Boris..intensive care..

Well I’m glad Boris is on the mend because I don’t wish this disease on anyone.

The point which all the sanctimonious posters seem to have missed is that Johnson was perfectly happy to wish this disease on 80% of the UK population in order to achieve 'herd immunity'. And, while he was forced to apparently backtrack on this policy because of public outrage at its implications, his government has not exactly fallen over itself to supply desperately needed PPE to frontline NHS staff, to step up testing, to do anything at all about Care Homes, where possibly hundreds are dying, often alone and untreated...

It feels to a great many people that the appalling 'herd immunity' policy is still being prioritised.

The tories KNEW in 2017, after Operation Cygnus that the NHS would fail catastrophically in a crisis such as the current one but did nothing at all about it.

Being lectured on being 'humane' in reacting to the illness of one of the chief architects of the terrifying situation the UK finds itself in is quite unbelievable...

MaizieD, EXACTLY. Very well said. WHO have also said that the UK was ripe for disaster due to the piecemeal mess our health services are in, similar to the US.

MaizieD - there are only two ways out of this mess, herd immunity or vaccination. As we won't have a vaccine for 18 months we have little choice but herd immunity. We cannot keep the economy paralysed for 18 months, so people will have to start working and mixing again and the infections will continue. Herd immunity will slowly occur over the next year and we may as well accept that.

vegansrock Fri 10-Apr-20 20:14:18
'Germany spends at least twice the U.K. on health care, maybe that’s something that can be taken into consideration.'
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Do you think the UK should scrap the NHS model and move to the German model for health care?

Pikachu

"He failed in this aspect of leadership. Catching the virus himself was indicative of how little he understood the nature of the disease"
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Does that apply to everybody who has contracted COVID 19? Have they all failed to understand the nature of the disease.?

Are you saying 'if you understand the nature of the disease you will not catch COVID 19.?

Herd immunity will slowly occur over the next year and we may as well accept that.

That's what seems likely.
The very least we should have, tho, is adequate protection for NHS staff and care staff.
This is because their work can't be done without being in close proximity to people.

Exactly FarNorth. And although they'll be part of the herd immunity, we need to have the majority of them fit and working.

Gagajo

'WHO have also said that the UK was ripe for disaster due to the piecemeal mess our health services are in'
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Under Labour we had the controversial period of North Staffs and the subsequent Francis Report. Now it is the Conservative Party who are either supposedly running into the ground or supposedly selling it off to America.

Do you think the NHS has served it's time and perhaps should adopt say the Swiss model of health care.?

I don't know enough about the Swiss model. It seemed pretty chaotic to me, in my very short time there. LOTS of competing VERY EXPENSIVE health insurances (mine, with an excess of chf 3000 still cost chf 300 a month).

I think we need our NHS. I'd happily pay a lot more tax/NI contribution for it. I had outstanding care 10 years ago and it saved my life. In the US then, I'd have been dead. Cancer care in the NE has also gone downhill over the last 10 years.

Gagajo

'Cancer care in the NE has also gone downhill over the last 10 years.'
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I am surprised as the North East has the new Rutherford Cancer Centre which I thought had state-of-the-art treatment facilities and provides proton beam therapy, radiotherapy.

I hope not all posters feel the North East has gone down hill.

Possibly not the whole NE then. Where I had treatment was previously THE NE cancer care centre.

I know waiting lists are up for cancer surgery, chemo, radiotherapy. I guess that is what I meant by 'gone downhill'. I'm aware ALL waiting lists are up, but when you're harbouring what you've been told is a growing cancer, waiting is hell on earth.

Even at the time I had it, I only got chemo within 2 months of surgery because I had a fantastic oncologist who became enraged at the lack of a start date and personally called the chemo ward and demanded my treatment started.

I know the POST cancer treatments are in much shorter supply now. I didn't complete my reconstruction surgery because I had to go back to work. It isn't available anymore.

I still think treatment in my city is better than the one across the river tho. I've heard awful reports about it there.

Newcastle Hospital in the NE is a leading beacon of light into the research and treatment of some cancers, offering treatments which other areas including worldwide, may, we hope, follow.

Callistemon

Interesting.

My family has received wonderful care from the NHS apart from the one I mentioned previously. The NHS is never going to be able to please everyone and the ever increasing footfall will keep requiring more and more out of it.

That's why I ask posters who raise other countries health care systems as better than the UK if they see the NHS as a failure would they like to see the NHS health system scrapped and the UK shift to other countries health systems who they say are better.

The Life Centre in Newcastle offers genetic testing. Both myself and daughter, who unfortunately has my BRCA1 gene were tested. But it's less available now. Funding I guess.

I was lucky to get it when I did. I had full prophylactic surgery, reducing my risk.

I found the Spanish system MUCH better. The quality of care we got there was phenomenal. Paid for in the same way as the UK, through taxes.

Our Health System has been underfunded for 10 years and has had the worst funding in its 72 year history. The NHS is the best, and funded properly works better than any other private system. The NHS should be renationalised, a perfect working model, so no selling off to privatise it it's not a money making scheme, it's a service The NHS.

Well said Grany!

It's been underfunded for a helluva lot longer than 10 years! I say that as one who's struggled along for decades working in the NHS. There's never been a time when there was ample funding for the actual demands on it. Coronavirus on top of a much larger population including a higher proportion of older people, plus higher expectations and greater technical abilities is a perfect storm.
Its far too easy to just say today's problems are due to underfunding. 'underfunding'

When it was set up in 1948 there were a number of infectious diseases such as polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps, TB etc which it was thought that once these were eradicated, the health of the nation would be much improved and there would be less demand on the health services. Of course there has been increased demand on the health services as infant mortality has fallen and life expectancy increased, people are living with treatable disorders for longer and medical knowledge has increased. If we were designing an NHS today it would look a lot different in terms of structure than the 1948 model. I’m not sure what is the optimum design, but it would be one positive to emerge from this pandemic that we had a clearer picture of how we want our NHS to be organised and funded.

Yes. That would be an extremely useful outcome vegansrock. I suspect it will cost us all more in one way or another but, with our new appreciation of it and it's staff, we'll all be happier to pay.

MaizieD Sat 11-Apr-20 08:16:09
Very well said.
I'm certain that the herd immunity agenda is still running behind the scenes/the default choice.

Chestnut Sat 11-Apr-20 10:10:43
With no accommodations for the vulnerable, herd immunity is essentially the survival of the fittest. Literally, vulnerable people die in droves without support.

I'm in the 'shielded' group. The official support I've had so far is ZERO. They effed up my registration (as they've done with hundreds of thousands I believe, especially when you see the scant numbers registered with supermarkets for priority deliveries). 3 weeks on and the NHS still hasn't ticked the right boxes.

Are you suggesting a laissez faire, no interventions, no support heard immunity strategy in order to 'save' the economy? You know that you would thus be hugely increasing my chances of a very very early death? And those of many many others. Is that OK? To 'save' the economy...

Are you suggesting that we vulnerable people just stay indoors for 18months? And do our best to dodge the bullet? Is that OK? For the sake of the economy?

You might note that the economy is still happening. The stock markets are still trading. Some, like the odious Rees-Mogg et al., are making millions, billions out of other people's misfortunes. The £multi-billion supermarket industry is making more profit than they ever dreamed possible. Online shopping is booming. NHS staff are so busy that they've been augmented by retirees, all of which are being paid. Other services are working overtime. The economy is still there. What's changed is that lockdown has suddenly shifted spending and profitability into other areas. Not to mention the likely offsets, many of which are unknown as yet.

So, what would your plan for a herd immunity strategy look like? I'm genuinely interested to know.

The so called 'herd immunity' ideology is why we will probably end up with more deaths than Italy, because we were so slow initially to initiate social isolation.
The signs from China were clear, in February, and now we are starting to see the result. Our daily death rate is probably over 1,000 a day if deaths in the community were included.
We will not know of course until this is all over what the ultimate cost in human life will be, but I hope there will be a public Enquiry about the way it has been managed.
I worked in the NHS for years and I can say Jane10 that many of the problems in the NHS prior to this virus were definitely down to underfunding.
Of course there needs to be a debate about what can be realistically paid for in normal times, but to be frank we started from a very low base to be able to cope with a pandemic such as we are now experiencing.

I know greeneyedgirl- that's why I said underfunding was nothing new!!

I just can't understand why some people are still defending the way this government has handled the crisis. The fact that Johnson didn't even take on board the advice regarding protecting oneself from catching the virus just about sums it all up. I mean, he openly boasted that he was still shaking peoples hands when everyone was being advised not to. Can anyone explain why this wasn't ignorant and foolhardy of him?

He's an idiot Labaik and now he's paying the price for his idiocy. But some people only learn the hard way.

Some people cite China as being the country which best dealt with the virus by initiating a lockdown very early on, but now a very large number of Chinese have not encountered it so have no immunity should it return there.

Only time will tell whether the herd immunity policy is better though.

Sweden might be the country to watch as their bars and restaurants are still open.