My trust have declared major incidents in non covid times in winter yes that’s not unusual. Yep it’s underfunded, understaffed and often a shit show in winter. NHS staff are fully aware ewe struggle though every year . Never heard of us running out of o2 though in 15 years....maybe that’s just my hospital.
Yes frequently in black status in winter too but we’ve also had that or at least red status most the year. More people are starting to come into hospital sick with non covid, weather is cold, winter viruses are spreading.
But then you throw a rapidly growing pandemic. Patients who are sick in different ways, needing longer and more intense treatments. More staff off sick or isolating than a normal year. Not as easy to redeploy staff. All other local hospitals are struggling to, so where do you divert too?
41,000 cases today and we haven’t seen the consequence admissions from Christmas socialising yet. It’s not scaremongering if it’s truth. People seem to prefer to believe hospital staff aren’t struggling and are dancing tik toks in empty wards.