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?

@Charley50 Understandable that people get annoyed with being blamed and want to defend themselves!

It's just frustrating to me to see people fall for the government's excuses of "those people aren't following rules" when a) its a virus and b) the reason we're struggling is decades of strategic incompetence they're now trying to blame on the public!

Reading through some of the comments here from Yorkshire folk, I’m wondering if one of them - possibly even @EttaG - is my mum, who has been watching London webcams to confirm her suspicions the southerners are not ‘making the sacrifices the North did.’

I’m getting rather fed up of the vitriolic north-south mudslinging match the pandemic seems to have started. Over the last couple of months, what started as low-grade chuntering by certain scousers that their Tier 3 lockdown was somehow a specifically directed government punishment for, well as far as I could tell from the rants, being scousers has turned into full-on rants by some that the situation ‘down south’ is all the fault of the southerners and they’ve got what they deserved for voting Conservative/Labour/Brexit/Monster Raving Loony Party/whatever and now they need to suck it up. Yes, I have been told by friends that I need to ‘suck it up.’ I’ve been told by family in Yorkshire that ‘you lot down south are going to get your come-uppance.’

The biggest thing that fuels a divide is those on either side of the perceived divide. If we can stop mudslinging for long enough, we might just be able to help those who need it most, instead of this pathetic ‘local beds for local people’ rubbish that’s being spouted here.

@Burpeesshmurpees

Thank you *@McFarts* you might have just restored my faith in humanity

I'm honestly speechless! its just horrid

The tiered system needs abandoning, no way can northern cities continue to have people flocking to shopping centre's as they are atm. Its madness!. That's not the fault of the general public mind! nor is it the fault of people in London/SE going out for meals, when they were allowed to do so! It's the shower of shit we have running the country.

Dear lord! i honestly cannot believe some of the comments on this thread, shocking
I couldn't agree more.
This is coming from a foreigner, so no loyalty to any part of this country: you are one country, of course NHS resources are shared.
If one hospital is full, patients are sent to the next one, we don't reserve beds for locals 'just in case', how ridiculous.
What is the alternative? One health system / police force / school system / ... per region? Surly in this case taxes collected would also be reserved for this region so I imagine London will be better off.

So Londoners die because Yorkshire doesn't want them?

As a Yorkshire person living in London I find your question quite awful. Would you refuse someone treatment because they weren't from your county like some sick eugenics programme?

@CorianderQueen

So Londoners die because Yorkshire doesn't want them?

As a Yorkshire person living in London I find your question quite awful. Would you refuse someone treatment because they weren't from your county like some sick eugenics programme?

I asked am what people thought about it.

I didn't say I thought it was a good or bad thing to do.

OP, you "didn't say I thought it was a good or bad thing to do" but said "It's an ethical dilemma".
People needing hospital beds should get them. What is the dilemma???

If hospitals are to be reserved for local patients, presumably they will be funded locally not nationally going forward?

What about the people up here struggling, our hospitals are also full as we have so much less than them. My local hospital is nearly 20 minutes away even by ambulance! Back in London hospitals are ten a penny. If we have capacity then it's fine to send them here, but assembling the nightingale hospitals would be a much better option.

@MiddleClassMother

What about the people up here struggling, our hospitals are also full as we have so much less than them. My local hospital is nearly 20 minutes away even by ambulance! Back in London hospitals are ten a penny. If we have capacity then it's fine to send them here, but assembling the nightingale hospitals would be a much better option.

I live in London, I haven’t ever lived within a 20 minute drive of a hospital.

@MiddleClassMother

What about the people up here struggling, our hospitals are also full as we have so much less than them. My local hospital is nearly 20 minutes away even by ambulance! Back in London hospitals are ten a penny. If we have capacity then it's fine to send them here, but assembling the nightingale hospitals would be a much better option.

According to this we are in a much better position with regards to bed capacity. As i have said repeatedly though, the tiered system needs scrapping, we cant fill up with little capacity we have and still have none essential shops open.

www.hsj.co.uk/coronavirus/london-critical-care-patients-could-be-sent-to-yorkshire-as-capitals-icus-top-100pc-occupancy/7029237.article

My completely uninformed guess would be properly kick start the Nightingale in Harrogate and support staff it with the military particularly from Catterick (huge numbers).

@NoSleepInTheHeat

OP, you "didn't say I thought it was a good or bad thing to do" but said "It's an ethical dilemma". People needing hospital beds should get them. What is the dilemma???

I think it's an ethical dilemma on a lot of levels yes.

I worry for families who have the prospect of having a loved one hundreds of miles away.

I think it raises serious question about investment in the North.

I think it's a (poor) reflection on the tier system that parts of the country have suffered economically due to higher lockdown based on the local NHS (eroded) capacity but that is then being impacted further by servicing people who've benefited from lower tiers.

However I don't at all want anyone to die for lack of a hospital bed.

At an individual level I agree it's not a dilemma at all. If capacity is available people should get access to treatment, but I do very much question the govt policies that have got us into this position from lack of funding/investment to how the tier system has been implemented.

@MessAllOver Yorkshire receives the least spend per capita for its contribution to the public purse so we pay more than our fair share.

Yorkshire, and many areas, did not need the first national lockdown based on our numbers and hospital capacity- our ICUs had never been so quiet - the whole country shut down for London. We are about to have most of the region in tier 4 thanks to all the people refugeeing north when the new strain was announced, despite the fact that pre Xmas we had numbers for tier 2. After the second lockdown it was obvious that London/SE numbers were rising and needed to be in tighter restrictions, but no, they were kept in tier 2 and then had to be moved from 3 to 4 within days. So yes, the north has been sacrificed to save London, and London has been treated much more beneficially than other areas.

Did London really "benefit" from being in a lower tier after the November lockdown ended? The hospitality industry probably did benefit from it but I am not sure that the residents of the city did, I feel more that the health of Londoners was sacrificed to keep the economy going. I accept that people didn't have to go out to pubs and restaurants just because they were allowed to but it was encouraged by keeping these places open. And now London is paying the price for it. Whichever way you look at it, nobody wins.

Some really shocking comments on here. One of those times when I wish I hadn't read a thread.

I cannot understand such bitterness towards others, particularly people in need. And the animosity towards Londoners. I'm a Scot who has lived in London for many years. I've spent roughly half my life in each. Londoners are not one homogenous species, and this isn't the land of milk and honey some people seem to imagine.

We should all be worried about lack of hospital capacity for our people who are so sick, regardless of where they are. My local hospital has been taking patients from outside London for weeks.

@HermioneWeasley. That is just not true. London, the South East and the East of England all run net fiscal surpluses. All other areas of the UK, including Yorkshire, have net fiscal deficits.

London has the highest net fiscal surplus per head (£3,905 in 2018). So London part-funds the rest of the country. Yorkshire is part-funded by the rest of the country.

It's not just the north where patients are bring sent. They are being sent to my parents' southern city hospital too from Wales (really quite a long drive so not one of the border places).

@OrinocoGlow

Did London really "benefit" from being in a lower tier after the November lockdown ended? The hospitality industry probably did benefit from it but I am not sure that the residents of the city did, I feel more that the health of Londoners was sacrificed to keep the economy going. I accept that people didn't have to go out to pubs and restaurants just because they were allowed to but it was encouraged by keeping these places open. And now London is paying the price for it. Whichever way you look at it, nobody wins.

It’s not since the last lockdown ended. It’s since about July/August. My town’s numbers are low enough that enhanced restrictions are now starting to look unnecessary and T2 might be possible. That’s what stings about hospital capacity being used up.

But of course we share hospital capacity. It doesn’t mean the path to get here feels fair.

Any authoritative source for this happening
This is the source. HSJ

That is describing standard practice and wasn't my question.

My question was:
Any authoritative source for this happening beyond the normal common sense practice of area 1 looking for capacity in area 2 in a crisis?

I've seen nothing to suggest transfers an other than the normal process for managing under capacity in ITU and other areas. I have seen lot of diversion by division - set groups of people against each other and it distracts from the real source of the problems. Plenty of posters here seem entirely happy to play that game.

@MinesAPintOfTea I'm sure the very sick Londoners being transferred to hospitals hundreds of miles away from their homes and families don't find the option fair either, but that's not their fault.

The virus is the bad guy, everyone else (even Londoners) is a victim.

It’s not about beds though is it . It’s about staff.

And you can’t just uproot staff if they have no where to stay .

Whining had a premature baby I had the last incubator in the hospital. The lady after me had prem triplets and they had to be split between hospitals.

Even if the nightingale was open then you still have to staff it and you can’t magic up experienced staff , especially when a lot are off ill themselves .