Really concerned Australia seems to be following their own prediction software and not listening to Europe. We seem to be stumbling off track. Also how quick did China seem to stop bew infections? Has Wuhan gone back business as usual?

@stayhigh you at sonewhwre private? I used to work in one just outside market drayton. Not fun at all.

I understand that Apple have bought up large quantities of PPE, and the government are currently getting it off them.

All PPE will now be distributed based on how many cases each hospital has

@aphex_2k NHS for me. For the last two nights I’ve been responsible for three wards and 30 patients due to a suspected case on one of our wards and subsequent staffing factors. Will be the same again tonight. It has been a little tense at times but one of the really nice things about a long stay unit is the relationships you build with service users which is helping enormously and will do over coming events.

my wife hasn’t been on the wards for a few years, but is going to be retrained on tube feeding for those on ventilators. Definitely feels like the calm before the storm.

@tjagain Love from Leith

Two daughters working in hospitals at the ‘front line’. I am worried about how the coming onslaught will affect them. It seems that the whole concept of H&S management; risk assessment and control measures, etc goes out of the window in the NHS and that all of you working there have to take risks on the chin that most people would find unacceptable. You have no option because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

It is interesting how everyone, including the Government, is praising and talking of protecting the NHS now we know we are all about to depend on it. If only they had decided to protect it over the last decade… And if only the emergency planners had done what it says on the tin.

Sorry for the moan… I’m just a worried dad.

It seems that the whole concept of H&S management; risk assessment and control measures, etc goes out of the window in the NHS and that all of you working there have to take risks on the chin

I’m sorry but as a person working on those very things in a Trust, please do not make sweeping statements without knowledge

Policies & Procedures are in place in every hospital. We are trying our hardest with limited national resources to ensure all staff remain safe (and they are doing so). No one in our Trust is certainly being put under increased risk in response to the current situation. There is an element of perceived risk and people thinking they need more PPE than they actually need (in some areas)

There are clear chains of command and if staff have concerns (your daughters) they should raise their concerns through that chain of command.

In our Trust there are 3 meetings per day, 7 days per week now where any H&S concerns are resolved.

Funky Dunc – if there is insufficient PPE then there is nowt trust managers meeting can do about it. Same as if there are insufficient single rooms to isolate people.

There are clear chains of command and if staff have concerns (your daughters) they should raise their concerns through that chain of command.

That gave me a wry smile, as from previous experience unless things have improved dramatically since I was last on the front line, there is no chance of action being taken quickly enough, especially in the current situation, to reduce risk, despite your best efforts and no amount of meetings will alter that.

No one in our Trust is certainly being put under increased risk in response to the current situation. There is an element of perceived risk and people thinking they need more PPE than they actually need (in some areas)

That’s a very bold statement. Who are these ‘people’? The ‘perceived risk’ might be rather different for someone at the sharp end in the real world who has to go home to their families at the end of a shift, hopefully uninfected, compared to someone behind a desk who has never actually had to act in an emergency.

I’ve had my ‘Temporary register’ email from HCPC (I haven’t practised for over 2 years) and am definitely not looking forward having to ‘do my bit’!

FunkyDunc – as a doctor in the frontline I know for a fact PPE is almost non-existent in some hospitals. We are being asked to go in with simple surgical masks in many places simply as there isn’t any higher grade PPE available. People comparing it to Chernobyl where soldiers were ordered to run into the fire despite no radioactive protection. You are not on the sharp end of all this and would be best served to listen properly to those who are. Your statements to not indicate you have a real grip on what frontline staff are going through and preparing to go through. Be careful of defending the indifensible.

In our Trust there are 3 meetings per day, 7 days per week now where any H&S concerns are resolved.

As long as there’s plenty of meetings we all know we’re safe.

Let’s face it, you can never have too many meetings.

I think the Guys above have confirmed my fear. My point is that in most circumstances, if you don’t have the PPE or its not safe to do something you just don’t do it. In the current circumstance the NHS staff have no option but to carry on working without all the PPE or without the necessary breaks or prospect of being relieved on shifts that are already too long/frequent. If they say no then someone else will have to step in and face the same risk or patients will suffer/die.

My wife is not long in from a nightshift in CCU.
Extra PPE is non existent for all but ITU.

She and some colleagues had a mask fitting a couple of weeks ago for the proper masks (sorry, not sure on the terminology!) They all failed, but one.
The next step after that was basically, meh. Radio silence on it since.

They’ll all get stuck in and get on with it, but preparation to actually keep staff healthy and available to work has been woeful.

The lack of PPE seems a common problem/issue.
My wife (nurse) has 4 patients on her ward confirmed as having the coronavirus, yet they are not in isolation from other patients, there is no testing for staff, and there is no PPE for the staff caring for them.

As gowerboy correctly states, NHS staff have no option but to carry on and do the job. Its not like some emergency services who will not put themselves at risk if they do not have the correct breathing apparatus to go into a building, NHS staff have no such safety net.

Just been sent this

My wife is still trying to resolve the conflict between “You must not see these patients without wearing this PPE” and “We haven’t got any of that PPE for you”.

Slopping sound of poo hitting the fan in pharmacy land. Public going mad over ordering worse than at Christmas time. Script numbers three times what I’d normally expect at this time of year.
No deliveries from wholesale on Thursday then everything turned up on Friday along with normal order. Wholesales say there’s plenty of stock in the system but can’t fit it all in the vans at once. They’re going to be dropping to once a day deliveries instead of two. Doesn’t sound bad but if we urgently need a non stock item it’s now next day instead of same day.
Only just finished labelling Thursday’s script pick up on Friday night, god only knows when they’ll be assembled if we’ve even the stock.
Fed up of customers coming in looking for inhalers then saying that it’s ok because they still have two boxes left!
At least the health board have seen sense and let us reduce our patient facing hours. Currently doors closed for first hour and last half to let us getting caught up without dealing with people looking for loo roll or hand sanitiser.
Just finished six days straight of this and now looking forward to a few days off, but not convinced I won’t get called in for double cover on Monday.

As long as there’s plenty of meetings we all know we’re safe.

Let’s face it, you can never have too many meetings.

Oh so you would rather we didnt check in that staff have the correct PPE (where possible) and that oxygen supplies are still sufficient, that ward reconfigurations happen at the right time to avoid contamination?

Mrs_H is on the covid ward tonight.
I must confess to being a trifle concerned.
I guess I’ll find out how it went tomorrow morning.

My neighbour is self isolating with CV-19 after contracting it on the local CV-19 ward at Addenbrookes. Although not tested, but given she was dealing with CV-19 patients, pretty likely she has it. Does suggest PPE isn’t really working given this is the calm before the storm. Also seems very odd they’re asking all the retired doctors/nurses to come back and take her place given their ages and heightened risk of dieing…

Well daughter just finished a shift. Over 12 hours today, yesterday, day before… you get the picture. She say the PPE feels inadequate despite reassurances. A plastic piny and a cloth face mask. Hell, she’d do better to use the air fed masks that asbestos workers use. Nowhere proper to change/shower – yet their Facilities people don’t hire a unit in the car park so they use a spare ward shower. They have to treat very ill patients and deal with stressed family members with the complication that they are now potential C19 vectors… surely the family liaison could be taken over by a seconded social worker or similar. She says student nurses are staying on and are being relied on.

I am of course speaking as an onlooker and I have no experience of a clinical setting, but I have managed incidents for years and understand the principles of risk management. Something feels wrong about this.

Gowerboy – the problem with healthcare is that you cannot walk away even if the risk assessment / ppe is crap. Building a building and the risks are two high you down tools. But in healthcare you cannot.

I hope when this shit storm is all done anyone who has put themselves on the front line gets the recognition they deserve from this country

Seriously folks, it’s truly humbling the work you are doing..

Footflaps – the fact they are asking generally older retired NHS staff shows the gravity of the situation. Also the measures a Tory government has taken to try and prop up livelihoods and the entire system, basically. Your neighbour could easily have contracted it out with work I guess.

Gowerboy – this is the reality. Staff are/will be going above and beyond. Council I work for is creating a bank of workers who are not ‘essential front line’ normally but can redeployed/quickly retrained to provide essential services. For instance, a council plumber delivering medication to the elderly.

Tj. I know. That’s exactly my point. You nurses, doctors, HCSW deserve better precisely because you can’t say no.

Without even thinking about the incident planning that hasn’t happened as that ship has sailed, what worries me as an involved bystander is that, right now, some of the issues are still sortable. Not all of course but some. Not easy I know, but not impossible either.

Wales has Silver/Tactical commands set up for this incident. What the hell are they doing about the wellbeing of their most important, vulnerable and valuable assets.

I recognise that talk is easy and I declare a strong interest here, but I wish it my girls felt like someone ‘had their back’.

As long as there’s plenty of meetings we all know we’re safe.

Let’s face it, you can never have too many meetings.

Taken off the front line last week, this weekend and next week to have “plenty of meetings” about eg how we are going to choose which patients will and won’t get care when we are overwhelmed, which services to cut first because we don’t have any staff without people dying, making sure people wont go without life saving drugs because they haven’t had blood tests or there aren’t the staff to get it to them, where we are going to put the numbers of bodies we are told to expect and how we are going to support each other through the trauma healthcare staff are suffering in Italy and Spain. Perhaps we shouldn’t be bothering Notmyrealname and you could just pop along to sort it all out for us.

Guys – please don’t bicker on this thread. Thanks.

Funky Dunc – perhaps unintentionally – made it sound like everything was under control and this is at odds with what those on the front line were seeing.

But please – this thread is for mutual support

Funky Dunc – perhaps unintentionally – made it sound like everything was under control and this is at odds with what those on the front line were seeing.

I can obviously only comment on my views from the hospital I work in, and the one Mrs FD works in. We are trying our hardest to ‘do the right thing’ for our front line staff, and so far on the whole it is working, speaking with front line staff in my hospital. Unfortunately though it appears this will change in the coming week.

Having just read a doctors account in London though, what is coming sounds horrific.

I’m really worried about my best friend.
She’s a senior occupational therapist. She’s a very strong person but even I feel she is about to crumble.
She’s trying to balance working 6 days a week with bringing up 2 boys (separated husband is absolutely useless).
She can no longer get help from her parents (over 70yrs of age) because they are sensibly staying indoors. She is missing them and is worrying about them. Her father is 83 and has had cancer. Getting the shopping she needs has been difficult too.
The large hospital she works in, is closing the outpatients dept and retraining all the medical staff to work on the wards.
She already works on the wards (but not yet with CV patients) and has in the past 12 months worked in A&E due to staff shortages.
She and her colleagues are the very backbone of the NHS and need to be supported.
This last few days she hasn’t even had time to answer my texts (for help).

tpbiker
Member
I hope when this shit storm is all done anyone who has put themselves on the front line gets the recognition they deserve from this country

I very much doubt it. The New Year’s Honours list will be full of those higher management types who self isolated and skyped throughout this crisis getting Knighthoods and CBE’s … Maybe a handful of nurses will get the lower baubles.

Those in our social work team were informed last week that we could/would be redeployed to cover care agency staff when their numbers start depleting.

@devbrix, It’s a comment borne out of frustration having heard this pretty much non stop from the management at my trust the past couple of weeks. Despite all the meetings we’re told they’re having, nothing is improving, in fact things are getting much worse but we still get to see and hear them in the local press telling us how things are going well and we don’t have kit shortages etc despite hundreds if not thousands of frontline staff knowing otherwise.

Apologies if you think it was aimed at you, it certainly wasn’t. Good luck with what you’re doing though as it sounds like you’ll need it over the coming weeks.

My wife is still trying to resolve the conflict between “You must not see these patients without wearing this PPE” and “We haven’t got any of that PPE for you”.

That will be a recurring theme. When the dust settles on this there needs to be a day of reckoning for the political shits who have run the NHS down year by year, always on the cheap, always to the bare minimum then minus another 10%, always preying on the altruistic motivations that make people want to work in it.

Over the years junior doctors have taken on responsibilities that should belong to surgeons, nurses have taken on responsibilities that should belong to junior doctors and so on. Even receptionists in hospitals have roles that would have made people’s jaws hit the floor in the 1980s. Funnily enough their wages have not risen to compensate, though.

It’s not just the NHS either. Police and firefighters are not much different.

I’m an Occupational Therapist – Community Neuro Rehab. Still working with our normal caseload last week – this is likely to change next week to only urgent visits. As such I am requesting that I can support my local big acute hospital out on the wards supporting discharges and trying to clear beds. I’ve worked with them before, and my friends there are asking for a show of hands for some additional numbers. Weirdly, I am looking forward to getting back into the acute setting and getting stuck in where I can during this crisis.

Adam

Healthcare Assistant here, our Orthopaedic trauma ward has been reduced from 5 bays for Orthopaedics to 3 and the bottom two bays are for suspected Covid 19 patients. We have blocked it off and reduced our visiting rules to 1 person per patient for 1 hour only.

We got a fit test for Ffp3 masks on Friday, mine seemed to work during the test of having some obnoxious tasting liquid sprayed in my face first, then having the mask fitted whilst being sprayed again.

But I’ve not seen one available yet since, just regular surgical masks.
We take it in turns each shift to do the COVID bays.
Personally I’m not worried about me but I worry about my family getting it due to peoples not taking it seriously enough.

Each meeting I go to leaves me with an ever increasing sense of doom. Waiting for a battle at dawn the whistle to sound and go over the top.

Then there are the pictures of loads of people out on the hills when we are struggling to keep mountain rescue viable.

Ripping half a hospital apart to build a COVID (Ebola) assessment unit that will create a high viral load zone to be run with basic PPE and risk a cytokine crisis.

And today the AED patient with the Stanley knife lac on her leg

Me “ you on a work shut down doing diy?”
Her “no I’m off on two weeks self isolation”..

You couldn’t make it up

Echo last post, the mood has changed in our hospital as of yesterday.

A lot of planning happened last week, we are by no where near ready but better than we were, what is normally a busy acute hospital is like a ghost town. Has anyone else noticed that or the ‘normal’ sick people have just disappeared?

Day by day the numbers of very sick COVID19 is going up. I spoke to a few consultants yesterday and their normal self confidence/bordering on arrogance has gone. They are more fearful of what’s coming and very much a sense going over the parapet.

We are starting to send home all none essential staff, not only for their safety, but so that they can come back in when staff start to go off sick (although large numbers are doing so already)

Mrs FD has had to tell a patient yesterday that more than likely they will not unfortunately be able to have their elective surgery, and the consequence of that is that if they are ‘lucky’ it means in a few weeks time they will end up loosing their leg, or ‘unlucky’ die. As a surgeon she has never had to tell a patient that before.

I’m just about to head in for another long day, and I count myself as being fortunate as I am not working on the frontline.

😞

Mrs FD has had to tell a patient yesterday that more than likely they will not unfortunately be able to have their elective surgery, and the consequence of that is that if they are ‘lucky’ it means in a few weeks time they will end up loosing their leg, or ‘unlucky’ die. As a surgeon she has never had to tell a patient that before

My son is a surgeon, and also explained that necessary operations that over 75 year olds were getting as routine the other week have now been cancelled; so I guess they pretty much doomed!

My wife is an agency nurse; last week she worked what is now called the covid-ward, and today goes to a new hospital. She was had no testing to see if she is carrying the virus – in fact she was told because she is not NHS she won’t get it unless she becomes ill and her agency kindly offered to test her if she paid £200 ..

The people making the decisions safely in the background do not have a clue.

Wife’s an itu doc in major centre – similar tales as elsewhere of poor supply of ppe. Only couple cases so far thankfully, but building. She’s Busy training other specialists to help with covid as theirs won’t be priority / busy areas so 2ill be retasked.
Shes mildly terrified about whole thing and stressed about bringing it home to our 10 month old. I work from home as occ health nurse and will likely have to stop to look after our lad as her rota is about to go mental. Conflicted as ex-itu nurse and could potentially help, but no family in England to look after lad. Priority is him, and I guess 1 of us on front line with the sickest in hospital is a big enough sacrifice??? Dunno???

Wifes youngest sister is a nurse, she usually works on palliative care ward in a provincial London hospital. She says if you’ve got symptoms try and get to St Thomas’s or Kings – if you end up at her hospital you’ll probably die.

Her other sister is a kids speech therapist – her usual work has been cancelled, shes’s currently at home self isolating with a persistent cough but watching training videos on-line as directed by work as she’ll be helping out on a ward when she goes back to work.
She also has a very difficult (violent) 14 year old son who’s mental health provision has been frozen. I think i’d rather be self-isolating with a hungry tiger than him.