Men need a drink to open up? What a dangerously self-fulfilling belief| Tom Usher

Let’s be honest with each other, lads – and by lads I mean everyone who is reading this article, regardless of gender but still being called a lad by me, because I’m setting up a question in the next sentence that is primarily aimed at a gender often referred to in the UK as “lads”. How many times do you hang out with your mates in a group when you’re not drinking?

Well there’s midweek five-a-side isn’t there, with all the seething heat of competition, thinly veiled ignominy of loss and anywhere between eight and 16 scything, ligament-jarring tackles a game that it brings. Or there’s just hanging out playing PlayStation, with all the seething heat of competition, thinly veiled ignominy of loss and so on and so forth.

But even after, or perhaps during those, there is booze. Booze is what Lynx Africa was to the prepubescent armpits of my past: extremely counterproductive, yet essential and unavoidable. Unless it’s an unusual occasion (unusual because “special” would invariably circle back to drinking), men don’t tend to hang out that much in groups unless there is some kind of alcohol involved. But don’t just take my sweeping generalisation for it, because recent research published in the Behaviour Research and Therapy journal came to the conclusion that there is “greater alcohol reward for male groups” and so ultimately “identifies a mechanism that may support heavy drinking in male drinking contexts”.

According to the review led by the University of Pittsburgh, women can – shockingly – just hang out with each other completely sober. They just get together, maybe talk and not be afraid of silence, maybe even not try to best each other or damage each other’s ankles, just simply hang out. Men, meanwhile, are sat clutching their first pints like torches in a labyrinth, their trembling, sober smiles ready to be shattered by the simplest of social expectations, quivering with fear over the unknown awkwardness that lingers like an icy crevasse at the end of every sentence.

Men are too scared to open up, basically. The traditional gender norms men follow don’t allow for open displays of genuine affection so, according to the study, they fall back on getting pissed because getting pissed can “dis-inhibit and decrease the extent to which behaviours conform to social norms”.

We seem to enjoy hearing about these kinds of studies because ultimately they confirm that the traditional gender norms of society are somehow innate – ignoring the possibility that of course this behaviour could be as a result of these societal expectations, not the origin of them. The norm that men are uncomfortable with public emotion and women aren’t is as old the hills, and studies like this seem to reassure people that things are as simple as they’d hoped.

But, as much as I do enjoy having to hold genuine sentiment under the surface of alcohol until its panicked thrashes have turned into slurred loved-up outbursts, I don’t think it’s the healthiest gender norm to subscribe to. Although women are more likely to suffer from depression than men, men are more than three times as likely to kill themselves, according to recent statistics. The fact is, a lot of this will be down to men’s refusal to talk about how they are really feeling, of repressing their inner monologue until it’s softened enough by alcohol to be let loose, at which point any distress in it will be easily painted over by the pretence that it was just the beer talking.

But more now than ever, people in the public sphere are discussing mental heath issues more openly. This, combined by the work that organisations like Calm are doing, mean it’s becoming less awkward for men to discuss how they feel, of being afraid to open up to their mates on a day-to-day basis. It may not result in men being as effusive as women, but it could be a step in the right direction.

Although it seems harmless and everyday, it surely isn’t the healthiest trait that men need to drink to open up at a time when suicide is the leading cause of death among men aged 20-49 in England and Wales, and when alcoholism itself can so quickly lead to its own downward spiral. It can be easy to fall back on tired gender norms when attempting to explain away such damning statistics, but the more we revert lazily to type, the harder it will be to bring about meaningful change. I guess that’s how long-held yet archaic views get changed, from starting simply and working up.

Men need a drink to open up? What a dangerously self-fulfilling belief| Tom Usher

Hospitals "dangerously full" during winter crisis, says thinktank

Hospitals were dangerously full during the recent onset of the winter crisis and breached an edict from NHS bosses to keep one in seven beds free, a new King’s Fund analysis reveals.

England’s 153 acute hospital trusts were told by the health service regulator on 9 December to run at no more than 85% bed occupancy between 19 December and 16 January, the internationally recognised level that hospitals are meant to stick to in order to minimise the risk of potentially deadly infections and to maintain the capacity to deal with emergencies.

Hospitals only managed to meet the target for three days over that period and were running at far higher levels of bed occupancy, often exceeding 95%, the King’s Fund found. Occupancy only dipped below 90% on four days since mid-December, it added.

“Bed occupancy rates above 85% increase the chances of bed shortages and the risk of infection. The fact that hospitals have missed the 85% objective by such a significant amount is further evidence of the huge pressure facing hospitals,” said Richard Murray, the thinktank’s director of policy who undertook the analysis.

The NHS entered the winter period with bed occupancy rates already high by historic standards, given that they were at 87.5% in the normally “quiet” second quarter of 2016/17. “The NHS did indeed achieve occupancy rates below 85%, but only on 23–25 December, when bed occupancy often falls as hospitals discharge as many patients as they can for Christmas, ”said Murray’s analysis.

“However, whatever spare capacity the NHS managed to create was quickly eaten up. As a consequence, it should come as no surprise that early January was an exceptionally difficult time as occupancy rates rose quickly above the 95% mark, although they do appear to have eased somewhat since then.”

Hospitals were operating at close to capacity even though flu, the winter vomiting bug norovirus and extreme, snowy weather, which oridnally might make it more difficult for hospitals to cope, did not cause significant problems. But the fact that unprecedented numbers of trusts were forced to declare an alert in the early weeks of January underlined that hospitals have come under unprecedented strain in recent weeks, Murray said.

His analysis, posted on the King’s Fund website, adds: “So with the relative (to date) absence of flu, norovirus and snow drifts, where does the explanation lie? Almost certainly in the clash between the steady, year-on-year increase in demand for NHS services and the ongoing need to constrain expenditure and capacity in healthcare as a result of funding pressures. Cuts in social care have added to this mix by pushing up delayed transfers of care, and may also have contributed to rising numbers of older, frail people arriving at hospital needing admission.”

Between now and the end of this winter, Murray warned: “We need to hope that no unpleasant shocks occur in terms of winter bugs or weather, because on current reckoning the NHS has precious little in the way of excess capacity to absorb them.”

Meanwhile, overcrowding has led two hospitals in Cumbria to breach NHS-wide rules that say male and female patients should not be treated on the same ward.

The North-West Evening Mail reported: “The trust in charge of Barrow’s Furness general hospital recorded 18 breaches of NHS standards on mixed sex wards in December. Of these, eight took place at FGH while the remaining 10 were at FGH’s sister hospital, the Royal Lancaster infirmary.

“Hospital bosses have confirmed the incidents were the result of an acute beds shortage at both sites which prevented patients on critical care wards from being transferred to a medical ward as they recovered.

“Critical care wards can accommodate both male and female patients, but a number were forced to remain in critical care beds for longer than necessary because there were no other places available for them in the hospital.”

The boss of the hospital trust featured in the ongoing BBC series Hospital has unexpectedly resigned after less than three years in the job. Dr Tracey Batten quit on Thursday as chief executive of Imperial College healthcare NHS trust, which runs five hospitals in central and west London. They include St Mary’s, where much of the filming for the series has taken place. The show has won widespread acclaim for its vivid portrayal of the acute pressures facing the NHS.

Hospitals "dangerously full" during winter crisis, says thinktank

Demand for NHS care is dangerously high, says thinktank

Demand for NHS care has reached record levels, with unprecedented numbers of patients being treated in A&E units, a new report reveals.

But that has left hospitals dangerously full and growing numbers of patients who need to be admitted are having to wait longer than they should because no bed is available, according to health thinktank the King’s Fund.

A total of 5,873,998 patients sought help in all types of A&E units in April, May and June – the largest number ever to do so in any three-month period – leading the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to warn that the NHS had become “a pressure cooker” and was buckling under the weight of demand.

An unusually high number of patients were admitted to hospital during the same period, in a sign that the NHS is dealing with growing numbers of people who are so unwell they need inpatient care. In all just over 1 million of those who attended A&E ended up being admitted, one of the largest numbers on record.

Overall there were an extra 54,000 A&E attendances a month and 14,200 extra emergency hospital admissions a month in the first quarter of 2016-17 than in the same period the year before.

Experts said that the record high, revealed in official NHS statistics analysed by the King’s Fund, was surprising because it occurred in a period when hospitals used not to be especially busy.

“Increased demand for services is placing the health system under huge strain, with more than 90% of beds occupied by patients, well above the threshold that is considered safe,” the thinktank said. Internationally, 85% is considered the safe maximum bed occupancy rate.

“Relentless demand for services” is a key factor that is “fuelling deteriorating performance” against a whole set of NHS waiting time indicators, it added.

• The number of people waiting to receive non-urgent treatment within 18 weeks had risen to 3.8 million by June, the highest level since December 2007.
  


• More than 307,000 patients were still waiting in June to start treatment at least 18 weeks after they were referred to it. That is 8.5% of the total waiting list and was the fourth month in a row the NHS had missed the target to treat at least 92% of such patients within 18 weeks.
  


• Some 6,100 patients were stuck in hospital at the end of June unable to leave, despite being medically fit to go, often as a result of inadequate social care locally.
  

“The NHS is now struggling to cope all year round. It is a pressure cooker and with bed occupancy at such constantly high levels and community services stretched, there is nowhere for the pressure to escape to. It would now take very little for hospitals to be fully overwhelmed,” said Lara Carmona, the RCN’s associate director of policy, international and parliamentary affairs.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “Since 2010 the NHS has dealt with significantly rising demand from our ageing population while improving the quality of care – 5.8 million people were seen in A&E in the first three months of this year and the number treated within the four-hour target continues to rise in the thousands.”

Demand for NHS care is dangerously high, says thinktank