The real reason clinical staff are so poorly protected

As far as I recall the PFI initiative started by Labour was to build new hospitals because what we had were in a dreadful state of repair, many were very old and run down. It was also a time when the waiting list was really long, 4 years or more for replacement knees, cataract surgery was similarly long and I recall a relative had no choice but to borrow the money to pay privately. These waiting lists were much reduced at that time which did make a huge difference to people, but it left us with huge debt because private initiatives are market driven and only in it for profit.
The nhs has been underfunded and undermined for many years but more especially by Conservative governments.

Becuse the NHS was known to be starved of funds, it was possible for the liars of the Leave campaign, like Boris Johnson, to fool people into believing that brexit would mean an extra £350 million a week for the NHS.

Of course it's about politics.

I wasn't blaming just one Party. You'll notice I said 'at least the last 10 years'. The NHS has been undermined and underfunded for decades. It has been used as a political football by everyone from Blair's disastrous PFI to the current 'the NHS is safe with us' government who are privatising it piecemeal. The British public were so used the having an NHS that they only paid lip service to supporting it. After all it was always there when we needed it. Well now we're learning the hard way that decades of underfunding means that the NHS cannot always be there when we need it because it's been pared to the core when it needed planned spare capacity.

Vampirequeen
It has been underfunded since the 1980s at least through successive governments, much of NHS financial problems ate as a result of the disastrous Labour promoted PFI contracts that have many Health Authorities tied into contracts they cannot release which are bankrupting them.

It is a political issue, Joelsnan. The NHS has been deliberately underfunded for at least the last 10 years. Most turned a blind eye. Those that tried to bring it to people's attention were called lefties, scare mongers or worse. Now that underfunding has come back to haunt us.

The NHS has been running on empty for years. There's no one that the government can blame except themselves. As for PHE.........

I have every sympathy with NHS staff who feel vulnerable but I also feel very sorry for checkout staff in supermarkets who have similar problems when being breahted on by hundreds of people per day.

Real heroes, all of them.

Lets make this political ?

future generations will pay dearly for this brexit madness.

Nothing was done in response to the exercise because of "cost constraints"

Brexit was costing the UK economy an estimated £600m per week and so the government had to make a choice - fund brexit or fund the NHS.

B..... brexit won.

We will not forget this madness

Coronavirus is a worldwide calamity which a responsible government would have prepared for, and our government went through the scenario and rejected the advice because their priorities were so skewed.

B...... brexit was a self-inflicted disaster which future generations will pat dearly for.

Roll on Saturday when Mr Starmer takes up his post ??

Heard on r4 recently. There was an massive multi agency exercise about 3/4 years ago involving nhs/ police etc to check how prepared we were for any serious incidents. It revealed there were huge gaps in provision. Instead of doing something about it then, results were never reported and clearly nothing was done.

It seems also that any NHS staff have been gagged! from talking about any shortages, threatened with disciplinary etc etc .

Dr Phillip Lee, a former Tory minister, now a LibDem tells us -

We could have been ready for #COVID19. That’s what makes me so angry about this Government’s mishandling of this pandemic

twitter.com/DrPhillipLee/status/1244726326004715520

Thank you CherryChezzy
We are trying to take extra care at the moment.

The UK economy has lost £600 million per week since 2016 because of brexit- just think how many hospitals, doctors, nurses, protective equipment and ventilators that we could have had if it had not been for the utter lunacy of brexit.

www.ft.com/content/fb6285a4-5460-11e9-a3db-1fe89bedc16e

Ngaiol funds for the NHS would not have been found regardless. You must remember that this government ideology and their drive to a small state, disguised as necessary austerity
Look at my post 15.15 that tells you if the Tories attitude to the NHS

WWMk2 - your post of 15.51 is absolutely spot on.

Where on earth would we be without the NHS. I hope everyone remembers this.

callistemon thanks. All is fine at the moment the doctor phoned and asked all the usual cancer questions, decided it was almost certainly gall bladder. Got to go for another blood test in 6 weeks or 3 if it plays up.

She said to ring 999 if it happens again as I will need morphine. But I shall try to manage it myself until the poor staff are over the worse

I think you mean PFI Charleygirl. Yes a very costly mistake, but then I guess the clue is in where the funding was coming from.

Calistemon I know what Health Board that is. It must be very worrying where you are. It was being discussed yesterday and they were using comparisons with what's happening in Italy. Please stay safe ❤️

What I keep thinking about is the rhetoric about cutting waste in the NHS and cost cutting exercises. Justifying reducing capacity, staff, equipment etc. Then ,of course, they did it, snip, snip. Now, just as it appeared that after it had snipped it to a crew cut and was (apparently) going to be allowed to grow back a little bit ..... BOOM it's hit with a bomb ? and the fall out is difficult to deal with.

varian - |I imagine that funds which would have helped our health service have been sent overseas. It really is time to stop this nonsense of foreign aid and invest in our country.

Sometimes this country is too free for its own good !!

I still say that this virus has been around longer than many doctors on TV have said. One GP this morning had said the beginning of February----rubbish !
Personally I say it's December of last year as it's easy to get mixed up when existing winter bugs are around if no specific tests are done.

It's frightening enough, without someone like that in charge.
People who went into the hospital for some other reason have caught it in there and not been diagnosed and left on a ward with others.

I hope your gall bladder is ok and not bothering you.