Yes I would, they should either fall under the NHS umbrella or close, these places are nothing short of people factories that take in old people at horrendous cost to families, charge a bloody fortune for very poor and inadequate care, then spit the bodies out the other end at life’s end without a care or worry. The staff that work in these places, the nurses and carers are by and large honest caring people and do worry and fret at the conditions, it’s the owners who should be held accountable and should not be allowed to make vast profits out of misery.
If the times article is correct then heads have to roll. Simple as that. It would amount to negligence in my book. If every day people ****ed up on such a grand scale in their employment, they would be sacked!
Something we agree on, then. The problem that would arise, though, is how to pay for this additional NHS burden. It would need substantial additional taxation, probably including a tax on the savings of those that have need of such care.
Political blinkers off for the sake of our country and it's people. In my opinion we have ministers who just arent up to the job! Inexperienced 'yes people'. This needs a cross party union to move this country forward. The **** ups have happened, the stupidly slow reaction time has passed. It's what we do from now onwards and I believe that should involve everyone. Decisions need to be questioned for the best and safest route forward.
Seems to be kicking off on Twitter Andrew Neil @afneil Where was the NHS in all this? Surely it was the job of the NHS to tell ministers exactly what sort of ventilators it required -- and the best way of getting them (which must surely have been building under licence rather than reinventing the wheel)? @Ribbonrocks Replying to @DanielA84612544 and @afneil As someone who worked in the NHS for 30 years I am convinced that much of the PPE problem is down to individual Trusts. Some of the stuff I’m hearing from inside Trusts confirms this.
As SW Ranger says, this thread has degenerated, in the main, to sarcastic put downs, political points scoring and repeatedly picking on posters. Pretty pathetic at times. I'm pretty sure the government has got a lot wrong. I don't know whether that's because they followed bad expert advice or simply made it up as they went along. I strongly suspect the former. Many on here tend to suggest the latter because they're Tories. This is an engrained trait and most unattractive, even among those on here who are very knowledgeable on the virus. I'll prepare for more sarcastic replies.
There are definitely a whole host of learnings to be taken from this pandemic disaster. Just looking at Beths ‘starter’ list demonstrates that. The society we are living in today has developed over decades to a bureaucratic world as we move from manufacturing to service industry. Layers of office sergeants, captains, generals and commanders have managed to water down responsibility, block efficient decision making and make it incapable to put its actions into play effectively (eg lockdowns, testing, PPE, business protection schemes). And this is never more prevalent than in the machine of government (and probably the NHS Trusts now as well). Businesses drive for improvement, analysing process and removing/improving inefficiencies. My view (and its just a view which I am open to being disproved) is that the machine of government, behind the party of the day, has no interest in such change. But SB is right at the end of the day the current holding government has to live and be measured by its decisions - even if it is only with the toolbox/machinery you have now. I think people (including me) underestimate the task of understanding the PPE requirements, the needs of every end-user and the ability to get what is needed to the right place at the right time. Managing what levels we have, how to get them fairly distributed to everyone and how to re-stock for ongoing distribution. Distribution out has to work with information requests in. If that is poor, or over-requesting, then equalising distribution decisions have to be made. Then as has been said, getting stock in when the whole world is trying to get it must be a huge mountain. Testing seems to me to be the area we have completely failed. We seem, from a simple outsider, to not have the resources to test and process adequate numbers. Experts like Beth would be able to answer why other countries have better facilities than we do, or better facilities to handle such requirements in a pandemic. It is certainly something I would like to better understand as countries with better testing regimes and monitoring have seemed to have had lower death rates (even Beths daily app reporting seems like it should be a national requirement to collate adequate information on virus spread and to manage appropriate responses to the right areas of need). I’m also interested in our population numbers to sq km/mile and infection/death rates. We are being compared with countries with lower population concentrations and while cities and central conurbations are clearly hit hardest we seem to have an abundance of those areas compared to other countries. Or perhaps my area of question is complete rubbish. Anyone with good comparisons? One thing is for sure, things will need to change. We seem no better or no worse than other hard hit countries - and that’s not good enough for me. Lives have been lost! We have to understand what failed and be strong enough to fix it once this complete disaster is through and we have counted the terrible loss of life. Blame games are not good enough. Solid understanding and effective change has to happen to ensure we are not only able to deal with another pandemic (should it happen) but also to be a country that can work efficiently through its government machine, through our NHS and any other national bureaucracy. We haven’t done ourselves proud. Our government machine hasn’t done us proud. I’m not sure our NHS Trusts have done their best. But I’m bloody sure our NHS paramedics, nurses, doctors and other frontline staff have been doing their best.
No i'm not. I will be enjoying the day in the garden. I will reply but not going to rush... sun and wine wins hands down. I won't be disrespectful to fellow posters as I don't know their individual qualifications and experiences in virology. However, I am one who listens to the top people in the field and would listen to them rather than Karen or Kevin on social media whose day job is flipping burgers at "kevin's Kebabs".
Another excellent post. I do question the way our deaths from corvid are calculated. I also fear that the death toll resulting from the economical destruction we're undertaking will far outweigh the (possibly massaged) figures we're seeing relating to corvid fatalities. I absolutely agree that things need to change once this thing is over. I'm not holding my breath mind.
I suspect it's both reasons Col. Some may just base their anger due to the government being Tories, I dont doubt that. Similar to the financial crash where people blamed labour. All I personally can do is question the government that happens to be in power. That's all we have. We can see, stretching back to when these daily briefings began that they have ****ed up. It's there for everyone to witness. Is that because they are Tories? Not to me, it's just a case of them ****ing up. I asked the question, which you kindly replied to, others just couldn't be bothered, what positive steps have the government taken regardless of who's advising and who isn't. People are dieing in their thousands and we look on track to be the worst hit country behind the USA. I firmly believe that some of the piss poor decision making has attributed to this death toll. How do we move forward? Do we just keep blundering aimlessly from one cock up to another?
I think the problem is and has been for some time is that the NHS is run by a fab and dedicated team who get **** pay and treated like crap (with regards to PPE). The Government must take some responsibility. Especially for allowing Trusts and board members to take sh2t loads of money while others struggle. Maybe some of Stroller's outdated views might be spot on in this case? I wish my friend was on this site as he would tell you about care homes and how they are run. Some of the things he has told me are truly sickening.... but that's for another day. For today we appear not to have enough PPE to go around and that should be the focus for the government. The inquiry can wait.
I probably would.....too many greedy ****s in that sector who are just in it for profit and don’t offer the care needed.
Maybe o Also we live in times where people cant/wont care for their own elderley parents and relatives. Similar to the generation who have children and palm them off to childminders at 3 months old so they can go to work. Get a dog and pay some other **** to walk it society. Call me old fashioned
Problem is Col, when you have had the ‘usual suspect’ coming up with his same old bollox for umpteen months, usually shouting people down or coming up with witty emojis, sarcastic personal put downs and ‘zzzzzzz’ if he doesn’t agree or care for debate......then is it any surprise that people, including me, fight like with like ?
The Government have thrown an unbelievable amount of money at this. I think that's something they've got right, especially the 80% wages policy. I do criticise how complicated some of the help is to obtain and the lack of immediate help for the self employed. We've been over all that though. They've been following scientific advice imo and that advice has been plainly wrong at times. We also see different scientists and pharmacy experts in direct competition with one and other and openly disagreeing in hostile arguments. Is that the present government's fault? I just can't work out exactly what's going on, but too many are too quick to point the finger in search of a scapegoat imo.
