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Originally Posted by nffc
They have had that kind of message pre-covid when hospitals are full of people throwing up across wards because they have a noro outbreak or if they have a lot in with complications of flu though.
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On a short term, localised basis. Yes. Not nationally, and not for the duration of winter which it will be unless something changes.
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Plus, avoiding A&E unless it's urgent is kind of the point of A&E isn't it? If you haven't had an accident and aren't seriously ill then you don't go, you go to a walk in or the doctor's or stay in bed.
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There is of course a massive range of “urgent” things that fall below “life threatening”. A broken arm or leg, for instance, would most definitely be urgent but fall beneath the benchmark of “life threatening”.
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They don't need people turning up at any time or under any conditions who could be treated more effectively elsewhere which is presumably one reason why arrivals are triaged.
I get that the response is somewhat area-dependent too, and that one particular area is getting affected more than others at the moment (and that is a good reason not to make national restrictions) which can make the local healthcare system more pressured, but in terms of raw numbers of hospital admissions, it's not growing out of control (e.g. doubling every few days), it's marginally below the levels of last year (if it stays around the 1k mark a day it will probably be no major pressure) although last year it was on a much quicker upward curve than this, and still far below the levels of 4k odd a day we were seeing last January when the NHS really couldn't cope. There is no doubt figures relative to the capacity available which would show this quite easily. And as well if people aren't in hospital as long then this can influence a raw number anyway.
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Hospital admissions can be problematic without falling into your, presumably completely arbitrary, criteria of
- Doubling every few days
- 4k cases a day
This is where presumably the inevitable Plan B comes into play. We know where both of your criteria land: lockdown.