Jock42 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 8:20 am
Northern Lights wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 10:28 pm
Jock42 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:49 pm
Admissions to the paeds ward in ninewells are down significantly for respiratory conditions compared to this time last year.
OJ,
Do you reckon you have more capacity this year than last or is it the same sort of shitshow as every year or are we actually worse?
You at least are front and centre with this compared to the rest of us armchair gobshites.
Thursday night was my first shift for a couple of weeks but we certainly had a quieter weekend than normal. A&E and the admissions ward were also quieter so certainly on the face of it things seem to be ok so far. Only in the covid ward once but they had capacity.
Impact is pretty variable across the country and even within a region. In Dundee, where Ninewells is located, for instance the are running at 118 cases per 100,000 for last 7 days, which is about average for Scotland as a whole. Highest in Scotland from what I can see is North Ayrshire with 189 per 100,00 for last 7 days. I know that the boards in the west of Scotland have had a really tough time of it over the past few months and have struggled to keep things going. The rest of Scotland has been doing ok and have been trying desperately to get elective work going again and have had some success. However for smaller boards with limited flexibility, such as the Borders, even a small increase in cases is an issue and they have now stopped all elective work. Staffing has been an issue for everyone.
However Havering in London for example has one of the highest no of cases and is running at 1,103 cases per 100,000 which is scarily high and c10 times the rate for Dundee. The modellers can now be pretty accurate about what that number of cases will mean in terms of future hospital admissions, ICU admissions and deaths. They know the detailed demographics for each local authority areas in some depth and will base model on current medical practice, pathways, guidelines, etc. Unfortunately those numbers are 'baked in' in London and the SE and the impact on their NHS in January and February will be horrendous. All this is before the expected spike due to Christmas and the New Year celebrations. Couple this with a more infectious mutation of the virus and things don't look good. The Gov must have been shitting themselves when they saw the modelling for this!
Before Bimbotwat gets his nickers in a twist about Scotland v England comparisons that is not the point I am making! The variation is equally true across parts of England, I pick Scotland cause its where I live, however picking one hospital/area to demonstrate there is NHS capacity is not useful. Also the modelling is now a lot more accurate, they have more evidence now to base it on, and the modelling would have shown, if nothing was done, that the NHS was facing a torrid time in London and SE if the Gov didnt take action. Using bed numbers, especially pre covid19 bed numbers, as a metric for NHS capacity is not helpful either, staffed beds is the real metric and many hospitals have beds they can't open because of lack of staff. Also expanding ICU bad numbers is a real issue and usually involves taking over theatre and recovery areas which automatically reduces surgical capacity and thus elective capacity. Finally, if the UK Gov had taken earlier action, letting some areas get to over 1,000 cases per 100,000 over 7 days is a disaster, some of these impending difficulties could have been avoided. Thankfully all 4 countries are now taking pre-emptive actions.
