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?

@JayAlfredPrufrock

You were put in Tier 4 just before Christmas. And my how you all moaned.

We have not been able to go out anywhere other than essential shops since August.

So no, I won’t wind my heck in.

Actually, most of us got stoically on with accepting that we were effectively having our Christmas cancelled with less than a week to go, even my friend who could see Tier 2 from her front door and who's local area had the lowest rate in the country (so low that only days before going into Tier 4 there were no cases at all - none! Not one.) It was for the greater good, you see, as there were some signs of rapidly rising rates at the other end of the county. Some people might have moaned, but the majority have got on with it because there isn't really anything else we can do. However there's a bit of a difference between having a much longed for Christmas Day with family you haven't seen in months, and not being able to go to Primark, but if we are going to slosh regional stereotypes about, you lot did go on about how you wouldn't be able to get your roots touched up or your nails done. For what? No one really gives a shit what people look like atm. It's a low punch, but essentially you have lumped an entire end of the country into one big category, but probably wouldn't like it one bit if someone did that to you. So, wind your neck in a bit further. Your comments are nasty and unnecessary, and do nothing to help anyone try to pull together to get to the other side of this pandemic.

I often get nostalgic for the pre social media days when I was relatively oblivious to how many utter fools there are out there.

DeRigueurMortis. Most hospitals only need one or two patient moves to decompress. All hospitals have stood up additional beds. Some regional hospitals have stood up super surge beds as well. Southampton has gone to about 70 critical care beds, I think.
There is no plan to pop 78 ventilated patients on a coach trip to see the Angel of the North. Clinical and non clinical leaders are trying to keep people as close as possible to home whilst making sure they get the care they need.
Moving ventilated patients is a nightmare. It places them at significant risk, which is why only more stable patients are moved. Planning takes hours of work by numerous staff to get the move arranged. There are only a few suitable ambulances and they don't usually come with clinicians. There is one private ambulance in London that can support the ambulance trusts in London and South East.
Staff off doing transfers leaves units short of expertise. Nobody wants to move patients, but it needs to happen sometimes.
The situation is further complicated by needing green and red areas. That works where a trust has two sites with critical care facilities but is much harder where trusts have one hospital with an intensive care unit. People who come off motorbikes still need critical care beds too.
The situation changes on an hourly basis.
The peak was determined as 4 January, but the variant has changed the modelling slightly. Admissions increases are two weeks after a community rise. Intensive care admissions increases are usually about a week after that. So likely to be an issue to second week in January then improve slowly.
Trouble is snow is approaching and people do silly things in snow. Old folk break femurs and get hypothermia. Middle aged men get knocked off bicycles. Young people fracture skulls or punctures lungs sledging on trays into barbed wire. Nobody wants to stop fun but fun means higher admissions. Not that the poor old folk who fall are usually having much fun.

Cherry thanks for the answer.

Sounds like yes moving even a few people could be significant in terms of helping London hospitals cope, but it's a difficult task to facilitate the transfer involving many staff.

Tough decision to make for the HCP's.

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.

Grow up. Those in tier 2 acted within their rules, just as northerners in tier 3 did. If the tier 3 areas had moved to tier 2, the people there would have behaved exactly the same way. Or are you suggesting that if the north moved into tier 2, everyone there would continue to act as if they were in tier 3?

They gave up going to the pub and restaurants. No Christmas parties. No pantos. They stayed at home for weeks.

Plenty of people travelled into London to experience the above so how can you quantify who did what? You think Londoners do their Christmas shopping on Oxford street in December?!!!

I've been told by relatives up in Yorkshire it was a well known thing in December to go into Tier 2 York from Tier 3 Hull for your Christmas night out.

Naughty people! They are probably southerners who don't understand Covid Tier rules and think they can just go where they want.

One of the saddest elements of this whole shitshow is how divisive the tier system has been.

It is obvious to me that if people need to be moved to another area if there are no bed.

But.....

Jut last week, a friend of. Mine wanted to bring a relative back home to die. They were told NO because hospital was. In tier 4, home was in tier 2 and ... Covid.... And suddenly it’s ok to move people within tiers....

Number of beds per capita is much higher in London than the north. That means that people in general struggle more in the north to get the support they need. Post code lottery etc.... Dont be surprised that those same people want to protect what they have and want to enjoy the fact that, for once, they have it a bit easier.

Basically no one would ask that question if
1- there. was some logic to the rules
2- the divide north-south wasn’t so marked (in terms of healthcare availability, decision on lockdown, support to businesses etc....).

I don’t think they are transferring Covid positive patients but other patients needing ICU beds.
The nightingale in Harrogate has had its staff allocated for months and they are all on standby (they had the training in June) - DS is one of them. The problem is that the facilities aren’t really appropriate for long term care so they don’t want to use it unless they have to - why would you use an emergency facility when there is space in proper hospitals?
The Harrogate nightingale has been staffed from all the local hospitals (DS is Leeds community) so they aren’t all coming from same areas. DS has experience of working in ICU and is fully trained but not currently using those skills and a lot of the staff on standby are similar. Harrogate is fortune as they can draw on staff from the big hospitals in Leeds, Wakefield, Bradford, York, and Harrogate itself as well as the community teams and private hospitals (friend works in a private hospital in Harrogate and is also on standby).

My friend’s gran wasn’t Covid positive though. The. Refusal to move her was because of the tiers.

The consequence is that she died in hospital alone rather than at home with her loved ones...

@TragedyHands

FFS keep them down there. The NW has had far more restrictions than London, why should we have them up here. Disgusting, they have more bloody hospitals than the North.

This is just embarrassing. What a repulsive post.

I'm originally from the North West, if it makes any difference (which it bloody well shouldn't.)

@BunsyGirl
@EttaG Best not let any patients from Leeds be transferred to York then given that York is in a lower tier!

They’re the same tier

@Rosehassometoes Seriously, I can’t believe you bothered to post that. They weren’t in the same tier when I made my original post. What is wrong with you?

@BunsyGirl tad defensive there. Just a correction.

@Rosehassometoes I’m not being defensive. You’re being pathetic. It wasn’t incorrect when I made the original statement.

@BunsyGirl and my correction is correct at this present time. Why does being corrected matter to you?
Or is it not possible for things to move on? Threads evolve just as the tier system does.

You think Londoners do their Christmas shopping on Oxford street in December?!!!

^^
This! And it worried me at the time because it showed how much travelling about must be happening!

FFS keep them down there. The NW has had far more restrictions than London, why should we have them up here. Disgusting, they have more bloody hospitals than the North

I'm from the North West, so I get the "London fatigue" that you feel, but no matter how much you really want the South East of England to be a different country, it isn't. Hospitals don't belong to people within a particular post code. That's not how the NHS works. Hospitals all have different strengths and weaknesses, different specialities and different capacities in different areas. They don't all do everything, it would be impossible. So this means that patients go to wherever is best suited to care for them at that time, with a consideration of logistics. It has worked this way for a very long time. It's the only sensible way to do it. If you don't realise that then it probably just means that you don't know enough about how the system works, in the nicest possible way.

FFS keep them down there. The NW has had far more restrictions than London, why should we have them up here. Disgusting, they have more bloody hospitals than the North.
This year has been hard and has at times brought out the worst in us, but when you’re wishing death on very sick people it’s time to re-evaluate your beliefs (perhaps a visit from three spirits might help?)

This is negative for the Yorkshire population and their health. It would be better to rebuild the nightingales or similar. Or take over some large London hotels for some other illnesses

Yes transferring non covid patients to Yorkshire seems the best approach. Contains the covid as much as possible

@TragedyHands

FFS keep them down there. The NW has had far more restrictions than London, why should we have them up here. Disgusting, they have more bloody hospitals than the North.

Oh how I am going to remember comments like this in the future, when Yorkshire asks for our help. Screw you.

When you say ‘your’ help, to whom are you referring?