Are we actually at risk of overwhelming the NHS?

[Whathefisgoingon]

Will it be like the news reports coming out of India in 2020?

Genuinely concerned and seething at the anti vax brigade this evening.

Yes, we've had to redeploy significant numbers of staff, have had to cancel/reschedule appointments and there are currently more staff sick/isolating than ever before. I can only see it getting worse as people won't get vaccinated/isolate.

I said when vaccines started that they weren’t our way out of this mess, and was laughed at. No, they’re not my specialty, but I am a Scientist and it was wishful thinking at best.

Years of cuts and piss taking, a joke of a PM, a Gov unwilling to serve anyone but themselves and their buddies, and let’s not forget the Science denying arseholes that are now more or less mainstream media thanks to the internet - this was always going to happen.

Viruses mutate successfully when they infect a lot of people. It’s done that.

Stats from gov dashboard showed 900 admissions yesterday, there were more than that on several days in Nov and during Oct over 1000 on lots of days... Admissions are shorter and patients mostly less sick.
The problem is the huge winter pressures, that all in the NHS acknowledge hit earlier and harder this year due to many patients waiting for treatment longer, had deteriorated etc..
This is now exacerbated by huge numbers of staff having to isolate with only a mild illness or no symptoms or waiting at home for test results.
So the NHS is going to be stretched but at peak previously high admissions it coped.
I am NHS front line and currently vaccinating frantically.. I'd like to think it's worth it.

@MauveMavis

Yes.

Loads of staff are sick and lots have left (PTSD/ Burnout/ Brexit).

My big trust cannot muster enough staff to open as many beds as they did in earlier waves. We have reduced capacity for the sickest ICU patients too.

I'm a consultant and am seriously seriously worried about how the hospital will cope.

As an individual clinician I really don't know if I have anything left to give. It has been so difficult to try to recover psychologically from the demands on me since March 2020.

I am not alone in feeling like this. The majority of my medical friends are reporting feeling the same. Most of my friends are frontline so GP/ ED/ ICU/ Anaesthetics/ Acute Medicine these are the teams who have seen the most disruption over the past few years (apologies If I've made a huge omission. I"m tired and worried).

I 100% feel this. I am not working in a hospital but even the knock on effects, the mass deaths (12 deaths in 5 days is ALOT before anyone tries me) we had patients transferred from hospital to our care to free beds in hospital, constantly short staff. Pulling endless overtime. I think almost everyone in health and social care are burnt out. I'll be leaving soon because I can't do it anymore. I really feel for you Mauve.

The whole system is predicated on just about coping. Funding is reduced, NHS can't get the staff so they rely on locums, patients can't be let go because councils can't fund or organise care and so on. Then you introduce covid and it falls apart.

@MauveMavis - serious sympathy.

The other factor is the good will has gone. March 20 everyone was willing to be redeployed, willing to work extra hours. There was a sense of being the spearhead of a great national effort.

Now that's gone. The general public can't be arsed to wear masks or test when they should. The government gave us a frankly insulting pay settlement. Why should I agree to redeployment? Why should I work on my day off? Exhausted, demoralised, and entirely out of good will. Which inevitably impacts on how much flex there is in the system.

Yes

Staff burnout and covid absence
Backlog of treatment to try to deal with
Massive vaccination prog
Usual underfunding and winter pressures
Covid 4th wave following period if increasing cases

It isn’t difficult to see why

Although underfunding is a massive issue ithe pandemic cant be dealt with at the flick of a switch. Oddly it happens in all countries

Yes of course - It’s creeking anyway from years of underfunding. More staff lost from stress at last waves/Brexit or sick with covid, more pressure from other areas because delays in treatments from last year.

On the bright side, thank fuck we’ve had an effective vaccination programme.

The anti-vax brigade are morons and they are culpable, but underfunding is the big NHS issue, in the end.

The NHS has been overwhelmed for years and years… The bosses not budgeting. Cuts and lack of funding. Appointments cancelled/delayed and people not diagnosed early… Those are to blame, not patients.

@MauveMavis

For what it’s worth, thank you for your continued service. I hope you and your colleagues are able to manage whatever it is that is on it’s way with both your mental and physical health intact.

Can you tell us how we can help? what could we do that might make a difference to you and the thousands of professionals up and down the country? Staying in? Volunteering? Checking on neighbours? Can we make any kind of difference as worried but willing individuals?

NHS is always overwhelmed winter after winter ad infinitum.

[quote Sowhatifiam]@MauveMavis

For what it’s worth, thank you for your continued service. I hope you and your colleagues are able to manage whatever it is that is on it’s way with both your mental and physical health intact.

Can you tell us how we can help? what could we do that might make a difference to you and the thousands of professionals up and down the country? Staying in? Volunteering? Checking on neighbours? Can we make any kind of difference as worried but willing individuals?[/quote]
Yes I would like to know how we can help, above and beyond following the inevitable restrictions.

OP 'There is a vaccine available to all that is VERY effective at preventing hospitalisation. Anti vax folk will have blood on their hands'

'To all' ...Which vaccine is this?
'Blood on their hands,' is incorrect and thoroughly awful statement to make in my opinion.

It takes much smaller numbers now than it did at the start of the pandemic because back then almost all planned and routine care and operations were cancelled, but that can't go on indefinitely and there's already a huge backlog. Nearly 1000 covid admissions a day at the moment is already a huge amount of extra pressure.

Everyone who says they won't comply with restrictions because they are not personally worried about catching covid is totally missing the point. You might be at a very low risk of needing to go to hospital for covid but you never know when you or your family might need treatment for something else and it might not be available.

Very serious danger indeed.
The NHS was already at breaking point before covid.

Yes.

Absolutely, yes.

I work in care. I had to call 999 for a service user who had left side chest pain radiating to the shoulder with an extensive cardiac history. The ambulance took 90 minutes to arrive. That should be a "10 mins or under" response time. Their reason was because hospitals are slow accepting patients into a&e's, so at any given time so many of their ambulances were queueing up outside a&e's across the region.

Re: your baby, in general paediatric wards and hospitals are not as overwhelmed. Most kids who catch covid are OK, and don't need any hospital treatment, so children's hospitals in particular will not get as overwhelmed as general adult wards and hospitals will. I hope that's reassuring for you.

When the NHS actually starts to get lose to loosing control I would like to see us ration treatment first before lockdown so make a vaccination a requirement for hospital treatment. The NHS will help you if you help yourself. It is creaking under the pressure and I can't help feeling that if the NHS kept the hospitals covid secure by keeping covid patients out people would be much more motivated to look after their own health by getting vaccinated and loosing weight.

I said this on another thread, but I don't think anyone believed it .. for months our NHS trust has been pottering along with about 30 off sick each day with covid. Not ideal, but manageable. It doubled every day last week... 60 on Tuesday, 100 on Wednesday, 200 on Thursday, results not in for Friday. We have 6000 staff. If the doubling continues, we will have precisely no staff left at all by the end of next week. It won't happen exactly like that of course, but yes it is going to be very very bad!

@Mouseonmychair

When the NHS actually starts to get lose to loosing control I would like to see us ration treatment first before lockdown so make a vaccination a requirement for hospital treatment. The NHS will help you if you help yourself. It is creaking under the pressure and I can't help feeling that if the NHS kept the hospitals covid secure by keeping covid patients out people would be much more motivated to look after their own health by getting vaccinated and loosing weight.

I understand why people feel like this, but as a care worker I absolutely cannot agree with rationing care. People make poor decisions -sometimes through lack of understanding, lack of intelligence, peer or parental pressure, or being susceptible to conspiracy theorists' lies - but ultimately, it isn't anyone's individual fault if they don't believe the vaccine is safe for them. I cannot abide ny rationing care and taking it from those who are gravely ill with covid because that's not what our healthcare system is about and it isn't what our staff values are either

NHS Scotland have made all NHS and social care staff exempt from the 10 day isolation if you have a -ve PCR and are symptom free.
I work in community and have been told to expect to be redeployed with immediate effect

I cannot abide ny rationing care and taking it from those who are gravely ill with covid because that's not what our healthcare system is about and it isn't what our staff values are either

Then the healthcare system is about to buckle then because we cannot lockdown young healthy vaccinated people because beds are occupied by the unvaccinated. Hospital admissions will go higher staff will become more demoralised and distressed and leave and the NHS might as well be chopped up at this point. We were always trying to protect the NHS in an era of no vaccines now there are vaccines the NHS just needs to prioritize who it wants to save.

@TooTiredForThis2, although you have made some very good points there but why should those who are gravely ill with covid (particularly when it's preventable), take priority over those with other serious health conditions? I fully sympathise with those whom are medically unable/genuine phobias who can't get the vaccine but for those who are blatantly anti vax it really does infuriate me how they are taking up so many much needed resources. I'm not saying they should be punished for their ignorance and denied treatment as like you said there are a multitude of reasons why someone may not want it. But essentially others are losing out because of their poor decision making and that's really unfair. If someone is a smoker they would often be denied a lung transplant or if someone requires a gastric sleeve they are denied it until they lose weight first. Technically that is rationing care too. Do you think it would be ethical to deny anti vaxxers treatment if it was made abundantly clear that they would not be prioritised treatment over those who were vaccinated? I'm not being goady, genuinely curious. Ethically the whole situation is a minefield and there are no easy answers.

If the NHS repeatedly cannot cope with increased demand it’s time to privatise it so only those who are willing to work can afford health insurance.

If we are going down the road if sorting people into camps of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’, disability benefits and sickness benefits should not be paid to those with illness that could have been prevented by their own choices.

I don’t agree with the above by the way but that’s the sort of society a lot of posters on this site seem to want.

@HalloHello

I actually more worried about the amount of folk that will be isolating and how that will affect the NHS, police, fire, shops, schools, industry, etc etc etc all the people who keep the country going!

more worried than what, or than about what. that IS the overwhelming, or part of it. if people are off sick/ having to isolate, then they are not at work. people we depend upon, hosp staff, emergency workers, police, fire, etc.