positive and then the whole bay of patients had to be treated as exposed to Covid so all of those patients have to be discharged before bay can be deep cleaned and start taking new patients. So a 6 bedded bay might just have 2 patients left and they might be from a nursing home that won't have them back. It is a logistical nightmare!!

People will mix at Christmas regardless of any rules. The police cannot monitor that amount. But people don’t have to mix because they can. I’m seeing people outside for short visits and we will catch up properly next year when we can. I’m not putting vulnerable people in my family at risk.

I’m dreading jan/feb though. With cases still high it’s the potential to be worse than the first wave.Look at the fall out from thanksgiving starting to show in the USA.

I can’t believe people like @CherryPavlova are still in such denial that they’re pretending overwhelmed hospitals are being caused by people going their instead of their GP. No, they aren’t. In fact, the opposite is happening where people who really should go to A&E are avoiding it because they don’t want to risk Covid. Do you honestly, honestly believe people will go and wait 24 hours in an overcrowded A&E for something their GP could sort? They won’t. They aren’t.

My Facebook yesterday showed pictures of a friend of mine indoors with 3 friends with comments 'pre- Christmas lunch thanks for hosting Jackie' that same friend has been invited to another get together with other friends (I declined the invite) on Thursday which I declined, I had other plans thankfully. I'm in Wales both of these gatherings took/are taking place indoors at peoples houses. This is NOT allowed and these are educated women. People simply think that covid is something that happens to someone else. The time lag for the meeting up with the woman who went out yesterday is 6 days. If she's got covid from meeting up then by then she will be perfectly ready to transmit to the others. Of course if she doesn't catch it this time and consequently no one else does then of course you repeat the experience..

In the south east and our two local hospitals are overwhelmed. Elderly neighbour called ambulance Thursday night, waited over 7 hours and the crew came from another county as so busy here. I’m actually scared about whether help would be available if one of us needed it urgently.

in people's attitudes, christmas starts in december, meals out, parties, all against the rules.
so selfish,
agree people think covid is something that happens to someone else

"Do you honestly, honestly believe people will go and wait 24 hours in an overcrowded A&E for something their GP could sort?"

I did (two years ago, so nothing to do with Covid). Because although my GP could have sorted it, he didn't. (Because he was a bit rubbish; also the practice was very over-stretched, to be fair to him.)

Cheshire and Merseyside issued 32 OPEL 4 alerts, the highest alert indicating the pressure on the system is making it unsafe, in the winter of 2017-18. Overall there were 1067 OPEL 3 alerts across the NHS that winter, which represented a 418% increase on the previous year.
The NHS has been in such bad shape for such a long time that it's become standard for it get overwhelmed in the winter, covid or no covid. It's only this year that anyone seems to give a shit strangely enough.

TheDailyCarbuncle
Because this year it IS different.
As well as the usual stuff that comes into hospital every winter, which most hospitals expect, they have an extra load of covid cases.

On top, they have staff off sick/self isolating, beds closed because someone in one bed tested +ve, a lack of specialist beds for people immediately post surgery/unwell from other causes, and a huge backlog of routine care from earlier in the year.
On top, people who probably would have come to hospital earlier are probably putting it off until they are quite seriously unwell (people with high risk conditions) resulting in longer length of stay and a higher probability of catching covid and getting complications.

It's not purely about numbers of people presenting to A+E

I agree with PP that there's a lot of lockdown fatigue here. In some counties we were locked down way before the firebreak for weeks and weeks. Even though our cases dropped massively they kept saying we needed to stay in longer.

Then by the end of the firebreak, even though many places still had higher case rates than those that had triggered our local lockdown, the Welsh government just reduced the restrictions massively.

I also agree that many people don't know the rules. different rules in the different countries. We get a lot of the main English news, so people are confused.

I must say though reporting has got a lot better recently with the main news channels specifying they're talking about England. Previously they weren't making that distinction. I think a lot of people in England forget the UK is not just England

My parents, who are not stupid, and generally have a reasonable idea of what's going on in politics, etc., simply do not know what the rules are and probably haven't known for the last 3 or 4 months. I know this because sometimes they ask me whether something is allowed. They can't be unique.

Drakeford has today been in the news saying we're in danger of covid overtaking the NHS

The news is showing experts and politicians saying the situation is dire yet this doesn't seem to really up with the actions being taken (or not taken).

I don't think there's a perfect solution. People lose either way but it just seems like we're sleepwalking into a disaster.

Sadly a lot of people don't seem to have the ability to think critically and unless the government specifically ban meeting they will do it

@110APiccadilly nope they certainly aren't alone. It's hard to keep up with what the latest rules are

@londongirl12

Playing devil's advocate, aren't hospitals usually extremely busy this time of year anyway? I remember ever winter our local one in kent has ambulances queuing

Not really, flu season not yet in full swing.

No results of cases or deaths today announced. Seems they are adjusting the symptom of counting so the figures will be skewed for a time. Not sure I understand it.

@CabinClose

I can’t believe people like *@CherryPavlova* are still in such denial that they’re pretending overwhelmed hospitals are being caused by people going their instead of their GP. No, they aren’t. In fact, the opposite is happening where people who really should go to A&E are avoiding it because they don’t want to risk Covid. Do you honestly, honestly believe people will go and wait 24 hours in an overcrowded A&E for something their GP could sort? They won’t. They aren’t.

I’d be interested to know your source but that’s not the main reason I gave for hospitals being overwhelmed.

It is as previously stated, multifactorial but predominantly a decade of cuts to adult social care budgets, failure to prepare for pandemic given the warning in 2016, loss of EU staff and a need to separate Covid19 and non Covid19 patients. Add in staff absence and it’s a perfect storm.

Do people use emergency departments inappropriately? Yes absolutely many do. Drunkards, minor illness, very minor accidents all pitch up.

There are very few ED requiring people who don’t go and many who are admitted having rightfully been assessed by their GP first. There are a few who refuse to seek any medical help whatever or wherever it is offered. Often those who should seek advice are frail elderly and middle aged men.

That leaves an awfully sitting around blocking emergency departments with splinters, sore throats, a five day cough, minor cuts and bruises. If you can wait 24 hours to be seen then you probably dont need an accident and emergency unit. (Actually very few do wait 24 hours or even 12 hours - we’re still managing about 87% within four hours nationally)

BBC News - Covid: Intensive care staff plead for pre-Christmas lockdown
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55299862
Does this really seem like normal winter pressures?