Sending London patients to Yorkshire

[DeRigueurMortis]

It's been reported that due to capacity issues in London there is a proposal to send patients to Yorkshire.

London has more beds per capita than anywhere else in the country.

The nightingales have been dismantled.

In Yorkshire the rates have been high but (depending on north/south/east/west) brought into control though harsh lockdown. Those in tier 2 have been buggered by being inundated by Covid tourism and will be tier 3/4.

So Yorkshire is on the verge of it's own disaster with less beds per person than London and being overwhelmed by London cases before the local community can get a bed in their hospital.

Is it right that this should happen?

Not many people on here are saying that they don't want people from London to get a life saving ICU bed in a Northern hospital. They are just frustrated that it has come to this in the first place. Unfortunately Bojo thinks that naming his son after a doctor has been extremely helpful to the NHS and he doesn't have to do anything else.

Can you blame people from Yorkshire for being worried though? They are no doubt imaging either themselves or a relative needing a hospital in the future, being told that the beds in the Yorkshire hospitals are all full, the London ones are all full and that the nurses are trying to find space for them in a Birmingham hospital but not holding out much hope.

And we haven't even had the aftermath of xmas hit us yet. Moving London patients up to Yorkshire, while necessary, is not going to fix the bed situation. It is just going to move it from the South to the North.

Is it right that this should happen?

Would you be complaining if they were sending patients from Yorkshire to London if there was free capacity there?

I actually admired Andy Burnham and I have no connection to Manchester whatsoever! His remit wasn't all of the North of England. His remit is Greater Manchester.

Did you vote Tory in Yorkshire?

Yorkshire is a Labour stronghold.

Corbyn wasnt popular across the North though

I'm trying to imagine a thread on the other direction, where Londoners would suggest it is wrong to take unwell people from Yorkshire. I can't see it happening.

@DeRigueurMortis - when you are in your hour of need, whether physical or emotional, remember that this is how you behaved towards others in theirs.

The pictures of people "fleeing" for Christmas are a very small minority

Londoners would unlikely to be fleeing since family would be in London.
Those fleeing up North (saw a thread about this) probably had some roots to flee too as opposed to just wanting to go on a jolly.

Also presumably OP thinks the Oxford vaccine should be given only to everyone in the South East first, Yorkshire isn't interested in sharing resources after all.

@Burpeesshmurpees

I don't mind people from London coming up. There is no alternative. But it is still worrying for people and I think it is mainly down to the unknown. E.g. what is going to happen if the Yorkshire hospitals get full? Then where do we send people?

If roles were reversed, if it were Northern hospitals were sending loads of patients down, London would no doubt kick up a fuss as well.

I actually admired Andy Burnham and I have no connection to Manchester whatsoever! His remit wasn't all of the North of England. His remit is Greater Manchester

He was holding up the Northern lockdown though, it pissed a lot of people off because the numbers were going sky high at the time and he was only interested in posing, in rather strange uncharacteristic clothes, for the news cameras in front of the town hall every five minutes, trying to score political points. Infact he was using North/South divide tactics then

It is possible to feel pissed off that when the only way you have been able to see anyone from outside your home since September is a walk (or do anything outside your home) to preserve local hospital places, rather than national capacity. AND to think that Londoners should be treated wherever there is space.

This is the problem with regional strategies that are considered unfair: they breed resentments.

[quote Fieldofyellowflowers]@Burpeesshmurpees

I don't mind people from London coming up. There is no alternative. But it is still worrying for people and I think it is mainly down to the unknown. E.g. what is going to happen if the Yorkshire hospitals get full? Then where do we send people?

If roles were reversed, if it were Northern hospitals were sending loads of patients down, London would no doubt kick up a fuss as well.[/quote]
They would go outside of Yorkshire to the most suitable bed for their needs, which already happens if their medical need cannot be met locally.

London hospitals take patients from outside of London everyday, I’m yet to see any form of fuss.

'Big' regional hospitals are only big because they serve large populations. ITUs do absolutely transfer patients within a network. What we are talking about here is transferring patients between networks which is not the same at all, and has implications in terms of specialist staff, equipment (such as portable ventilation) and vehicles to transfer patients and the eventual repatriation of patients to their local areas to recover. Not to mention that if a patient reaches the end of their life, it will be extremely difficult to arrange for families to come in (despite visiting restrictions we still try and enable this).

In the first wave the hospital I worked at was hit harder than other local hospitals and we transferred patients to other neighbouring hospitals who had more capacity. In the main those big regional hospitals had spare capacity as they have extensive tertiary/specialist facilities so a generous amount of their ITU beds are for post op, major trauma, surgical or transplant patients. As we stood down the majority of elective services, and trauma rates plummeted due to more people staying at home those beds were available.

The national direction is now to do covid surge and continue business as usual as far as possible. Therefore this 'spare' capacity isn't really spare at all. It is absolutely right to transfer patients to receive care but is not without its difficulties.

I will also say, the NE and parts of Yorkshire suffered significant pressures due to covid in November and had to escalate our ITUs or stand down elective activity. We did not receive any help from outside of our regional network. There was very much the expectation that we would 'consume our own smoke' even if it was challenging.

So either, this is political and London are in the spotlight for help and support, because, London...or the shit has hit the fan, we have lost any semblance of control over the virus and thus the ability to 'protect the NHS'. With case numbers as they are this week, including substantial rises in the north, we will be exactly where London are two weeks from now. Only then there wont be any beds to transfer out to.

[quote Fieldofyellowflowers]@Burpeesshmurpees

I don't mind people from London coming up. There is no alternative. But it is still worrying for people and I think it is mainly down to the unknown. E.g. what is going to happen if the Yorkshire hospitals get full? Then where do we send people?

If roles were reversed, if it were Northern hospitals were sending loads of patients down, London would no doubt kick up a fuss as well.[/quote]
London takes patients from the north every day, to receive treatment at the specialist cancer hospitals or places like Great Ormond Street, so your comment is redundant and silly.

@MinesAPintOfTea

It is possible to feel pissed off that when the only way you have been able to see anyone from outside your home since September is a walk (or do anything outside your home) to preserve local hospital places, rather than national capacity. AND to think that Londoners should be treated wherever there is space.

This is the problem with regional strategies that are considered unfair: they breed resentments.

Resentment is one thing, but other PP are saying Londoners shouldn't be transferred, therefore condemning them to death.

And I haven't seen anyone outside my London home for anything other than a walk since Sept either and I haven't hugged my mum since February. It's not been easy for us either.

Agreed, I've never heard of Londoners stating 'No room at the inn'. I've never seen a better example of the disparity of views within England than on this thread.

@ThelmaNotLouise

There is a difference between people getting specialist cancer treatment and treatment at Great Ormond Street and people arriving in droves with a virus. A big difference.

@Flaxmeadow

I actually admired Andy Burnham and I have no connection to Manchester whatsoever! His remit wasn't all of the North of England. His remit is Greater Manchester

He was holding up the Northern lockdown though, it pissed a lot of people off because the numbers were going sky high at the time and he was only interested in posing, in rather strange uncharacteristic clothes, for the news cameras in front of the town hall every five minutes, trying to score political points. Infact he was using North/South divide tactics then

He was trying to secure a situation where workers could be put of furlough. The originally proposed T3 would have seen people being told not to go to pubs, gyms non essential shops but their being no financial support for those businesses to close. If he hadn't made that stand I doubt those areas now in T4 would have been able claim that financial support.

[quote Fieldofyellowflowers]@ThelmaNotLouise

There is a difference between people getting specialist cancer treatment and treatment at Great Ormond Street and people arriving in droves with a virus. A big difference. [/quote]
Yes, a very large crowd from London has arrived in Yorkshire.

Why is there a difference, are only some illnesses worthy?

@ObviouslyIgnorant

Londoners have never been in this situation before. If Yorkshire hospitals were full and northerners were being sent down South, I think there would be people with a lot to say about it. You can't compare people going to London hospital for specialist treatment with an influx of pandemic victims.

re north versus south
Our town is in East Anglia we have really low doctor patient ratios & poor transport links poor internet etc & out mental health care is appalling with people being transported all over the country & lets not start on the ambulance infrastructure (note I didn't say staff)
People forget how bad some of the provision for Norfolk & Suffolk is
Basically what I am trying to say is people are transferred over to where ever there is NHS beds
& the reason things have so vastly deteriorated is because of the new strain being far more virulent than the other & its not about blaming people for this - please god the new vaccine is pushed out quickly & there is a good take up - apparently even one dose will keep most people out of hospital

@EttaG

So Tier 3 areas took measures to protect their hospitals and reduce Covid cases. They gave up going to the pub and restaurants. No Christmas parties. No pantos. They stayed at home for weeks. Meanwhile people from Tier 2 areas continued swanning around drinking and enjoying themselves. Now they have high cases and oops, they need the beds that Tier 3 areas worked so hard to protect for themselves. It’s shocking.

What’s the point of higher tiers behaving themselves if lower tiers are just going to spread the virus and then pinch their beds? Tier 2 (now Tier 4) people got themselves into this situation so they should deal with it themselves. Not impose the consequences of their bad behaviour on others.

What a vile comment to make. You do know it's the new, even more infectious variant that's causing this surge of cases and that it was in schools that it exploded? Yet you're effectively saying all Londoners should be left to die now, knowing full well the Govt threatened to take London schools to court when they begged to switch to online learning for the last week of term when they saw how out of control the virus was.

[quote Fieldofyellowflowers]@ObviouslyIgnorant

Londoners have never been in this situation before. If Yorkshire hospitals were full and northerners were being sent down South, I think there would be people with a lot to say about it. You can't compare people going to London hospital for specialist treatment with an influx of pandemic victims.[/quote]
Is your fear then that we're contagious?