Nightingale Closures

[brainiac]

We're told that there are now more people in hospital with Covid-19 than at the peak in April, so why on earth are they dismantling the Nightingale hospitals that were created at great cost? If it's lack of staff (as is said), then why a lack of staff now, and not when they were created?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9095087/Londons-Nightingale-hospital-quietly-broken-arent-medics.html

[minesapint]

In the view of the government and their scientific advisors, we are all in the midst of a crisis that is unprecedented. In order to overcome the crisis we are having to have to use all possible resources, some of which are conventional and others less so.
It is absolutely correct that the authorities ensure that each and every person deployed to overcome this disease and has contact with the general public as part of their job, is checked to ensure they are fit to do so. We have relied on these safeguards for many years.
Nevertheless, today we are in the throes of a crisis to which I would suggest some common sense should be applied. I am not advocating that we pull health workers out of prison or elsewhere in order to jab a needle in someone's arm without checking on these matters but the reality is that either we desperately desire to overcome this disease or we don't .
Putting barriers in place that hinder the employment of very capable people from assisting during this crisis is helping no one and that's the bottom line.

[woofgang]

calmck people talk about "Matrons" as though all you have to do is bring them back for everything to be miraculously made right again. Having worked in the NHS when there were matrons and when there weren't, I cannot BEGIN to tell you how wrong this is.

[Old_Geezer]

Hmm keeping that quiet weren't they.
Where are all those immigrant nurses & doctors then ?

[pixie374]

Map, there don't seem to be barriers put in place unnecessarily? Just to make sure that people are capable with the jobs they are given. As I said... volunteering is easy... providing you are happy not to act as a brain surgeon... But it still takes pressure off those that are.

[woofgang]

PS I reckon that 3 years out of practice is quite a long time. I woudn't employ a gas or electricity technician in my house who hadn't been at work for 3 years!

[woofgang]

pixie, I suspect that the folk who are complaining don't want to "volunteer" they want to step back in at the top of the tree and be paided and revererenced appropriately.

[bobbinwales]

So we agree pixie? We need appropriately/specially trained vaccinnators working under some supervision and with access to some on site qualified doctors and maybe nurses who will monitor whats going on, deal with problems and advise on queries as to who should or shouldnt get a jab.
So we need a mix.
But of course am not qualified to say and have never had to organise anything like this in vaccinnes, and am not sure many here are (apart from a few like squad and woofgang -apologies if anyone has been missed) . Am not sure why we dont just leave this to the health professionals to sort it. It is there business as with say flu jabs. we

[pixie374]

It is starting to look that way, woof. Anyone who really wants to help... do whatever actually helps. But leave the complicated, updated and important stuff, to those who are already there.

[minesapint]

woofgang, logically, I can't fault your comment. Tell me about the last jab you had - was it really any different from the one you had 5, 10 or 20 years ago.
You don't forget how to jab someone's arm.

[pixie374]

I think we agree partly, bobbin. There is very little training needed (10 seconds) to do the actual vaccination. Obviously, you would need qualified people around, in case of any reaction. But I would also expect that anyone we know who is likely to have a bad reaction in the first place- is not going to be just sent along to stand in a queue. That should be done before they get a vaccine.

[woofgang]

minesapint....are you not reading my posts? its not about knowing how to do something, its about being professionally responsible or being under the supervision of someone who can be professionally responsible.

[woofgang]

pixie374 It is starting to look that way, woof. Anyone who really wants to help... do whatever actually helps. But leave the complicated, updated and important stuff, to those who are already there.

Yep. the most popular (very) senior nursing manager we had was the bloke who, when norovirus struck, set his secretary onto finding (non existent) bank staff while he gloved and gowned up and scrubbed floors and changed beds.

[pixie374]

He sounds like a proper professional... much more useful than arrogant egotists.

[calmck]

I worked in the NHS. Trained in the sixties. The hospital was excellently run, staffed and efficient. Matron knew every nurse by name, the sister tutors were on the wards with us. Patients came first. The wards were staffed by the nursing students on a rotating basis with three months in a classroom each year.

[pixie374]

I trained in early 2000s, calmk. It had all focused on paperwork by then, because of blame... etc. It's what put me off most.

[woofgang]

There was a lady who came over from America called Dr Beverley Malone. She was employed by the RCN in 2001 as General Secretary to "improve" professional opportunities for nurses and by the criteria she was employed for, she did a good job. She did it at the expense on much of the NHS but she did it. She had the ear of The Department of Health and of Tony Blair and had a generous budget to achieve her objectives. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2001/jan/26/nhsstaff.health

[calmck]

I worked as a nurse in the US!! When I first started there I was amazed that what I had been doing in the UK was done by the doctors there. Changing dressings, removing stitches etc. Despite having my UK registration I had to get a degree and none of the courses had anything do do with nursing except perhaps Ethics and The Right to Do. This resulted in the teacher being invited to lecture medical students on this subject.

[New Judge]

//NJ you don't need doctors to vaccinate. Paying them doctor's wages to come back and be doctors is just a waste of money.//

From the tone of Dr Barker's letter (the first I mentioned) I imagine she offered her services free of charge. Whatever, there's been enough money squandered during the last nine months and the vaccination programme is the only realistic strategy to end the ridiculous cycle of lock/unlock that the government seems intent on pursuing. Whatever it costs it will simply have to be paid for but paying people to wade through 21 forms just to enable someone to administer a jab is simply preposterous - even by government standards.

[bednobs]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55469188
seems the mail do not have the whole story

[bednobs]

plenty of matrons in the hospital near me, so i do not think there is a lack of them.
I would rather not have an injection done by a GP (retired or otherwise) I get what woofgang is saying, If you are "volunteering" as a doctor and a patient collapses in front of you, you would expect to have to deal with it (and therefore be up to date).