NHS hospitals ran out of children's intensive care beds more than a thousand times this winter

[Northerner]

The equivalent of ten children’s intensive care units a day are unable to find a single spare bed in the latest warning sign that health services are “on the brink”, according to Labour analysis.

Winter data, published weekly by NHS England since 20 November, shows that NHS trusts declared they had run out of paediatric intensive care (PIC) beds on 1,058 occasions this winter.

This includes some smaller trusts which have only had available beds on three of the 105 days of the winter so far.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...e-beds-labour-party-paediatrics-a8252566.html

 

[trophywench]

Before reacting - how many times has this happened in previous winters? For instance - should you eg be a diabetic mum in Sutton Coldfield having your second baby but them discovering babe was in trouble in late pregnancy so they 'needed to get her out pdq' and there's no available SCBU place anywhere in Brum - you're ambulance transferred to the nearest one elsewhere - in her case about 5 years ago, she had to come to Coventry - a lady who was a regular contributor to DSF. There are a lack of SCBU places generally in Scotland too because of the much larger distances between major hospitals.

They are however continuing to downgrade hospitals and it does make sense to concentrate 'difficult' stuff where there's more expertise - however then you need to expand those facilities to cope with the extra patients - but they don't!

 

[grovesy]

Before reacting - how many times has this happened in previous winters? For instance - should you eg be a diabetic mum in Sutton Coldfield having your second baby but them discovering babe was in trouble in late pregnancy so they 'needed to get her out pdq' and there's no available SCBU place anywhere in Brum - you're ambulance transferred to the nearest one elsewhere - in her case about 5 years ago, she had to come to Coventry - a lady who was a regular contributor to DSF. There are a lack of SCBU places generally in Scotland too because of the much larger distances between major hospitals.

They are however continuing to downgrade hospitals and it does make sense to concentrate 'difficult' stuff where there's more expertise - however then you need to expand those facilities to cope with the extra patients - but they don't!

Shortage of Neonatal Intensive care cots has gone on for decades.

 

[mikeyB]

Indeed, grovesy, I remember travelling in the back of an ambulance with a baby, with blue light accompaniment from Lancaster to Preston when I was a junior doctor.