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?

I don’t think people in the north are coming out the situation London is now in. I think the worry is that we’re heading there! And in a couple of weeks we will be in the same position with no icu beds Available. The new variant hasn’t really taken off here yet.

My understanding as to why my area was kept in Tier 3 since for bloody ever was due to hospital capacity. And the reason London was Tier 2 with bars and restaurants open was because of all the extra hospital capacity due to the usual high number of tourists.

Whilst I’d hate to see anyone suffer, it does seem a bit rich that having spent the last few months being able to enjoy eating and drinking in social establishments, Londoners will now be taking up our beds.

@Martinisarebetterdirty

I’m from Yorkshire - born there and lived there for over half my life. I now live in London - am I allowed one of these beds if necessary or have I become ineligible because of where I now live FFS - I cannot believe the griping about sharing national facilities that I am reading on here. And to PP saying that Xmas and NY should have been cancelled well they were in London. My Yorkshire living parents and brother were allowed to have Christmas together, I was not allowed to join them. In a crisis you should pull together and support each other not gripe that local restrictions are worse and you shouldn’t be locked down because others aren’t. And to those of you suggesting people should be left to die because they live in London and London has no beds left - quite frankly you make me sick.

Thank you for this, because you're right - Christmas WAS cancelled in London. We weren't allowed to mix and didn't.

The callousness on this thread is breathtaking. I live in London and it's terrifying to know that if myself, my partner or DC become critically ill with anything right now – not just Covid – there are no beds available for us. But that's fine, we'll just die so you can keep your beds free in Yorkshire.

It should be a national effort, but people will be inclined, as people are, to think of themselves first and foremost. There is not much unity displayed on this thread, with but a few nice people happy to help out.
It's a bit sad to read.

Them bloody forriners..coming over ‘ere, taking our beds...

If your point is that the NHS should have been better funded over the last decade so it could have coped better, then YANBU.

But it sounds a lot like you're saying Londoners should be left to die if they run out of beds because that's just tough luck, and Yorkshire beds are for Yorkshire people?

@SpamIAm

If your point is that the NHS should have been better funded over the last decade so it could have coped better, then YANBU.

But it sounds a lot like you're saying Londoners should be left to die if they run out of beds because that's just tough luck, and Yorkshire beds are for Yorkshire people?

That's exactly what's being said and it's sickening.

What would you call the attitude on here? Surly?
I never said all Yorkshire people are surly. One of my oldest friends is from Barnsley

Nah, Barnsley people are definitely surly and proud if it

Come on people let's not fall out. Theres a reason they might be coming North, it's a crisis, we all need to pull together. It's no point blaming each other anymore.

Have you read the posts from the people in Yorkshire on this thread inquietant? Or is it just mine that you're reading?

Of course I have read them - there are arseholes in the north, there are arseholes in the south, there are arseholes in London.

The fact some people from Yorkshire are 'surly' doesn't mean Yorkshire is surly.

Your approach to this is unhelpful imo.

The type of view posted by @Bubblemonkey isn't a North/South thing, it's a bad attitude thing. If it wasn't that it'd be something else.

There is a very clear, national escalation plan that has involved critical care lead clinicians.
All areas try to manage as best they can to accommodate all critically ill patients.
If the area cannot, they try to find beds in the region.
If the region has no beds they look to other regions to support.
It is always about managing clinical risk; nobody moves ventilated patients lightly. It is always a carefully considered and planned arrangement rather than one doctor phoning another to see if they have beds.
There are calls every morning monitoring where capacity is and planning where beds can be found. Add into that the need to find staff to transfer and ambulances to do the journey and it’s a hugely complex task. Not done lightly. It needs resources and it needs logistical planning. It’s done with national agreement to make best use of the capacity we have to ensure the best outcomes for most people.

Nobody is yet being denied an intensive care bed who needs one.
Part of the problem is not ventilated patients but high numbers of non invasive ventilated patients who would usually need specialist care but who are being treated in such high numbers that the oxygen delivery pressures are struggling to cope.

It’s really not ‘our local hospital’ or ‘our critical care unit’. They are national resources and need to be used as such occasionally. Nobody wants anyone to die because of nimbyism and a little England mentality.

I find it abhorrent that people might die as a result of a lack facilities in their area,

But that is nothing new. Already there are transfers of critically ill patients to more specialist units - trauma, neonatal, cardiac, mental health etc - often some distance away.

@Flaxmeadow your points are all reasonable and well made. But others here are saying "they'd better not come here.." and other such dark mutterings.

We will survive this better when we pull together. London hospitals have been taking the Kent overflow for weeks - as the strain seems to have taken off there first. That is right but now London sounds like it needs help.

@MrsGrindah

Them bloody forriners..coming over ‘ere, taking our beds...

😂

Some people would fit right in in Royston Vasey!

Nobody wants anyone to die because of nimbyism and a little England mentality.

Reading this thread you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise!

This has been going on for years and nothing to do with covid. It's been a big problem with mental health services, with young people, often for treatment for eating disorders being offered placements 200 miles away from family. So it's either remove a young person from their family to be treated, or no treatment possible. This isn't a new issue.

Nobody is yet being denied an intensive care bed who needs one.

I think the word YET is what we should all be worrying about, wherever we are.

If they weren't Londoners would it be ok?

What about if they were from Yorkshire but had moved to London, do they go above born & raised Londoners or immigrants?

Fuck that. People were claiming only weeks ago that the reason the north was in tier 3 even with low numbers of cases was because of hospital capacity and now they’re saying that we have extra capacity so can take Londoners. Where was the offer to send northerners to London???

The reason League of Gentlemen works is that sadly, some people really are like that. Everywhere.

But the sensible majority need to rise above it and try to hold on to the fact that people right across the country are basically in a single (very leaky) boat.

@LadyCatStark

Fuck that. People were claiming only weeks ago that the reason the north was in tier 3 even with low numbers of cases was because of hospital capacity and now they’re saying that we have extra capacity so can take Londoners. Where was the offer to send northerners to London???

London hospitals have been supporting other regions for months for Covid related admissions.

What is your suggestion then? If there are no beds in the region you fall ill in you shouldn't receive care?

@jillypill

If they weren't Londoners would it be ok?

What about if they were from Yorkshire but had moved to London, do they go above born & raised Londoners or immigrants?

No, lower, as they are turncoats

As the wife of a Yorkshire intensive care...intensive care beds are filled on a first come first serve basis until there are non left and the entire countries capacity is up for grabs.

There is no ‘we have X amount of beds for X area’ it’s ‘we have X amount of beds for the country’ it’s not uncommon for ICU patients to be brought in from 50-100 miles away during busy periods. It happens pretty much every year.

So no, whilst patients coming from London certainly isn’t common, if there are people who need ICU beds and non available in London they will 100% be given them, the NHS doesn’t hold empty beds on the basis that someone from that area might need it soon.

It’s pretty likely beds will run out during this wave and things will get bad but the chances of them ever taking one patient off life support in favour of another with better chances are pretty much zero. So if 95 year old Betty was in the bed before 25 year old Tom needed it, Betty is gonna get the help and Tom will be found whatever is available elsewhere. That could be nothing.

Where was the offer to send northerners to London???

Northern hospitals didn't reach saturation, otherwise of course patients would have been transferred to London if needed. People seem to forget that underneath the politics and whatever else, Londoners are still people. They are Betty from Kennington, Bob from Croydon- people's friends, family, and not just a Londoner.

@LadyCatStark

Fuck that. People were claiming only weeks ago that the reason the north was in tier 3 even with low numbers of cases was because of hospital capacity and now they’re saying that we have extra capacity so can take Londoners. Where was the offer to send northerners to London???

I don't think you ever went to 114% capacity? You were put into restrictive measures to ensure capacity. London has been put into Tier 4, yet can not cope even still. I don't think those 'up North' were ever in the position London now is?