What's the story with that Nightingale hospital place in London ?

[trampie09]

Stories emerging that the London Nightingale hospital is a white Elephant, critically ill patients are being turned away because they haven't enough nurses, 4000 beds and only 41 people treated (4 of them died), yet they have turned more patients away due to a lack of staff than they have managed to treat.
All that money setting up and running such a huge place, the army involved, the Prime Minister and Health Secretary all involved, what does NHS England have to say about this ?, it makes them all look very foolish.

We might be no different in Wales that is to be seen but that London Nightingale place is apparently set up but they are unavailable to take patients, what is going on ?

[tell it like it is]

Source?

[trampie09]

Source?

Comments all over the internet.

Here is the Guardian report:-

Nurse shortage causes Nightingale hospital to turn away patients https://t.co/yfVSREEaTY

— The Guardian (@guardian) April 21, 2020

[chris lee]

I commented a few days back, on a similar thread, I was surprised we have all these new pop up hospitals opening when hospital capacity was at safe levels and new cases are starting to plateau

[tell it like it is]

Overflow, to take most severe cv cases away isn't it? Maybe they expect a second, third wave?

[Heisenberg]

I commented a few days back, on a similar thread, I was surprised we have all these new pop up hospitals opening when hospital capacity was at safe levels and new cases are starting to plateau

Is this an opinion or a fact?

[trampie09]

Overflow, to take most severe cv cases away isn't it? Maybe they expect a second, third wave?

They haven't got the staff for the first wave, they will be unlikely to have the staff for second or third waves, seen some speculation that the second wave if there is one might be in September.

[life on mars]

I think they may have been planned for a worse case scenario, not a bad big if planning if its save lives in the end . I'm sure if they went there ready , that would be wrong as well, wouldn't be shocked to see another wave of deaths when the lockdown is eased and folk relax their safe control mechanisms.

[chris lee]

Is this an opinion or a fact?

I have caught news outlets discussing capacity levels regularly, and belive it has been mentioned a few times in the governments daily updates.

I quick google search pulls up some data.


source:
https://www.hsj.co.uk/service-design...027398.article

hospitals (London) have been able to double their ICU capacity on their existing estates, raising the total available ICU beds to 1,555.

The same data showed 1,245 of these beds were occupied on Easter Sunday (80 per cent), suggesting the established hospitals have so far been able to cope with the surge in demand, without relying on large numbers being admitted to the Nightingale.

HSJ has seen data showing 19 patients were at the London Nightingale over the bank holiday, which has been confirmed by a senior figure who did not want their name to be published.

The low numbers at the Nightingale are also likely to be influenced by the tight criteria that was agreed for patients to be admitted there, which excluded the most frail patients.

According to the circulated data, south west London had the most spare capacity, with 67 per cent of ICU beds occupied on Sunday. At Croydon Health Services Trust, just 46 per cent of the 37 intensive care beds were occupied.

North London had the least spare capacity, with 204 beds (86 per cent) occupied.

There were two trusts with more than 90 per cent occupancy: Imperial College Healthcare Trust (95 per cent) and University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust (91 per cent).

An NHS England spokesman said: “While the data quoted here are not complete and validated, they confirm continuing success in ensuring we have available capacity to look after patients who need our care, which has been one of our overarching operational goals since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.”

--------

Those are figures just for London, and as we know they are the worst hit so I can assume the rest of the country is only going to be in better shape

[Heisenberg]

I have caught news outlets discussing capacity levels regularly, and belive it has been mentioned a few times in the governments daily updates.

I quick google search pulls up some data.


source:
https://www.hsj.co.uk/service-design...027398.article

hospitals (London) have been able to double their ICU capacity on their existing estates, raising the total available ICU beds to 1,555.

The same data showed 1,245 of these beds were occupied on Easter Sunday (80 per cent), suggesting the established hospitals have so far been able to cope with the surge in demand, without relying on large numbers being admitted to the Nightingale.

HSJ has seen data showing 19 patients were at the London Nightingale over the bank holiday, which has been confirmed by a senior figure who did not want their name to be published.

The low numbers at the Nightingale are also likely to be influenced by the tight criteria that was agreed for patients to be admitted there, which excluded the most frail patients.

According to the circulated data, south west London had the most spare capacity, with 67 per cent of ICU beds occupied on Sunday. At Croydon Health Services Trust, just 46 per cent of the 37 intensive care beds were occupied.

North London had the least spare capacity, with 204 beds (86 per cent) occupied.

There were two trusts with more than 90 per cent occupancy: Imperial College Healthcare Trust (95 per cent) and University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust (91 per cent).

An NHS England spokesman said: “While the data quoted here are not complete and validated, they confirm continuing success in ensuring we have available capacity to look after patients who need our care, which has been one of our overarching operational goals since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.”

--------

Those are figures just for London, and as we know they are the worst hit so I can assume therest of the country is only going to be in better shape

Thanks for that, I hadn't heard anything about the levels in hospitals at the moment. I guess the Govt. were looking at a 'worst case' scenario in terms of potential numbers, which is what they should be doing.

[life on mars]

I have caught news outlets discussing capacity levels regularly, and belive it has been mentioned a few times in the governments daily updates.

I quick google search pulls up some data.


source:
https://www.hsj.co.uk/service-design...027398.article

hospitals (London) have been able to double their ICU capacity on their existing estates, raising the total available ICU beds to 1,555.

The same data showed 1,245 of these beds were occupied on Easter Sunday (80 per cent), suggesting the established hospitals have so far been able to cope with the surge in demand, without relying on large numbers being admitted to the Nightingale.

HSJ has seen data showing 19 patients were at the London Nightingale over the bank holiday, which has been confirmed by a senior figure who did not want their name to be published.

The low numbers at the Nightingale are also likely to be influenced by the tight criteria that was agreed for patients to be admitted there, which excluded the most frail patients.

According to the circulated data, south west London had the most spare capacity, with 67 per cent of ICU beds occupied on Sunday. At Croydon Health Services Trust, just 46 per cent of the 37 intensive care beds were occupied.

North London had the least spare capacity, with 204 beds (86 per cent) occupied.

There were two trusts with more than 90 per cent occupancy: Imperial College Healthcare Trust (95 per cent) and University College London Hospitals Foundation Trust (91 per cent).

An NHS England spokesman said: “While the data quoted here are not complete and validated, they confirm continuing success in ensuring we have available capacity to look after patients who need our care, which has been one of our overarching operational goals since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.”

--------

Those are figures just for London, and as we know they are the worst hit so I can assume the rest of the country is only going to be in better shape

It's been very impressive how these units have been pulled together.

[trampie09]

The point is if the regular hospitals are overrun with patients will the new temporary hospitals have the staff to be able to function ?
That London Nightingale hospital is 4000 beds, I bet the Millennium Stadium has a huge capacity as well, will we have the staff to man up such facilities if the need arises for us to have to use them ?

[chris lee]

Thanks for that, I hadn't heard anything about the levels in hospitals at the moment. I guess the Govt. were looking at a 'worst case' scenario in terms of potential numbers, which is what they should be doing.

I 100% agree that planning for worst case scenario numbers is the right thing to be doing.

I just fear that because of how the news likes to sensationalize this whole pandemic, we are being led to believe that the NHS is at breaking point and there is chaos on the front lines, when actually we should be giving the NHS credit because they are actually doing a fantastic job in managing it all in house.

[trampie09]

Having a hospital with no nurses is like having an aircraft carrier with no planes.....oh wait a minute.

[chris lee]

The point is if the regular hospitals are overrun with patients will the new temporary hospitals have the staff to be able to function ?
That London Nightingale hospital is 4000 beds, I bet the Millennium Stadium has a huge capacity as well, will we have the staff to man up such facilities if the need arises for us to have to use them ?

At some point if the country was overrun with growing numbers of patients, then eventually yes you would naturally run out of staff, what that number of patients is I doubt many people would be able to answer.

But I would push back and say it looks likes we do not have have to worry about this arbitrary figure of patients, because current staff levels are handling what looks to be our near peak figures without even reaching maximum capacity in house.

Hence this looks to be the obvious explanation why there are low patient numbers in pop up hospitals, not the narrative that we have run out of staff

[trampie09]

At some point if the country was overrun with growing numbers of patients, then eventually yes you would naturally run out of staff, what that number of patients is I doubt many people would be able to answer.

But I would push back and say it looks likes we do not have have to worry about this arbitrary figure of patients, because current staff levels are handling what looks to be our near peak figures without even reaching maximum capacity in house.

Hence this looks to be the obvious explanation why there are low patient numbers in pop up hospitals, not because there is no staff in them.

Looks like we are holding the line at the moment, but if our regular hospital capacity gets overrun then it does not look like we can cope, due to an apparent lack of nurses and that seems to be the point of the article.

[xsnaggle]

Looks like we are holding the line at the moment, but if our regular hospital capacity gets overrun then it does not look like we can cope, due to an apparent lack of nurses and that seems to be the point of the article.

Its easy to write an article attacking something that hasn't happened yet. Lets see what really happens.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Its easy to write an article attacking something that hasn't happened yet. Lets see what really happens.

I agree mr x but it does seem like yet another balls up by those in charge

[xsnaggle]

I agree mr x but it does seem like yet another balls up by those in charge

No pressure on the place yet, and hopefully never will be, but the NHS insists they can run it if they need to. Lets hope they never have to be proved either right or wrong

[trampie09]

Its easy to write an article attacking something that hasn't happened yet. Lets see what really happens.

They have already turned people away so there is merit to the article.

[goats]

I commented a few days back, on a similar thread, I was surprised we have all these new pop up hospitals opening when hospital capacity was at safe levels and new cases are starting to plateau

So they can move Covid patients to just these places. People are going to hospitals for routine things and coming out with the virus. Which is insane, It needs to be treated solely at these places to free up our hospitals for the usual stuff and saving people from the many other things they generally can die from.....

[Eric Cartman]

I commented a few days back, on a similar thread, I was surprised we have all these new pop up hospitals opening when hospital capacity was at safe levels and new cases are starting to plateau

It feels a little bit like the whole field hospital idea was decided upon when we weren't planning many contact limiting measures and never dropped after we changed course.

[chris lee]

So they can move Covid patients to just these places. People are going to hospitals for routine things and coming out with the virus. Which is insane, It needs to be treated solely at these places to free up our hospitals for the usual stuff and saving people from the many other things they generally can die from.....

This I believe is the real plan, and what I also thinks makes the most sense to do in the long run, however no one has officially said this is the actual plan.

[IanD]

Comments all over the internet.

Here is the Guardian report:-

Nurse shortage causes Nightingale hospital to turn away patients https://t.co/yfVSREEaTY

— The Guardian (@guardian) April 21, 2020

The Guradian has reported the situation correctly. As many NHS staff as possible have been redeployed to HDUs. As a result, other NHS care has been out on hold (as a consequence, the rise in non CV deaths is now becoming apparent, feeding it's way into the stats gathered by ONS, which are delayed by about 2 weeks). The "return to work" call for former NHS staff has not produced enough staff to fill the gaps created by a surge in demand in HDUs, cover for ill/self-isolating staff/Nightingale hospitals. Move staff some place and it creates a gap elsewhere. Meanwhile, care homes have until recently been the forgotten element in this giant game of chess. The Nightingale hospitals cant be used to capacity mainly because the protocol limits the number of admissions due to staff/patient ratios, for example. If there were enough NHS staff to go round then elective surgery and outpatients would recomence, observing social distancing. So, more people are dying of non CV causes and it is unlikely the Nightingale hospitals will ever be used to their theoretical capacity.

[Grangenders]

I imagine this is good forward planning for a change. The NHS struggles during the winter flu season in most years, never mind with this virus on top of it. I guess this winter will be the breaking point for many regions. From a local perspective I imagine Wales may need to look at alternative venues for next year’s six nations, assuming it goes ahead.