Hospitals critical incidents

[Spottyphonecase24]

I have seen a number of hospital trusts have declared this today. What does this actually mean and how does it affect us? Boris didn’t seem to be bothered by this should we be?

It means non urgent operations are all likely to be cancelled

I read the other reason things are worse is we now have a two year backlog, putting loads more pressure on.

Surgeries were delayed = more pain, more complications, more disability. Late diagnosis the same.

Letting covid run pretty out of control for so long has really trashed healthcare.

@Youarefakenews

This is something we all should be playing our part in. We now expect the state to care for our elderly Parents. In Years gone by that role was covered by the family. Perhaps we need to return to that.

You mean women

Fixed that for you

Because so many hospital staff are having to isolate because of a mild variant of covid.

@TheNoonBell

The nurses and doctors are stuck at home isolating because they have something nearly everyone else has.

That's the emergency.

The phrase "shooting yourself in the foot" springs to mind.

HCPs have always had to stay at home when they have ‘something everyone else has’ because of increased dangers of transmission in a hospital setting and vulnerable patients.

Anyone in a risk category will most likely have been jabbed so are "protected".

‘Risk category’ includes people for whom vaccination won’t work.

Hope most of you didn’t bother to clap I. Your doorstep last year. The disgusting vitriol and eye rolling aimed at NHS staff in this thread is disgusting.

There’s a reason we hear there are problems in the NHS every winter. Perhaps that means you should listen more rather than accept it’s just something that happens.

For every member of the NHS on this thread, I see you and I thank you. Please make sure you take all the support your Trust can offer. This is brutal and this time without the public on side it’s even worse.

just so many nursing vacancies, i dont know the figures, but huge

encourage your friends and family to become nurses

@PrincessNutNuts

I've never heard ambulance trusts telling people with suspected heart attacks or strokes to make their own way to the hospital before.

www.hsj.co.uk/quality-and-performance/get-a-lift-to-hospital-ambulance-trust-tells-patients-with-suspected-heart-attacks/7031626.article

The target for a Category 2 shout (heart attack and stroke level) is 18 minutes.

These are the current averages for those types of 999 calls according to the Sunday Times last weekend:

(We're going need an alert level 6)

Agree.

Also the ambulance services were under pressure before omicron. Basic care - things like making sure there are enough staff (catering and nursing) to ensure in patients are fed - has been severely compromised for months, and not just because of Covid.

Johnson pays lip service to ‘our NHS’, but his party policy has been to always run the NHS at full capacity. If it then becomes overwhelmed 2 years into a pandemic because of a new variant, that isn’t bad luck, it’s a predictable consequence of the policy.

You can either have lockdowns or increase capacity, but it is ridiculous to suggest that we can ‘live with Covid’ by doing neither.

It means it’s the same as previous years.

I can’t remember the annual call for people to find some one to give them a lift if they are having a heart attack.

@Spottyphonecase24

I have seen a number of hospital trusts have declared this today. What does this actually mean and how does it affect us? Boris didn’t seem to be bothered by this should we be?

It means that should you have an accident or a stroke, heart attack etc you will wait hours to be treated and if you need any sort of elective surgery you wont get it unless you can pay.

Current delay at Derriford in Plymouth is 13hrs.

Astounded listening to the Govt explaining that we always get "winter pressures" FFS do something about it then? other comparable countries do not these issues.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

just so many nursing vacancies, i dont know the figures, but huge

encourage your friends and family to become nurses

What? and incur 50k of debt, work a 7 day a week shift rota just to earn little more than the min wage???

@Tiredalwaystired

Hope most of you didn’t bother to clap I. Your doorstep last year. The disgusting vitriol and eye rolling aimed at NHS staff in this thread is disgusting.

There’s a reason we hear there are problems in the NHS every winter. Perhaps that means you should listen more rather than accept it’s just something that happens.

For every member of the NHS on this thread, I see you and I thank you. Please make sure you take all the support your Trust can offer. This is brutal and this time without the public on side it’s even worse.

Most people seem to be critical of government policy rather than nhs staff, although I expect most people didn't clap because it was ridiculous and condescending.

Winter pressures are always a thing year in year out, but this is beyond that. I'd be genuinely terrified to need hospital care at the moment.

Everyone who is saying the NHS is like this every year . SHAME ON YOU. The only thing you can think to say is 'meh that it happens every year so what?'. Really that is all you can say about it ?

It is absolutely shameful that after two years in a pandemic affecting a health system almost on its knees already , that we shrug our shoulders because we are fed up of being told about it and that we dismiss these report as ' scaremongering' because we want to 'get on with our lives'

I truly despair of the human race sometimes

Yes the NHS happens to be in crisis every winter. You can quote a million articles about it we know we work in it! But then put a pandemic with high numbers on top of that and that’s where we are and this is not ok. If you or relatives go to hospital right now you will not get the care we want to deliver or that you deserve. It’s that simple. Staff are broken from the last two years, the hospitals are overwhelmed and most aren’t coping no matter what Boris says he is just trying to save his career he doesn’t care about patients care day to day.

Even if omicron is mild, a small number will always be affected and a small number of 200,000 cases a day is a bloody lot. Covid numbers in my trust have doubled we again have multiple wards although ICUA is less busy it still impacts ordinary day to day care on ordinary wards. Omicron is also causing outbreak issues on non covid wards.

We’ve tried so hard to keep everything like surgery, appointments etc running but that’s now impossible. People can put their fingers in their ears all they want but you have multiple NHS staff saying how bad it is. I would not want any of my relatives of any age or illness in hospital right now.

The suggestion of staff working while covid positive is quite frankly disgusting in a building full of vulnerable people that covid can and does some serious health damage to. Also are we not allowed to be ill and rest? No way would i come into work sick with covid.

I’m not calling for a lockdown before anyone starts, but understanding of how bad things really are.

Except people ARE taking it out on the NHS. And yes, I agree with your take on the clapping. But for anyone that stood there applauding every Thursday and then directs their ire at the NHS staff who are dealing with this shitshow I ask you to think about the damage you are doing to the very people that are still there day after day to care for you and your loved ones DESPITE these challenges. They need your compassion more than ever.

In our local hospitals it means waiting the best part of a day for an ambulance (could easily be 8 hours), then waiting 12 hours in that ambulance outside A&E. There were 16 ambulances queuing outside last night at 10pm.
Then if you are still alive and lucky enough to get admitted you can have a trolley in a corridor. There won’t be any staff to look after you though.
Demand has outstripped supply.

And “it happens every year” shouldn’t be a “so what” response, it should be “right this isn’t fucking good enough let’s make this Government sit up and listen”

Astounded listening to the Govt explaining that we always get "winter pressures" FFS do something about it then?

Aaargh!

So what was happening in August? Summer pressures?

No. Covid backlog pressures.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

just so many nursing vacancies, i dont know the figures, but huge

encourage your friends and family to become nurses

I know quite a few experienced nurses who have left nursing because it is just too stressful under current conditions.

In Tory terms, surely if there's a shortage then the price should go up? If nurses were paid the same as MPs, I expect those vacancies would be filled.

In Tory terms, surely if there's a shortage then the price should go up?

There isn’t a shortage of nurses for the people who currently decide government expenditure.

The nursing vacancies are NHS (government) figures - so they know there's a problem, they've just chosen to spend any extra cash on enriching their mates and wasting on overpriced, illegally procured PPE / test and trace etc rather than paying nurses more to show they're valued and help retain them in the workforce.

I'm wondering who they think will help them if they have a heart attack? I didn't think that private health insurance did ambulances or A&E but the royals don't go via normal A&E so maybe they do if you're rich enough.

It's not this bad every year. Yes the nhs is in crisis every year but this is worse purely because of staffing. My ward manager has phoned me at 9am today so see if my day 6 test is negative so I can go back on day 8 because there are now 11 staff off with covid or isolating. I'm actually on annual leave next week but I will go in to make the ward safe.
The original plan was to move those who were isolating due to being contacts to a another ward and swap staff. My ward is nicu and our swap ward is paeds but we can't swap because the paeds staff do not have the skills or qualification to work on nicu so staff are isolating at home instead.
I totally hear what people are saying about staff with mild covid going to work. There is literally nothing wrong with me, I could happily go to work but if one of my babies caught this it could prove fatal. We've got 28 weekers on respiratory support, we cannot take the risk.