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 .

[quote JanglyBeads]@GiveMeNovocain read the BBC and other reports, that's exactly what's being planned/executed.[/quote]
Well the BBC certainly doesn't speak for my trust and I can't imagine many others will be sticking patients in tents. We want people to get home safely and not deteriorate by spending any more time in hospital than they have to. Why on earth would we stick people in tents?

Just read reports that Health Chiefs are basically saying "We can't staff this" but it's going ahead anyway.

This is in addition to ambulances being taken out of rotation and plans for them being rationed. Even better.

The NHS is truly fucked this time.

Did you read the Twitter thread I posted from Chris Hopson, @GiveMeNovocain ?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what they will be built from but won't a temporary structure in the hospital grounds be really cold?

@Wingedharpy

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.

Just two? What a lightweight you are. I'm sure you could squeeze in a whole ITU and ventilate a dozen patients with a bicycle pump.

In all this surge planning to put people who can't be discharged from hospital because they have care needs in tents in hospital car parks has it not occurred to anybody in government that if they brought down infections they wouldn't have to do this?

They might not run out of tests and testing capacity so often either.

And whatever happened to the Prime Ministers plan to fix social care that he won an election on in 2019?

I'm beginning to wonder if his plan is to reduce the need for social care by reducing the number of people who have care needs.

Fucko the Clown wants more pictures of himself in his Bob the Builder outfit and 'building more hospital facilities' is a much better way of funnelling taxpayers' money into his mates pockets than, I dunno, putting money into staff training and recruitment for both the NHS and social care.
Meanwhile let's rev up the gibbering moral panic and division and get those with enough resources to withstand further lockdowns to start dobbing in their 'selfish' neighbours again, let's greenlight further police aggression and arbitrary harassment of individuals for breaching 'guidance'... and completely ignore the fact that 'staying at home' is only viable for cubicle mice and management and is in fact dependent on the low-paid continuing to go out to work to keep these smuggoes fed and maintained...

@Wingedharpy

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.

We've got a car port and we all have at least a first aid qualification.

I think that makes us one of Boris Johnson's promised "40 new hospitals" and 5 of his promised "50,000 new nurses.

@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.

Lol every country in the world now needs its healthcare staff and with our draconian healthcare costs for migrant workers, we wont be getting any going spare. Plus any migrant CW needs to be earning £20k which is way above current salaries.

So all in all a series of PR exercises, would be better to put this resource into community social care.

@Wreath21

Fucko the Clown wants more pictures of himself in his Bob the Builder outfit and 'building more hospital facilities' is a much better way of funnelling taxpayers' money into his mates pockets than, I dunno, putting money into staff training and recruitment for both the NHS and social care. Meanwhile let's rev up the gibbering moral panic and division and get those with enough resources to withstand further lockdowns to start dobbing in their 'selfish' neighbours again, let's greenlight further police aggression and arbitrary harassment of individuals for breaching 'guidance'... and completely ignore the fact that 'staying at home' is only viable for cubicle mice and management and is in fact dependent on the low-paid continuing to go out to work to keep these smuggoes fed and maintained...

He does love to dress up in clothes men work in doesn't he?

He's a one man Village People tribute act most weeks.

The Chris Hopson Twitter thread is quite worrying tbh.

Patients who are over the worst and are close to discharge but need an additional 24 or 48 hours oversight in an inpatient setting. Their medical, as opposed to personal care, needs will therefore be significantly lower than those who are still seriously ill.

What he is not discussing (allowed to mention?) is that these aren't low dependency patients. It will be people with mobility issues, at risk of falling or dementia to name just a few causes. The reason they can't go home is usually because they can't live independently and need additional care or adaptations. Which means they need to be looked after by more than a volunteer with a tea trolley.

@Cuck00soup

The Chris Hopson Twitter thread is quite worrying tbh.

Patients who are over the worst and are close to discharge but need an additional 24 or 48 hours oversight in an inpatient setting. Their medical, as opposed to personal care, needs will therefore be significantly lower than those who are still seriously ill.

What he is not discussing (allowed to mention?) is that these aren't low dependency patients. It will be people with mobility issues, at risk of falling or dementia to name just a few causes. The reason they can't go home is usually because they can't live independently and need additional care or adaptations. Which means they need to be looked after by more than a volunteer with a tea trolley.

It certainly sounds to me like we're about to put pensioners with dementia and other care needs in tents in hospital car parks.

I don’t know any fellow HCP that would think this would work. I was aware it was in surge plans. We have surge planned beds in the hospital but we couldn’t staff a hub in a bloody car park which is ridiculous. Staffing is already dire.
No you can’t staff with volunteers or poorly/quickly trained staff either. These are peoples relatives/friends etc. actual people.

But it’s fine as everyone gets to celebrate new year… oh no wait I’m working.

I'm beginning to wonder if his plan is to reduce the need for social care by reducing the number of people who have care needs.

I bet there's a fair few elderly who regret giving up an activity many found pleasurable (and raked in lots of tax for the economy) - smoking "because it shortens your life". Live longer for this?

Of course it won't be only elderly. Plenty of younger disabled or long term ill. Including the Long Covid newly disabled.

Ironic that one of the most enthusiastic let the bodies pile up countries in the world is one that doesn't allow assisted suicide (unlike other countries and some US states). A kinder and more dignified end than Covid in a tent, in a hospital carpark in the middle of winter. With no trained staff.

What could possibly go wrong iwannnawish?

@Cuck00soup

What could possibly go wrong iwannnawish?

It's alarming that we all immediately know that this plan is an accident waiting to happen and clearly not on - but our government apparently doesn't.

Our local hospital is one of the 8 new hubs, with a rumoured 100 beds to be created in a field hospital structure.

Since 2010, if only two other inpatient hospitals hadn’t been turned into outpatient & diagnostic centres only, reducing the county number of inpatient beds by half, and a ‘super hub’ hospital plan was scrapped.

Maybe, what with the plans to sell off the NHS to private companies and therefore make healthcare unaffordable for the poor, the idea of these hubs is that you go there to die, 'cared' for by all those thrown out of work due to the destruction of the leisure and hospitality industries. They won't have any training, they won't necessarily have any aptitude for the work, they may well be filled with resentment, but they will do well enough to hand out mugs of water and zip you into a body bag when necessary.
(OK, that may well be paranoid over-imagining... but don't forget that care work has often been a kind of punitive dumping ground for the long-term unemployed - take this 'unskilled' job or starve - so many care homes have had a proportion of staff who are not there willingly, dislike the work and are treated with contempt by their employers...)

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy

Our local hospital is one of the 8 new hubs, with a rumoured 100 beds to be created in a field hospital structure.

Since 2010, if only two other inpatient hospitals hadn’t been turned into outpatient & diagnostic centres only, reducing the county number of inpatient beds by half, and a ‘super hub’ hospital plan was scrapped.

It's an England-wide thing.

@Wreath21

Maybe, what with the plans to sell off the NHS to private companies and therefore make healthcare unaffordable for the poor, the idea of these hubs is that you go there to die, 'cared' for by all those thrown out of work due to the destruction of the leisure and hospitality industries. They won't have any training, they won't necessarily have any aptitude for the work, they may well be filled with resentment, but they will do well enough to hand out mugs of water and zip you into a body bag when necessary. (OK, that may well be paranoid over-imagining... but don't forget that care work has often been a kind of punitive dumping ground for the long-term unemployed - take this 'unskilled' job or starve - so many care homes have had a proportion of staff who are not there willingly, dislike the work and are treated with contempt by their employers...)

I can't have dystopian visions while I'm living in one.

In most areas this is not about building temporary structures in car parks. The big trusts have been asked to identify available non clinical space on sit e.g. Gyms, education centres, canteens that can be used for surge capacity of up to 100 beds with minimal detriment to other patient activity. We did this for critical care from wave 1. The aim this time is that providing extra beds on site would be safer than an offsite Nightingale in that it works to support a pathway from ED to back of house wards with access to ICCU, diagnostics, therapies if required.

The problem will still be staffing these units. Staffing across all hospitals will likely be below minimum safe levels over the coming weeks. If these are the most medically fit patients, that is a step change from the original plans for the Nightingale hospitals that we should take hope in. As an NHS worker, I feel very much that our government has abandoned us.

World beating tents with self service medical care in hospital car parks probably even a new low for enjoy your New Year party cautiously whilst I was AWOL for 10 days PM. Potato man Andrew Bridgen will be happy though so it's not all bad.

Worth noting that field hospitals have been successfully been operating in Wales for months now with, as far as I am aware, no issues. gov.wales/written-statement-review-field-hospital-phase-2

[quote Motorina]Worth noting that field hospitals have been successfully been operating in Wales for months now with, as far as I am aware, no issues. gov.wales/written-statement-review-field-hospital-phase-2[/quote]
Successful? "majority of patients felt safe...." hardly inspiring!

i don't know about you but i equate field hospitals with war zones and natural disasters in 3rd world countries, not in the worlds 5th richest economy.

In any future inquiry, i hope why the NHS was allowed to be run down to such an extent will be looked at and those responsible held to account... oh wait! thats us the voters.

We're living through a natural disaster. In that context, yes, I do find it inspiring that:

the majority of patients have received positive outcomes and reported positive patient experiences, saying they felt safe and involved when decisions were made about their care and treatment ... one health board reported “100% of patients felt safe whilst in their care”. ... there has been a low number of complaints and incidents reported, with low transfer rates back to the acute hospitals

In the face of unprecedented demand it's a damn sight better than the alternative.

Everyone's hoping that the Nightingale Hubs won't need to be used. But, if they are, then 'cold tents in car parks' is a misrepresentation of what's actually planned.