Nightingale Hospital

[smurfchops]

There are apparently very few places left in NHS hospitals due to Covid and the new strain. So why is the Nightingale Hospital empty?? Why don’t the NHS use it?

[Sunk]

There is not one Nightingale Hospital, there are several.
The short version of why they are not being used, is that there are no staff to work there.

[Mamyalynne]

A fair few are on standby as they always have been.

https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1732664.html

[saintpeter48]

They have just said the same on BBC news, the answer was staff shortage.
They can buy equipment etc but do not have the staff to man it, makes sense I suppose.

[10ClarionSt]

Didn't they sack all the people who'd volunteered and come out of retirement, after the first lockdown? Is that why there's no staff?

[Old_Geezer]

Makes no sense to build and buy stuff then not use it because they haven't bothered to train enough staff to work there. Unbelievable incompetence, and a waste of public funds as it stands.

[bobbinwales]

Its there as a fall back but only if the hospitals get overloaded. It's right to plan for extra capacity.one thing the goverment has rightly been criticised for is not being having the forsight to be prepared with enough PPE and tests so an sure if they had been caught out for beds they'd of been slated. Wrong for being under prepared, wrong for being overprepared. Bit unfair when everything is so unpedictable. All countrys have simlar problems

[New Judge]

//Its there as a fall back but only if the hospitals get overloaded.//

So they've no staff to run them now. Where will the staff come from when the ordinary hospitals become overloaded and they're needed?

The Nightingale hospital in London was designed with an initial capacity of 500 with room for ultimate expansion to 4,000 beds in total. It has dealt with a grand total (last time I looked)of just 54 patients. They were there in April/May time. There is no staff to run them. They are window dressing - just one of the many boxes that have been ticked to reassure the public that "something" is being done. After their box was ticked they faded into obscurity in the same way that the "world beating" track & trace" app did (remember that?).

They would be better turned into centres for mass vaccination, staffed by some of the many retired medical staff who have volunteered their services. That programme should be administered by a body other than the NHS. I suggest something like the Royal Army Medical Corps. I doubt they have any spare staff floating about but I imagine they have a few people used to getting things shifting in difficult circumstances without endless committee meetings. I suggest all the community nurses that used to weigh babies and coach people to give up smoking and drinking be commandeered. They and the volunteers with medical experience who have put their names forward to help but seemingly ignored could be placed at the disposal of the Surgeon-General and two or three of his Colonels. They, together with some of their junior officers and ORs could set up the Nightingale Hospitals for something useful.

[237SJ]

NJ the problem with the Nightingales being used for mass vaccination is that they are too far away for many people to use (bearing in mind that the elderly are first in the queue)

[rowanwitch]

Exeter is being used,

[woofgang]

As I recall, originally the Nightingales were set up to be an option if things got awful. They were designed and arranged for the mass management of people on ventilators. These people would be unconscious, intubated, drip hydrated and catheterised....therefore no need for mass catering and personal care facilities, vast wards with little or no privacy but for easy oversight and care by minimum staff. People would be transported in by ambulance and kept there until they either died or were off ventilation and would go back to their local hospitals for further care and rehab. Staff were intended to stay in local facilities and not go home. It would be quite difficult to turn them into "normal" hospitals without considerable extra cash input and...sadly...they might still be needed for their original purpose.

[douglas9401]

Field hospitals then?

[woofgang]

do you mean that is what they were designed for or that is what they should be used for?

[bobbinwales]

Thats a good explanation woofgang, its my understanding of how theyd be used in a real emergency, and they would allow some hospitals to keep large areas free of covid patients as other (noncovid) patients wouldnt be at as much risk.
Another ray of hope is that although staff resources are stretched due to high absence from covid the use of regular testing of NHS staff and shortly vaccinnations should reduce absence significantly.
Staff could allso be drafted in short term from pools of retired medical staff and maybe trainee nurses/doctors and army medics.

[teacake44]

237sj, so because you think the Nightingales are to far away for some, we don't bother in using them for the one that are not to far away. is that what you are saying. Apart from the latter the government new before they even opened the nightingales that the NHS were forty thousand nurses short at the beginning of this year, They ran an add on TV the middle of this year for more nurses, it lasted all of one month, regardless of how long it takes to train a nurse, the idiots believed they could solve the problem, or at the very least satisfy the public, or seen to be doing something and nothing. We have at present doctors all over the UK sitting on there back sides doing sweet FA, hiding behind their phones and computer screens. along with local nurses doing the odd flue jab, or if you're lucky and need one, a blood test.

[woofgang]

It ran for one month? Its still running on the TV that I watch.

[bobbinwales]

//We have at present doctors all over the UK sitting on there back sides doing sweet FA, hiding behind their phones and computer screens. along with local nurses doing the odd flue jab, or if you're lucky and need one, a blood test.//
Have you got a link for that teacake- maybe some stats or statements from doctors and nurses? Yes doctors are doing mainly telephone calls but ones I know (son and DIL of friends) are so busy and there surgerys are doing record numbers of flue jabs and handling patients who cant get the treatment they would normally of got in hospital

[campbellking]

Far from being 'easy care patients' needing little staff input, ventilated patients require one -to - one care, patients in the first wave who were ventilated also tended to be incredibly unstable and heavily dependent on inotropes. Many of them required proning , which on a ventilated patient requires a minimum of 4 to turn whilst an anaesthetist hangs onto the ventilator tubing making sure it does not become dislodged.
When we were full we enquired about sending a patient to the Nightingale and were told only if we sent 4 members of trained staff too, spare staff were not something we had.
I would also state that government policy currently actively discourages hospital rehab, as soon as a patient is deemed medically fit they are often transferred out into care homes where rehab professionals are not necessarily allowed in to treat them as who goes into care homes is at the discretion of the care home owner, and many have banned therapists from entering for fear of viral spread

[Prudie]

Well I can back up what teacake said from nurses I know in my local hospital. There are many sides to the story but they say the hospital doctors are calling for the GPs in my area to not be paid as they have sat doing very little for months and sent everyone who might be ill to the hospital rather than seeing them. There must be truth in all sides.

[woofgang]

"they say" who says?