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Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

DanFST said:
London Christmas parties, nights out enjoying normal life - no covid.

Get back to the countryside and relax over christmas playing golf - Positive.

VERY annoying.
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Do you think one may just be connected to the other?

Case numbers in London rising fast, but test positive rate rising as well, which means that the true number of cases is accelerating faster than the numbers suggest. Test kits now maxed out, so positivity rate the key number. Ireland hitting 40% test positive rate already. Case numbers highest in young, but starting to kick up in over 60s, which carries much higher risk of hospitalisations. Hospitalisations around half of Jan 21 peak, so one "doubling" away. Deaths still ,likely to be lower, but NHS pressures could still be a serious challenge and displace NHS resources needed elsewhere. The plan announced today for Nightingale "step-down" units is laughable. Most NHS hospitals can' staff existing structures without new ones being created to give the impression that something is being done.
 
Old Skier said:
Using Nightingale hubs for bed blocking patients who require less care would be a good use. Hopefully there might be someone in the NHS capable of thinking outside the box.
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If hospitals are currently short-staffed and more bed spaces are created off-site, where there will also be a need for extra infrastructure staff, just how will those bed spaces be supported?
 
Old Skier said:
Using Nightingale hubs for bed blocking patients who require less care would be a good use. Hopefully there might be someone in the NHS capable of thinking outside the box.
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And who is going to staff these step-down facilities? It is a vanity project to give the appearance of something being done.

The better question is how can a policy that on the one hand is setting up extra crisis capacity yet on the other is doing nothing to mitigate the risk of NYE parties be reconciled?
 
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Ethan said:
It is a vanity project to give the appearance of something being down.
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Im sure this will be some peoples opinions, mine is that used properly it could relieve the pressure from many front line staff. The original Nightingales failed because NHS Trusts refused to work as one NHS and pool there resources but more like individual trusts.

Like you, I’m not in a position to see which way well paid administrators will organise the next problem they will face.
 
Hobbit said:
If hospitals are currently short-staffed and more bed spaces are created off-site, where there will also be a need for extra infrastructure staff, just how will those bed spaces be supported?
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Surely the staff requirement for patients just awaiting discharge doesn’t require the same level of support as genuine sick people in hospital.
 
Old Skier said:
Im sure this will be some peoples opinions, mine is that used properly it could relieve the pressure from many front line staff. The original Nightingales failed because NHS Trusts refused to work as one NHS and pool there resources but more like individual trusts.

Like you, I’m not in a position to see which way well paid administrators will organise the next problem they will face.
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Speak for yourself. I know plenty of people in front-line care positions, and in parallel am in a thread on this very issue on a doctors forum - plot spoiler, they all think it is terrible idea which will increase problems rather than relieve them. One doctor posted "We are one of the sites. Genuinely can't believe they are still throwing cash at these money pits. There are NO STAFF anywhere" - but if administrators have come up with a way of defying the truism that splitting patients onto two sites is more costly in terms of staff numbers, they should announce the details of this groundbreaking work forthwith.

There is a precedent here. The previous Nightingale hospitals stole staff and resources from existing NHS provision, and were mostly empty. Doing it then may have been a sensible precaution that proved not to be needed, but no sensible person would believe the same will not happen again, especially with much higher levels of staff illness and higher levels of staff pissed-offness.

A much better policy would be to reduce the number of people who will go into hospital in the first place. A circuit breaker before or right after Christmas could have done that, but instead plans are being made for the consequences of knowingly failing to take the necessary steps at the right time. Incredible.
 
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Old Skier said:
Surely the staff requirement for patients just awaiting discharge doesn’t require the same level of support as genuine sick people in hospital.
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The answer to your closed question is, obviously, less staff will be required for those awaiting discharge. However, you don’t seem to have taken on board the point that there’s already a staffing shortage, and your answer is to take staff out.

If you increase the number of critical care beds, you’ll pretty much need a member of staff for each bed. They will come from current ward staff. The wards will then be short but some staff will come from outpatient clinics. And what about Facilities staff, pharmacy staff, catering staff, portering staff?

But having created even greater staffing shortages within the hospital, the answer is to take more out for the low care Nightingales, really?
 
Hobbit said:
The answer to your closed question is, obviously, less staff will be required for those awaiting discharge. However, you don’t seem to have taken on board the point that there’s already a staffing shortage, and your answer is to take staff out.

If you increase the number of critical care beds, you’ll pretty much need a member of staff for each bed. They will come from current ward staff. The wards will then be short but some staff will come from outpatient clinics. And what about Facilities staff, pharmacy staff, catering staff, portering staff?

But having created even greater staffing shortages within the hospital, the answer is to take more out for the low care Nightingales, really?
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Was the plan to increase critical care beds, must have missed that which would be strange as critical care numbers, thankfully, appear to be fairly stable

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare
 
Hobbit said:
The answer to your closed question is, obviously, less staff will be required for those awaiting discharge. However, you don’t seem to have taken on board the point that there’s already a staffing shortage, and your answer is to take staff out.

If you increase the number of critical care beds, you’ll pretty much need a member of staff for each bed. They will come from current ward staff. The wards will then be short but some staff will come from outpatient clinics. And what about Facilities staff, pharmacy staff, catering staff, portering staff?

But having created even greater staffing shortages within the hospital, the answer is to take more out for the low care Nightingales, really?
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HiD despite retiring back last year still tries to do 5 shifts a month and for the last couple of months the whats app group for her ward is constantly pinged for nurses to cover shifts , in all her 42 years never known staff shortages like we're experiencing now. Talking to friends alas also replicated through the trust .
They've no idea where the staff for the Nightingales are going to be magiced from :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
Ethan said:
They are planned to be "step-down" facilities, i.e. pre-discharge. Still need staffing though.
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Isn't one of the problems that critical care beds are being used by patients who although no longer critically ill have no recovery beds available to go to, thus blocking ICU facilities. It must be easier to care for people in recovery and necessitate a lower ratio of staff to patients. I do understand it's not a perfect situation but surely they can call on the military and other private resources if needs must. I know my mother worked as a nursing auxiliary with the red cross during the war.

Obviously not an expert opinion but sometimes when up against it we have to take emergency measures.
 
Old Skier said:
Was the plan to increase critical care beds, must have missed that which would be strange as critical care numbers, thankfully, appear to be fairly stable

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare
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You still haven’t answered where these extra staff are coming from. The NHS is short staffed now, and the plan takes staff out of hospitals. Simple, unambiguous question - where do you get the extra staff from?
 
SocketRocket said:
Isn't one of the problems that critical care beds are being used by patients who although no longer critically ill have no recovery beds available to go to, thus blocking ICU facilities. It must be easier to care for people in recovery and necessitate a lower ratio of staff to patients. I do understand it's not a perfect situation but surely they can call on the military and other private resources if needs must. I know my mother worked as a nursing auxiliary with the red cross during the war.

Obviously not an expert opinion but sometimes when up against it we have to take emergency measures.
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Unfortunately, a major issue is also training. Let’s pinch staff from Outpatients clinics. Staff are being tasked NOW to do work they’re not trained for. The answer isn’t to bring in more untrained people. Hell, you might as well phone Joe Bloggs Plumbing and see if he can cover a few nursing shifts.
 
SocketRocket said:
It seems like LFT kits are the new toilet rolls.
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Have not been able to find any LFTs locally today at home, and weren’t able to find any up at MiLs earlier this week. Pharmacist today said they hadnt had any for over a week, and as there is a single source of supply it is first come first served…pot luck.

Hopefully the promised millions of kits due to be made available from tomorrow will relieve the problem…though it seems inevitable that more testing (as will be driven up by those who have been looking for tests for days) in next few days could result in a significant kick-up in number of positives cover these days and it might therefore be hard to draw conclusions on the underlying trend.
 
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Hobbit said:
Unfortunately, a major issue is also training. Let’s pinch staff from Outpatients clinics. Staff are being tasked NOW to do work they’re not trained for. The answer isn’t to bring in more untrained people. Hell, you might as well phone Joe Bloggs Plumbing and see if he can cover a few nursing shifts.
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You know that's not what I suggested. There is no simple answer but sometimes you just have to make the best out of what's available. As I suggested there's the military (If we had a fairly major military crisis where it resulted in large casualties then we would need to either bring in emergency measures or leave them untreated) In a national emergency we would need to take emergency measures like conscripting private medical staff, it's the critical care that's the priority. We are not talking about everyday situations but emergency situations that would be necessary to stop the health service folding.
 
SocketRocket said:
Isn't one of the problems that critical care beds are being used by patients who although no longer critically ill have no recovery beds available to go to, thus blocking ICU facilities. It must be easier to care for people in recovery and necessitate a lower ratio of staff to patients. I do understand it's not a perfect situation but surely they can call on the military and other private resources if needs must. I know my mother worked as a nursing auxiliary with the red cross during the war.

Obviously not an expert opinion but sometimes when up against it we have to take emergency measures.
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ICU occupancy is down with Omicron, that isn't really the pinch point, regular beds and staffing them is.

More beds always only ever means more staff. Floor space and bedstead and mattresses usually are not a problem. ICU beds need extra kit, sure, but they need extra staff more than that. If you can find enough staff,. you can find places to put people. These Nightingale hospitals are largely for show and are not an efficient use of currently stretched resources. Given that they are pre-discharge patients, then the staff are being taken away from sicker patients. A bad bad idea.

According to Sky News, Professor Andrew Hayward, who sits on the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), suggested it was "odd" that new Nightingale "surge hubs" are to be set up in England to increase NHS capacity, at the same time that people were not being discouraged from having New Year's Eve parties. "I find it odd really that we're in a situation where we're worried enough about the wave of Omicron to build new Nightingale capacity," he said. "But we're not worried to suggest to people that New Year's Eve parties are not a good idea".
 
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SocketRocket said:
You know that's not what I suggested. There is no simple answer but sometimes you just have to make the best out of what's available. As I suggested there's the military (If we had a fairly major military crisis where it resulted in large casualties then we would need to either bring in emergency measures or leave them untreated) In a national emergency we would need to take emergency measures like conscripting private medical staff, it's the critical care that's the priority. We are not talking about everyday situations but emergency situations that would be necessary to stop the health service folding.
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What we should do in the face of an impending crisis is act to reduce it, not encourage it.
 
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