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People who are making claims about hospital capacity should compare them to the same times in previous years. The data is all available online: https://www.eng
by ppod 6y ago
People who are making claims about hospital capacity should compare them to the same times in previous years. The data is all available online:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/critical-care-capacity/critical-care-bed-capacity-and-urgent-operations-cancelled-2018-19-data/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...
- simonh 6y agoThe link you provided is for last year, and that site doesn’t have any data after February 2020 anyway. I think this is the best source: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...
- lol768 6y agoSo, January 2019 in London Commissioning Region hospitals: 1033 open adult critical care beds; 882 in use. 85% utilisation. Best-case forecast Jan 2021: 2078 critical care beds required, 1,661 available (increase of ~600). Forecasted 125% utilistation.
- yt-sdb 6y agoBeat me to it. And according to this report, London currently has 46 free ICU beds.
- cptskippy 6y agoI took the term open to mean unoccupied which put them at 46% utilization. The columns in the spreadsheet are "Sum of Number of adult critical care beds open" and "Sum of Number of adult critical care beds occupied".
- Aeolun 6y agoI don’t think beds really work in a way that allows 125% utilization.
- asdff 6y agoThey do when they start converting other wings into ICU space
- vermilingua 6y agoYes, that’s the point.
- matthewmacleod 6y agoThis is a consistent taking point among the more egregious parts of the “lockdown skeptic” crew and it is, of course, absolute bullshit - it’s based on shallow comparisons of numbers that are not comparable. If you do decide to promote this talking point anyway, flag it with the appropriate disclaimer from the NHS: …caution should be exercised in comparing overall occupancy rates between this year and previous years. In general hospitals will experience capacity pressures at lower overall occupancy rates than would previously have been the case. https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/uec-sitrep/urgent-and-emergency-care-daily-situation-reports-2020-21/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...
- ppod 6y ago>it is, of course, absolute bullshit I'm sorry that I briefly lowered the tone by linking to data, thanks for your help.
- eznzt 6y agoThe NHS depends on the government and is therefore not a neutral source.
- lolc 6y agoWell but the NHS is the source of the data to begin with. And they communicate limitations along with the data. You can't just ignore those and use their data. You'd have to find another source that offers actually comparable numbers.
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago>In general hospitals will experience capacity pressures at lower overall occupancy rates than would previously have been the case. Why?
- matthewmacleod 6y agoHospital capacity has had to be organised in new ways as a result of the pandemic to treat COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients separately and safely in meeting the enhanced Infection Prevention Control measures. This results in beds and staff being deployed differently from in previous years in both emergency and elective settings within the hospital. Literally from the link.
- cptskippy 6y agoThe data you provided isn't easily compared to the data in the article. I did a pivot off the Jan 2019 data and got this... LONDON COMMISSIONING REGION Adult Critical Care Beds: Open: 1033 Occupied: 882 -------------- Total: 1915 According to the Article London has... BEST CASE Adult Critical Care Beds: Unmitigated: 1392 Mitigated: 1661 So they lost 300-600 beds capacity since 2019?
- lazyjones 6y agoAustria and Germany also report lower total ICU capacities than 1 year ago before the start of the pandemic. Weird...
- Aeolun 6y agoWe all got to save money. If you have 60% of your beds open you clearly don’t need all of them, so maybe that’s why they were first to go?
- matthewmacleod 6y agoAFAIK you have misunderstood the data; the “open” figure is not the number of unoccupied beds, but the total number of beds available for patients (1033) of which 882 were occupied by patients already (meaning 151 unoccupied).
- cptskippy 6y agoI disagree. The word open is superfluous if that's the case. What's the meaning of the word open if not unoccupied or available? Of course that begs the question, why did they use open instead of unoccupied? If open is meant to mean bed that can be utilized, then we don't have a true number of beds or a reason why a bed would be closed. Either way it's confusing but generally the term open as the opposite of occupied for filled. For example, open positions in a company aren't employees, they're vacancies.
- 6y ago