Nightingale hospitals being readied for use

This nonsense also applied to those who had volunteered to help with the vaccine rollout.

Almost like needing medical professionals to understand that basing diagnoses on white men for everyone isn’t exactly safe, is a bad thing.

Yes Genty, the Nightingales can't possibly be taking the really, really sick patients or those with complex needs. Otherwise patients being moved from Kent to Exeter (5 hours on a good day) just wouldn't survive the transfer.

According to Matt Hancock on tv this morning, the nightingale hospitals are ready for covid patients, the covid patients in the main hospitals have underlying health conditions and they are better equipped to treat the patients there.

To be clear, the development of nightingale hospitals was a political solution, not an NHS solution. Feeding ‘we can cope, this is what we are going to do’ solutions is the best way of reassuring the (largely gullible) public.

The cost of building nightingale hospitals was 220 million!

www.england.nhs.uk/publication/freedom-of-information-costs-of-nhs-nightingale-hospitals/

~The one in London has been emptied and some equipment sent to other hospitals .
There was a letter in the Times from a retired GP
who said he had waded through the mounds of bureaucracy to be offered a job as a car parking attendant !
What is wrong with the managers ?Surely all this planning should have been done much much earlier so that strategies were in place, ready to roll out as soon as the vaccine was ready.

There was talk a while back about an appeal for retired medics to return to help.

Brilliant idea but then they had a mountain of red tape and paperwork to plough through first including a requirement that they were trained in ‘diversity’

This nonsense also applied to those who had volunteered to help with the vaccine rollout.

Honestly, you couldn’t make it up could you?

Thanks for posting that Far North I thought I had put that on earlier but can see I didn't.Maybe more believeable from you as I'm a Nationalist and often told I what I say isn't the "truth"!

Scotland's 'nightingale' hospital.

You are hugely underestimating how sick most people who are in hospital with Covid are if you think that people without nursing qualifications, however well trained can look after them. Yes they can manage their basic nursing needs, and be trained to spot significant signs of a deteriorating condition, but they are not a substitute for qualified staff, and certainly could not staff nightingale hospitals without a very significant level of qualified support form doctors nurses, and very
Importantly also, physiotherapists.

Unless you are suggesting a nursing home type environment - in which case people could be discharged into nursing homes surely, as sadly there are plenty of vacancies at the moment, although not enough staff. It’s very easy to come up with solutions when you have no knowledge, or when, as the Government is doing, you are trying to reassure people that there isn’t really a problem that is is danger of running out of control - which is the reality.

Far North:

"A lot of nursing doesn't require special medical skills - it's to do with keeping patients clean and comfortable.
If the army is training personnel now, to do this work, that could take some strain off qualified nursing staff."

I fully agree. I'd add the simple psychological skill of reassurance.

The staff at our Nightingale have at least had a few happy moments since opening. Christmas trees were donated by farmers and garden centres, and were placed round the perimeter. I believe Tesco donated decorations and outside lights. They organised a Carol service on the wards with visiting clergy. Local golf club sent in presents. Supermarkets have delivered food. etc etc. Well done on a local level for making Christmas seem a bit brighter!
The hospital is currently 20% full.

Not forgetting all the raised monies that people have donated to the NHS wheres that all gone? What has it been spent on?

That, however much it sounds, is just a drop in the ocean and I think was donated to support the staff (ie so they could have a meal as canteens were closed) rather than provide essential services which should be funded by government.

Here, during the first lockdown, staff were thankful to receive food sent in by local firms and volunteers so they at least had a meal when on a long shift.

Genty

growstuff

Genty

There would be sufficient staff if the hospitals werent at full capacity with all the covd patients.

I don't understand the logic of this. Transferring patients to Nightingale hospitals would mean diverting staff from normal hospitals, so there would be even fewer staff and empty beds.

Im not saying transfer the patients from another hospital, if covid is suspected they should go direct to triage in nightingale. to be assessed. The extra staff from normal hospitals would not be needed if the hospitals werent so over crowded, therefore nightingales would be staffed.
Why waste tax payers money on building them if they are going to sit there and rot!

I really, really don't understand this. The Nightingale hospitals don't have any staff of their own. Patients are, in effect, expected to provide their own.

At least 2.5 million bed days were lost in the NHS since the Tories came in power due to underfunding.
People who are delayed discharges awaiting a transfer of care are nearly all there because either a community care package cannot be sourced yet (due to insufficient care staff in the community, the position is worsening due to lack of workforce), lack of a bed in the care home of choice, or a family dispute about somebody going home. This group make up less than 10% of total beds occupied in the NHS, and is a moving group (obviously) as some are discharged and more people fall into the category on a daily basis. Most of them are not occupying beds in acute hospitals, they are in community hospital and mental health beds, and a high proportion have dementia.
Genty, you should do more investigation of your own before you shoot from the hip, all the evidence to support this position is in the public domain if you care to look.

vegansrock

In the first proper lockdown, there was the Thursday night clapping, priority shopping slots, free hot meals and drinks, groups sewing scrubs - but now- what is being done to support NHS workers? Seems like not much. No wonder they feel unappreciated.

Not forgetting all the raised monies that people have donated to the NHS wheres that all gone? What has it been spent on?

growstuff

Genty

There would be sufficient staff if the hospitals werent at full capacity with all the covd patients.

I don't understand the logic of this. Transferring patients to Nightingale hospitals would mean diverting staff from normal hospitals, so there would be even fewer staff and empty beds.

Im not saying transfer the patients from another hospital, if covid is suspected they should go direct to triage in nightingale. to be assessed. The extra staff from normal hospitals would not be needed if the hospitals werent so over crowded, therefore nightingales would be staffed.
Why waste tax payers money on building them if they are going to sit there and rot!

In the first proper lockdown, there was the Thursday night clapping, priority shopping slots, free hot meals and drinks, groups sewing scrubs - but now- what is being done to support NHS workers? Seems like not much. No wonder they feel unappreciated.

Yes.

Casdon, for me, the key part of your post was that nhs workers 'feel that they are being very badly let down by the public.'

Those that are not following the rules, yes, absolutely. I try REALLY hard not to wish ill on idiots (really, I think it is immoral to do that and try to stop myself) but it is VERY hard sometimes.

Alexa other medical staff have already been trained in ICU procedures, ready to go in if necessary but that means other areas will be very understaffed.

I think hotel staff etc could be more hindrance than help.

Well said genty.

The current pressure is horrendous for the staff, certainly in Wales where there are over 2500 Covid patients in hospital at the last count, ITUs are full and overflowing onto other wards, and staff have had leave cancelled to keep areas safe, many staff are exhausted, and feel that they are being very badly let down by the public. It’s very frightening for them, and for us I think in the parts of the UK where the virus is rampaging at the moment.

I wonder if unemployed workers trained as hotel staff , people who are accustomed to looking after others, taking orders from superiors, might be trained fast to do bedside nursing such as assisting at mealtimes , recording blood pressures and suchlike, and sitting with the dying , so that trained nurses can be released for the more complex tasks .

ICU staffing levels are 1:1 - apparently it has risen to as much as 1:4 in some hospitals. The pressure must be incredible for the staff and very high risk for the sick.