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.

@TooTiredForThis2

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.

But if adults is overwhelmed part of the plan would be to take staff from paediatrics which means care could be compromised with less staff with more children. Less beds because of less staff.

We still get children with covid in paediatric wards sometimes incidentals, some with symptomatic infection or associated side effects post covid. If omicron is infectious as it seems. We still still get affected even on a smaller level those children or indeed sometimes it’s a positive parent need isolation at a time where isolation beds in Paeds are at a premium already because of RSV, D&V and other winter illness.

@Beadebaser

I’m just wondering if anyone could answer this for me? As a mum of two children - obviously they are my major concern. If one of them did need hospital treatment - or A and E - to what extent would or could they be prioritised? My worry would be that a hospital at full capacity, understaffed - or with staff members off sick themselves - or that the infrastructure supporting the hospital is severely compromised - could it get to a stage that they might not receive the care they need?

Paediatrics on my trust has its own a&e however they are triaged at the main a&e door before going that way. Think that’s trying for to reduce numbers of people that don’t need to be there tbh. Children are still seen in childrens a&e.

It’s a different pathway for children in my trust and children are being seen. Very long waits potentially in a&e although apparently yesterday was ok and we had beds on the paeds ward free. Which considering it’s December and a very busy time of year is unusual! Ambulance waits would still apply. I know kids that have waited hours when a broken bone even pre covid.

However if we all start catching omicron that would be a huge concern, staffing is already relying on bank and extra shifts. You technically need childrens trained nurses to staff paediatrics not adult so can’t use their staff. That could then have an impact on beds. If schools close and children aren’t mixing paediatrics tended to really quieten down in the original lockdown but not sure that would happen again.

There has been a lot of winter planning but who knows what’s to come.

I’ve worked in the nhs for over 15 years yes it’s always overwhelmed every winter. It’s just gets worse and covid has been the thing to finally broke it.

I think lots of people understand it can’t go on and we need a new model of healthcare but the issue is the tories what the big business and money version of America. As the chancellors visit to healthcare in marican has proven in my eyes. That is not the model the U.K. wants or needs.

@Rainbows246

I work for a MH charity and our service is integrated within the NHS and we are already using an American based intervention.

Personally I think it’s shit and doesn’t work over here but hey ho, it has been included in the NHS MH 10 year long term plan……

@Rainbows246

I’ve worked in the nhs for over 15 years yes it’s always overwhelmed every winter. It’s just gets worse and covid has been the thing to finally broke it.

I think lots of people understand it can’t go on and we need a new model of healthcare but the issue is the tories what the big business and money version of America. As the chancellors visit to healthcare in marican has proven in my eyes. That is not the model the U.K. wants or needs.

I agree. I’ve worked for the NHS for almost 30 years and it’s got worse over those years as successive govts have cut real term funding, tinkered about with targets and contracts and services and IT systems and structures and so on and on, as demands have increased and as people expect more with less (and that includes less from them). Winter pressures were always there but they were manageable - covid has pushed things to a whole different level.

Private healthcare based on a Tory version of the American healthcare system is absolutely not what is needed though.

@rrhuth

Johnson lied. He repeatedly said vaccines were all that was required and removed all other measures.

Had Covid not evolved into Delta and then Omicron, but something relatively more benign, then vaccines would have been enough in all likelihood. They are still longer term the main way out. We can't be masking and isolating and shutting down the economy forever.

My big fear is the same as the first wave, that ICUs will have to triage and treatment might be denied to some who would normally have benefitted. I understand that the frail and very elderly might not benefit but when it's a choice between a 20 year old and a 60 year old it's obvious who should get it.

[quote Hazelnutbean]@rrhuth

Johnson lied. He repeatedly said vaccines were all that was required and removed all other measures.

Had Covid not evolved into Delta and then Omicron, but something relatively more benign, then vaccines would have been enough in all likelihood. They are still longer term the main way out. We can't be masking and isolating and shutting down the economy forever.[/quote]
So - what you are saying is if the mutation that all scientists were warning was likely to happen hadn't happened, we would have lived happily ever after? Covid was alwasy going to mutate like very other virus in history.

That is Johnson all over - "if only no one had noticed my bullshit was bullshit, I'd have got away with it" - he gambled and lost.

He lied to you. If you fell for it, then I assume you are disappointed now.

[quote Beadebaser]@rrhuth that wasn’t the message I got. I think masks etc were still advised - I continued to wear them over the summer in supermarkets etc. There were passports for music events/evidence of negative test etc. I think people ignored the advice, and there was poor enforcement.[/quote]
The government clearly said masks were not needed. They demonstrated that when they said so in interviews and did not wear them in the HoC.

@Rainbows246 thank you, that’s very useful. I know my local hospital is large and has a separate paediatrics dept.

It’s so difficult to know.

@rrhuth I’ve always tried to base my opinions on science - and the global consensus of thought. I think there is a danger that people hate the government to the extent that they ALSO think the science is at fault. And I think that’s harmful.

Are we actually at risk of overwhelming the NHS?

The NHS is already overwhelmed. The thought of any more stress on it (via omicron and winter) is terrifying.

[quote Beadebaser]@Rainbows246 thank you, that’s very useful. I know my local hospital is large and has a separate paediatrics dept.

It’s so difficult to know.

@rrhuth I’ve always tried to base my opinions on science - and the global consensus of thought. I think there is a danger that people hate the government to the extent that they ALSO think the science is at fault. And I think that’s harmful.[/quote]
Scientific advice was that masks were needed and the government has ignored the science - I ignore the government and listen to scientists.

The NHS was already dying pre covid - the excellent documentary Hospital charted this well, among others - but covid has just been the straw that broke the camel's back. My trust has just changed the guidance to allow staff to work even with positive household cases - lack of staff was getting to dangerous levels so they had no choice.

What worries me is the cinderella service - mental health, which I work in. It's been chronically underfunded for decades and demand is only increasing. We do need to have some difficult conversations about whether you'd rather your elderly relative with cancer is treated - or your suicidal teenager? It really is that bad... Plus, conditions are getting so toxic and damaging in mental health that many are quitting and working privately. Not the answer in my opinion, but I can understand why. So it's going to quickly become a two tier system, even more than it is now.

Not to mention that brexit has obliterated the staff in the care sector, so patients can't be discharged from hospital.

Basically, it's a perfect storm, of which covid is just one part.

@Misty9

Not to mention that brexit has obliterated the staff in the care sector, so patients can't be discharged from hospital.

Basically, it's a perfect storm, of which covid is just one part.

Ah yes the glory days of a supply of cheap labour and people who were content to put up with crap working conditions is over, care homes will have to start treating staff well and paying a fair wage, boo hoo. Although I'd be interested in figures as discharges to care have always been really long and hard going, quite often it's disputes of where is best.

Theimpossiblegirl

Yes, but blame years of cuts and underfunding, not antivaxxers. I say that as a fully vaccinated person“

Or both. One is exacerbating the other.

@MrsSkylerWhite

Theimpossiblegirl

Yes, but blame years of cuts and underfunding, not antivaxxers. I say that as a fully vaccinated person“

Or both. One is exacerbating the other.

Indeed... Government funding may be partly to blame, but that doesn't mean those who won't be vaccinated shouldn't shoulder the blame too.

The entitlement of the unvaccinated is truly astonishing and appalling to behold, their manifesto seeming to be:

"I refuse to be vaccinated and significantly reduce the risk of me being a burden to a NHS at the point of collapse, but I insist on receiving my full treatment from them for free despite refusing their pleas to be vaccinated nonetheless. Moreover no one is entitled to be angry in any way that my choice is contributing to them not getting the treatment they need because their appointments have all been cancelled well into 2022! Because I live by 'My body, my choice' motto, I therefore have zero responsibility to the wider world regarding the implications of my vaccination decision, but the wider world has full responsibility to ensure I'm treated as a consequence of my choice. Because the Government has been a bit shit over the past years, I'm therefore absolved of any responsibility as everything will always be their fault."

Friends have a hotel eaterie cocktails, lunch, dinner, they've had lots of NHS workers in they've been hitting the booze hard, sailing down the banisters, generally letting go, male staff have been offered sex if they can find a room. Honestly it's like the war footing my mum told me granny saw in world war 2.

NHS staff have been in a war like zone for nearly two years now,

I wonder if the government care about individual patients now or think of it as whittling down the chronic sick

@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.

What kind of sick dystopian two tier society do you want to live in? There are many many other conditions other than Covid that require treatment in hospital.

Many people aren’t being diagnosed early so they end up in hospital because their situation has worsened. Do you blame these people for not having early help? Do you blame new mothers for damage during childbirth? Should they have “looked after their own health” by not getting pregnant? How about people who are overweight or smoke, those who overdose or those who try to end their own lives? Should they be denied healthcare?

You are sick.

@Greensmoothie1 mouse is stating what I suspect think tanks are discussing.

@justasking111

Friends have a hotel eaterie cocktails, lunch, dinner, they've had lots of NHS workers in they've been hitting the booze hard, sailing down the banisters, generally letting go, male staff have been offered sex if they can find a room. Honestly it's like the war footing my mum told me granny saw in world war 2.

NHS staff have been in a war like zone for nearly two years now,

I wonder if the government care about individual patients now or think of it as whittling down the chronic sick

What?!

@rrhuth - you have a specific agenda, I understand that, but surely, surely you can’t be so daft as to think the virus and it’s impact is all the Govt’s fault, or specifically Boris’s?

What an incredibly insular person you are to believe that the UK is not just uniquely suffering from covid, but that actually no other countries exist at all, in the words of USA For Africa, “We are the world.”

You post prolifically, yet never move on from your entrenched position and belief that if only - who? - were in charge we’d all be saved. We definitely need new leadership, but any leader is kind of stymied by the fact that there has yet to be a virus that is sentient and obeys a human being.

its impact