Nightingale hubs - help /hinderance/PR exercise

[peridito]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59823652

The eight temporary "Nightingale" units will each house about 100 patients, with building starting this week

Royal Preston hospital in Lancashire
St James' University Hospital in Leeds
Lister Hospital in Stevenage
St George's Hospital in Tooting
William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent
North Bristol Hospital
Solihull Hospital
University Hospitals Birmingham
University Hospitals Leicester

temporary structures will be set up in the grounds of hospitals so staff, equipment and emergency departments are close at hand.

Only those patients who are close to being discharged and need minimal support will be cared for at these facilities.

not much detail ,I wonder how much help they'll be by (presumably) providing a hot zone for recovering Covid patients.

But surely this will be extra pressure for NHS staff figuring out resources to accommodate them ,even if they're just erected and not used .And there will be no extra staff to provide care in them ..so increasing bed space by a 100 but no staff ,nurses ,cleaners ,caterers .

My local hospital in London has had to close wards because they can't staff them .

The words stable, door, horse and bolt spring to mind.

I just cannot fathom where the staff are going to come from, even if it is technically a 'step down' operation. The words 'non clinical staff' are quite alarming too.

One of the hospitals listed above is my local hospital to take patients to (I'm a paramedic) - it is already massively overwhelmed being a trauma centre, a HAC and HASU - it not only receives these patients from London but a big chunk of the south east too. Then add in the local demographic.

It feels like we are going back to square one.
This should have been actioned weeks ago.

Sounds like it is to free up beds. Lots of bed blocking at the moment partly due to the crisis in the social care sector.

PR exercise unless the army can provide staffing. I imagine NHS staff with covid will be asked to go to work and staff them.

Yes Nappy that makes sense .But I wonder who is going to be caring for the poor old bed blockers in the temp.structures . Relatives/friends etc ? If available ?

I don’t get this….we don’t need restrictions but we do need extra bed space? Surely banning large events for a few weeks would make a difference?

Ah ,yes the walking well with covid can safely be deployed to a zone where covid recovered bed blockers are languishing .

And it will be a good test of how long prior infection protects against re infection and if there is any potential for mainly recovered to aid mutation of virus .

Very surprised that my trust hasn't got one. We are one of the largest hospitals in the country.

I guess how much space there is to accommodate the footprint is important ?

I saw they relaxed the immigration requirements on care workers so maybe they plan to ship some in from overseas to staff these nightingales. Just a guess.

Why not just reopen the ones that were built during the first lockdown? why spend more? and where are the staff coming from?

@McFarts

Why not just reopen the ones that were built during the first lockdown? why spend more? and where are the staff coming from?

Because they have largely been completely dismantled and therefore reinstating would be the same cost as building them from scratch.

Because they were too big and would not work in practice due to there being no staff available.

Because they were never intended to operate as full hospital beds and were essentially dying rooms with additional mortuary capacity.

I was a bit ' wtf ' today about this new news , but I'm not a HCP or anything else so they must be needed ? Who will staff them?
The other news is ' party on , in England anyway ' or about the Maxwell trial etc and the papers online are all about how wonderful Boris Johnson is for not imposing NYE restrictions( although many places are having to shut anyway because of staff shortages including our one and only nightclub in town)

The biggest problem with the first set of Nightingales was that there wasn’t any staff for them so I don’t know where they hope to magic them from this time around with cases at an all time high.

I am aghast at the fact we are talking about erecting hospital tents in car parks but still refusing to take any mitigating steps whilst being virtually out of all testing options and instead the PM (who can barely explain where he’s been for the last 10 days) simply says enjoy new year but “be cautious”. Whatever the fuck that means.

I know it's easy to blame certain areas of the press in the UK for everything, but the headlines today are just backing up the government and crowing about the lack of any further restrictions
Certain journalists are positively gleeful.
Then we hear about the new hubs on the news.
It doesn't feel right to me but I guess they will press on with it now and just hope it's ok
Many places have shut or will be shut by tomorrow anyway I bet.
We Just have to hope they have made the correct decisions based on the stats and data available

I am absolutely over this shit show of a the government.
Who is going to staff the extra capacity?! We’re having to stop elective work to cope with the beds we have.
NHS asked to identify capacity in canteens etc

Yet no restrictions and crack on with your NYE party

@Nappyvalley15

I saw they relaxed the immigration requirements on care workers so maybe they plan to ship some in from overseas to staff these nightingales. Just a guess.

They might I suppose but I can't imagine the process would be a quick one ? Goodness knows ,sounds like madness .And I can't help thinking that hospital car parks will be put out of action .Which sounds so trivial ,but where will staff park ?

I'm Wales so a bit different but wards are full of medically fit patients who are waiting for Packages of Care (unfortunately for several months!) or placements/paperwork.
These people often have very minimal nursing needs but are on medical wards that are staffed with nurses. Because of this there is no room for those coming in through the front doors requiring more support putting tremendous pressure on the acute side.
It absolutely makes sense to me to care for these people somewhere else with a lower qualified ratio.

Well, I'm a retired Nurse with a big garage so they can send a couple here.

Only someone who has never had any patient contact whatsoever, and lacking in any imagination, would think this was the answer.

I get there are people who could be moved from a ward into a setting where less medical expertise is needed .But some oversight /supervision ( and care! ) will surely be needed .And who is going to provide that ?

Care agencies ,residential homes are struggling and I just don't get where the extra manpower will come from ?

Well, I'm a retired Nurse with a big garage so they can send a couple here

I'd ask MN to delete your post Winged ,you might somehow be tracked down and press ganged into action....

Perhaps all these folk will be looked after by the same Nurse, who will be provided with their own pushbike and cape!

Hilarious - by the time they've had a blizzard of committee meetings, sorted out who's getting the kickbacks and started building (if they ever do) this wave will be a speck in the distance

Nice headline for the unthinking though ...

I'm not one of the ' unthinking ' I think about covid a bit too much to be honest.
The news today on tv just surprised me because of the lack of further restrictions this New Years in England , but then I'm not a HCP and trying to stay away from any hospitals and no idea what is going on there. It must be an uneven picture nationally I suppose? Especially with Christmas in the mix.

Maybe someone who works in one of these eight hospitals with the new hubs coming might know more ? Many HCPs do come on mumsnet.

In other news, an amazon warehouse has opened in my local area - and apparently the offer of walking over 16 miles a day is a better proposition than low paid care work and social care providers literally can't get the staff.

Social care has been collapsing on itself for so long, I'm wondering how the fuck they're going to spin their way out of this one - and feathers idea is so worryingly plausible I'm expecting a bold new initiative announced this afternoon

We can't staff our existing Hospitals - not even with agency staff and not even under Extreme pressures with Business Continuity plans being actioned.

Where the fuck do the government think the staff are going to come from?