Nurse says ‘unbearable’ conditions affect patient safety and ‘it will only get worse’

Patient safety is at risk and there are fears it could get worse for the NHS as the number of Covid infections rises.

Doctor Rachel Clarke tweeted: “Stony silence of @MattHancock & @BorisJohnson on the current crisis engulfing the NHS. In a time when hospitals are running low on oxygen, intensive care units are full and seriously ill, Covid patients are transported hundreds of kilometers by ambulance and helicopter. Talk to the country. Drive.”

It comes as a nurse has described the “unbearable” conditions in their hospital as the number of patients with Covid-19 continues to rise.

The nurse, who works at Whittington Hospital in north London, described patients left in hallways, some spending up to three hours in ambulances due to a lack of beds and one being left without oxygen when their bottle was exhausted.

The nurse, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the PA News Agency: “I worry about patient safety because if these little things happen now when we are running out and c ‘is busy it will only get worse.

“I don’t know what else is going to happen – that worries me.”

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals is reaching record highs in many parts of England – including London, the South West and the Midlands – with admissions exceeding levels seen in the first wave.

Fight

And staff in some hospitals are struggling to cope.

“There are not enough nurses to care for patients, patient safety is affected,” the nurse told PA.

“Some are in corridors, treated in makeshift areas, makeshift rooms have been created for Covid patients and intensive care units are running out of space.

“The staff have low morale – we haven’t even got over the first wave physically, emotionally and mentally, and now we have to deal with this second wave.

The nurse described finding a Covid patient with “multiple health issues” who was left on an oxygen cylinder after it was depleted.

They told PA, “He thought he was getting oxygen but the whole bottle was exhausted.

“Due to the understaffing and because the nurses are tired, no one had checked it.

“He was in a room with an oxygen port on the wall, but he had stayed on a bottle and no one had returned to check him.

Makeshift quarters

They said nurses were overcrowded as six beds were seated in bays that typically hold four and had to register patients in other rooms that were being converted to makeshift wards.

“You have patients in plaster rooms on hospital beds, and patients on oxygen in the hallways and waiting to be brought back to their rooms,” they said.

“At Christmas it was so short, and it’s really worrying because patient safety is already affected.

The nurse said some patients were receiving all of their care inside the ambulance they arrived in because there was no room for them inside the hospital.

“A paramedic told me on Boxing Day that they had over 500 calls waiting, but he was stuck in our A&E for three hours with a patient in his ambulance,” they said.

Ambulances line up

“It’s those kinds of things that if they keep happening, I wonder if anyone is going to be hurt because of it?”

They said the hospital was recently bypassed, meaning ambulances were told not to take patients there because they couldn’t take any more.

And while patients are treated in ambulances outside of the hospital, paramedics cannot get to other calls.

With a peak expected in the coming weeks after some families gather over Christmas and the risk of damage if people mingle over the New Year, the nurse called on the government to institute a “full lockdown.”

They said the public may not be adhering to Covid restrictions as tightly as before and that it is essential that people stay at home.

“I don’t necessarily blame the public when this government’s messages have been so mixed,” they told the AP.

“But I just want them to hear us and hear what we’re saying because it’s really unbearable.”

PA has contacted Whittington Hospital for comment.

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