So, for example, England had around 4,000 ICU beds at the start of the year But they were operating at 85% capacity! So in fact they had more like 600 FREE ICU beds to treat COVID-19
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What I mean by this is that, on any given day, 85% of the critical care beds were occupied by people - heart attacks, car crashes, urgent surgeries and the like
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Now, capacity has been increased over the course of this year, and there are many contingency plans for a flood of patients, but it's worthwhile noting that COVID-19 can push a place 'over capacity' with a 15% increase in the number of patients going to ICU
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Think about that context when you see numbers like 1000 patients in ICU in England. In a normal year, that would push hospitals over capacity across the country
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Oh, and important to add (as many have already) that a free 'bed' is not just the physical bed, but the expert staff to manage the patient and stop them from dying
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Having worked in hospital finance, it is easy to use the shorthand 'beds' when I really mean 'everything that goes into treating a patient' because we usually measure all that stuff with bed numbers
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Something further to add - the free bed capacity is not a fixed number, and usually varies over the seasons. Most hospitals operate at close to 100% capacity during winter ALREADY, which makes the COVID-19 situation in Europe even more worrying
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But in the context of the Nightingale hospitals, which had dozens of free beds- an ICU bed is more than a mattress. It’s staff, medications, equipment etc etc. I genuinely heard someone say “ikea have plenty of beds, why don’t they go there?” without even a hint of a joke.
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Absolutely the biggest bottleneck is staff, followed by all those other things. You can slap ICU on a room with beds, but quality care is never the same when you’re at surge capacity
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I can limit it even more. It’s the number of free beds that can be attended to by a non over-stretched clinical professional
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