Read on Twitter
1. With 50million+ cancelled operations globally due to #COVID19, I’ve received several questions & comments around this controversial area. Why the #Nightingale Hospitals **cannot** be safely used for surgery:
2. To get one patient through surgery, 25 staff members are needed. This level of care will strip out major NHS hospitals and is the main reason elective surgery needs to be cancelled at the height of the pandemic. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/08/what-has-happened-to-englands-seven-nightingale-hospitals
3. Providing an operation needs a whole package of support around it, including sterile equipment, backup equipment, and other services in case unexpected things happen. Even for seemingly minor surgery, things can go wrong. Whole supply chains are needed behind these.
4. For major surgery, even more backup is needed. CT scanners, emergency teams, access to take patients back to surgery 24/7. Nightingales can have other roles for less critical patients if brought back: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4224
5. We need to re-start surgery quickly once COVID waves are over, through agile systems that can increase/decrease capacity every 24 hours. During waves, we continue essential surgery: emergency care 24/7 & elective surgery for cancers that cannot wait.
https://ascopubs.org/doi/pdfdirect/10.1200/JCO.20.01933
https://ascopubs.org/doi/pdfdirect/10.1200/JCO.20.01933
6. Millions of operations around the world are being cancelled. Surgery is not easy, and we need to be able to provide it safely and quickly. Making these pathways sustainable has to be an aim for surgery2025.
https://bjssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/bjs.11746
https://bjssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/bjs.11746
