For anyone with a Sunday Times subscription, there is an interesting (but deeply worrying) article splashed on their front page today:
Revealed: how elderly paid price of protecting NHS from Covid-19
It gives an answer to the question I have been asking for months - which is why is the UK’s Covid death rate so high (on just about every statistical measure you choose to use), and yet the NHS was never “overwhelmed” and appeared to cope well in the first wave.
I would take issue with some of the points in that article.
Lots of patients are turned down for ICU on a daily basis, pandemic or not. They are turned down on the basis that senior medical opinion, is that ICU will not benefit that person. Is it a fool proof system, no, but there will never be enough beds for everyone, so these decisions have to be made. Did the NHS cope easily during the first wave, NO. The number of ICU beds was increased by well over 200%, but this could only ever be a short term solution. Beds were under staffed and often staffed by very inexperienced people. This is already starting to occur again, and many staff are completely worn out from the first wave.
The thing that I think was got wrong, was that too many elderly patients were discharged from hospital, when they were not ready to go, and undoubtedly this led to many deaths. This is the cause of excess mortality, coupled with a totally inadequate Test and Trace system. The NHS has a record of failure when it comes to IT projects, so why they were allowed to design it and then fail so badly, before outside help was sought, is beyond me.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Totally agree on the IT question @punkdoc ... when I worked for Children’s Services I was part of the consultation group and then the Beta testing group for a new IT system that was supposed to be accessible by CS/Soc Services and NHS ... people not working in those areas can have no idea how useful that could be and how many work hours it would save, not to mention the number of children whose lives would be immeasurably improved and better protected.
The mash up and mayhem that ensued and the amount of money wasted had to be seen to be believed.
When I retired, nearly 8 years after the consultation began, it was still a total mess.
At one stage they actually scrapped a system they had just installed and trained us in and started again ... it was mind boggling.
As I retired things were improving, but our the NHS side and the Soc. Ss side were still not compatible. I hear things have improved since ... but it’s now 18 years since the job was started.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Sadly things are still awful @Dovefromabove. For years my hospital would not pay for my ICU to join the national ICU audit programme, which was and still is fantastic, designed by the people that will use it. Eventually I secured funding for all the local ICU's to join. [ Sorry singing my own praises again ]
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Punkdoc is spot on. Intensive Care can’t take everyone, and mainly because it won’t actually change whether they survive or not. Sadly, some people just won’t survive an acute illness and it would be wrong to put people through an aggressive and intense set of treatments in those cases. It is all very emotive and there are some things I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying on here.
The Critical Care Units are the ‘top of the tree’ in terms of impact from this virus. If we minimise the volume of people with the virus (by all those annoying things we all have to do at the moment) then we have a chance of giving all hospitalised patients high quality care and a chance of getting better. If the NHS is overwhelmed, then the opposite will happen.
I always thought the elderly were released from hospital back into care homes for their safety given that at that time it was not known how safe the hospitals were and how the pandemic was going to progress. Even testing at that time was not always accurate so I think it was supposed that the care homes were safe havens. In hindsight it was probably not the the correct thing to do but isn't that always the case?
“Every day is ordinary, until it isn't.” - Bernard Cornwell-Death of Kings
I think if you're dealing with a highly infectious disease which is particularly harmful to the elderly, sending people from hospitals into care homes full of other vulnerable people and without hospital-level PPE etc without checking first whether they are infected is not something that requires hindsight to avoid, just the application of a few brain cells.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
Don't know whether to put this in here or Curmudgeonly thread. Thursday nights BBC news.
‘Derriford Hospital has had to close a fifth of their beds, Due to a COVID outbreak in the non COVID unit.’
Panic, that’s our local hospital and only 17 miles from here. Thank goodness for Google.
What actually happened was that on Tuesday 2 people tested positive, and the beds and wards were deep cleaned, 150 of the beds were back open by Wednesday. According to the spokesman the BBC had been told this on Wednesday. So that’s Thursdays news?
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Posts
Revealed: how elderly paid price of protecting NHS from Covid-19
It gives an answer to the question I have been asking for months - which is why is the UK’s Covid death rate so high (on just about every statistical measure you choose to use), and yet the NHS was never “overwhelmed” and appeared to cope well in the first wave.Lots of patients are turned down for ICU on a daily basis, pandemic or not. They are turned down on the basis that senior medical opinion, is that ICU will not benefit that person. Is it a fool proof system, no, but there will never be enough beds for everyone, so these decisions have to be made.
Did the NHS cope easily during the first wave, NO.
The number of ICU beds was increased by well over 200%, but this could only ever be a short term solution. Beds were under staffed and often staffed by very inexperienced people. This is already starting to occur again, and many staff are completely worn out from the first wave.
The thing that I think was got wrong, was that too many elderly patients were discharged from hospital, when they were not ready to go, and undoubtedly this led to many deaths. This is the cause of excess mortality, coupled with a totally inadequate Test and Trace system. The NHS has a record of failure when it comes to IT projects, so why they were allowed to design it and then fail so badly, before outside help was sought, is beyond me.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Eventually I secured funding for all the local ICU's to join. [ Sorry singing my own praises again ]
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
The Critical Care Units are the ‘top of the tree’ in terms of impact from this virus. If we minimise the volume of people with the virus (by all those annoying things we all have to do at the moment) then we have a chance of giving all hospitalised patients high quality care and a chance of getting better. If the NHS is overwhelmed, then the opposite will happen.
Even testing at that time was not always accurate so I think it was supposed that the care homes were safe havens.
In hindsight it was probably not the the correct thing to do but isn't that always the case?
https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-and-a-class-how-the-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html
Thursday nights BBC news.
‘Derriford Hospital has had to close a fifth of their beds, Due to a COVID outbreak in the non COVID unit.’
Panic, that’s our local hospital and only 17 miles from here. Thank goodness for Google.
What actually happened was that on Tuesday 2 people tested positive, and the beds and wards were deep cleaned, 150 of the beds were back open by Wednesday.
According to the spokesman the BBC had been told this on Wednesday.
So that’s Thursdays news?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.