Ventilator machine production push seem positive.... by BlueBadger 15 Mar 2020 10:08
It's no good panic-buying ventilators if you don't have enough trained people to look after those requiring ventilation. Training someone to effectively, confidently and safely use a ventilator unsupervised is a good six months in the making.

Added to this, critical care nursing is notoriously and by neccessity, labour-intensive. Best practice is that anyone who is ventilated should be one-to-one nursed. Nursing recruitment both domestically and overseas has been dropping steadily since 2016 thanks to the spectacularly dim-witted and short sighted government polices of removal of student nurse bursaries and Brexit.

It's also worth considering that the UK has nearly half the per-capita capacity of critical care beds than Italy does.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/#5748ecef7f86

Physical space is another issue as well, the critical care unit at [redacted] hospital has space for 11 beds, but only 8 of those have enough room for a full ITU setup of ventilator, fluid and infusion pumps, dialysis machine, monitoring, etc, etc.

Stocks and supplies is another - ventilation isn't just about the machines - there's a lot of consumables associated with ventilators - tubing, filters and additional monitoring kit.

Added to this, despite the weasel words in the Mail yesterday, subjecting the 'most frail' to mechanical ventilation is invariably cruel, futile and undignified.

'More ventilators' isn't the answer, decent prevention, infection control and prompt, appropriate first-line treatment is.