Covid 19

[Joseph260268]

Good afternoon, With all the talk on Hospitals being full and the NHS at breaking point can someone please tell me at what stage Nightingale Hospitals open and start Covid sick patients? It’s not something that is reported about enough on the news.

Kind regards

Joe x

[skischool]

I believe the Nightingale hospital in Manchester is set to open next week but i think they will only be treating convalescing covid patients,different parts of the country all have their own schedule according to their needs and i don't believe there is a national strategy as such?

[Joseph260268 in reply to skischool]

The reason I ask is because if most hospitals already are full mainly because of Covid patients and infection why are they not being sent already to these unused Nightingale Hospitals? That we free up lots of beds in most hospitals? So they could look after other types of sick patients and let the specialist hospitals like Nightingales look after the very sick Covid patients? It just doesn’t make sense?

Kind regards Joe

[skischool in reply to Joseph260268]

Joe i think staff shortages and skills will play a big part in how they operate but most as far as i know are in an advanced state of readyness and as you say every little helps with the current situation.

Regards Ski's and Scruff's

[Gladwyn in reply to Joseph260268]

I’ve been assuming there isn’t enough staff to run the hospitals . I hope I’m wrong.

[Gladwyn in reply to Gladwyn]

Oops Skis has just said that! Teach me to read before commenting. 😀

[Bevvy in reply to Joseph260268]

As Ski’s says. Yes could free up beds in regular hospitals but won’t actually change much because regular hospitals will have fewer staff to deal with things due to staff being required at Nightingale hospitals!

[madonbrew in reply to Joseph260268]

I think a big issue is staffing the Nightingale hospitals...my sister is a nurse and says so many staff are off sick with stress from the first round, or are themselves in the shielding group so they can’t work on the front line, so it’s literally trying to keep everywhere staffed.

[madonbrew in reply to madonbrew]

Sorry, just repeated everything others said

[Superzob]

I think hospitals being full was a prediction if nothing change before Xmas, and included the Nightingales - but I could be wrong because these predictions involve quite complex data. However, the important thing is that there is now a second lockdown, and all the predictions would seem to suggest that this will prevent the problem you are concerned about - what it will do for the economy is another matter.

I have been following some of the data carefully, and there is some tentative indication that infection rates were levelling off before yesterday’s announcement, though I believe the scientists feel it would be insufficient (largely because the R number would still be above 1). My main concern is the knock-on effect on other hospital treatments, and it might be preferable to reopen the Nightingales early to take COVID cases (which will continue to increase for at least a fortnight, because hospital admissions are a lagging indicator) to free up space for other needs.