Panorama tonight

There was a leaked document of over 600pages last year warning of shortages IF ever there was to be a pandemic (before COVID) The government did not heed the advice given.
All these front line workers have gone far and beyond what anyone should be expected to do by doing their jobs without proper ppe. Care homes especially are the poor relations as far as ppe. So so sad.

Got his name wrong. Apologies

NeilSpurgeon2 is most definitely not spot on.

It's already been explained a few times on this thread that there was supposed to be a central stockpile of PPE specifically for use in an emergency situation. Nothing to do with hospitals' day to day requirements.

What the Panorama programme showed was that the emergency stockpile had not been maintained, so leaving a shortage in this emergency.

It's not a question of being able to 'agree' with another poster, Jane10. The other poster was incorrect in what he was saying, thus, not spot on.

It's a very sad state of affairs when posters think that they are 'right' because, regardless of the facts, other posters think the same way that they do.

growstuff- yes it is spot on.
I'm as entitled to agree with another poster as you are to gripe about the government.

That's my understanding too Alexa. It's a national responsibility to warehouse and plan for future needs on a large scale. Hospital managers should the be able to rely on this central store to deliver what they need when they need it. That was the whole point of the 2016 shake up.

It would appear that hospital managers have been aware of their local needs and have been ordering, but the central store (owned by the government) has not been able to deliver.

My thanks to NeilSpurgeon0 for your contribution.

Thank you Candelle for that first-hand perspective. I'm hearing the same from people I know working on the front line.

I wish your daughter a good recovery!

So right notanan. Over 80% of care homes are privately run, so nothing to do with the NHS. Maybe it's about time they were regulated better and/or even brought back into local government control. Some of them had previously been run by the NHS many years ago, were transferred to local government and then outsourced to private profit-making companies. Of course, they'll cut corners. Their priority is keeping share holders happy, even though they are often financed by public money through council tax. Council tax payers don't want to pay any money, so these private companies are caught in between keeping share holders and council tax payers happy. Residents and safety aren't the main priorities.

Errmm … what does this have to do with the NHS being short of PPE?

This is fact: my GP daughter, taken ill in March (along with seven other doctors from her practice of ten doctors), was not able to have a C-19 test. Still has not been able to have a test.

Her practices could not obtain PPE equipment and she ended up buying it on eBay and obtaining supplies from a local school.

The Government department responsible for issuing PPE equipment sent a minute quantity, along with a list of suppliers so she could buy her own....

There was a report undertaken some years ago on what would be needed in the event of a pandemic. The cost was such that the report was shelved and no action taken, The current C-19 pandemic has now cost more (including economic fallout) than had we had been fully stocked/prepared.

I wonder if the families of those medical staff (and carers/bus drivers and others) who have died would be happy to know that their sacrifice was down to penny-pinching?

PPE equipment should have been available. It was not.

This was the BBC, we read for several years how the BBC lied
about Corbyn, is the beeb now telling the truth ?

According to the Panorama programme the stockpile of necessary equipment against a severe epidemic or pandemic is housed in a gi-normous shed , in Staffordshire I think it is. This (almost non existent) stockpile was to equip personnel on a future occasion of pandemic or severe epidemic. I'd have thought hospital managers order equipment in response to more immediate needs.

Privately run I mean!

Most care homes are privately funded and hospital acquired infections are common amongst nursing home patients. Flu, noro etc.

The face that so many if them said they had "no PPE" at the START of the pandemic should raise serious questions about what they were doing before CV19. Had they been working safelt in the first place they should have had stock at the start!

Yes, they would have run out sooner and then should gave had help, but that they had none in stock at the beginning is on the care home management not the government, and given how much they charge, suggests they have been dekiberately neglecting infection control all along to make profit!

I agree growstuff. It’s fine to agree with opinions but less fine to agree with stuff that has no basis in fact just because.

Thank you SirChenjin. I know I don't always get it right, but I do try to delve beyond the populist soundbites.

I spend far too much time in front of my computer screen and I've become increasingly aware how social media is being used as a tool to spread misinformation. The Tories do it all the time, as do Momentum. It's quite easy to spot because they use the same wording and almost exactly the same ideas and claims. In many cases the messages are identical - often with "three word" slogans.

That's why I always try to go back to reliable sources.

The idea that "hospital management" is to blame for the shortcomings of healthcare has been going on for years. The people making the claims can't, unfortunately, even have a sensible conversation to justify their claims. It's become embedded in the national consciousness like the "'Elf and safety gone mad" and "red tape" arguments.

No, it's not spot on Jane10.

Excellent posts growstuff - all based on fact rather than fantasy.

I have joined an organisation of ladies making masks, scrubs, scrub bags and other sundries that hospitals in the northwest are finding it hard to source. The organisation has a FB page and we have lots of requests in FB from nurses and carers for the garments we are making. An order yesterday of 90 sets of scrubs was delivered to a hospital in Liverpool, with a further 110 to be delivered just as soon as we can make them. There is a very real shortage in my part of tbe country, no doubt about it.

Absolutely right EllanVannen the Government provide the money but each trust decides how it will spend its share. To blame the Government for being unprepared for CV-19 is a complete joke and trial by TV is not at all what we need today. This particular pandemic was completely unexpected, a flu pandemic was not, and so the preparations allowed for what would be needed for the expected epidemic plus some additional capacity. To blame the Government for being unprepared for an unexpected and completely different disease is like blaming the BBC for not having made numerous extra editions of Eastenders to cover their inability to create new drama content during lockdown. It is a ludicrous argument.
Spot on neilspurgeon0

That's a good perspective growstuff
Thank you. I too have been made aware of schools, beauty salons etc helping out particularly with care homes who have been woefully treated

Strangely enough, a number of our local Conservative councillors have worked as managers of the hospital trust, which now has shortages.

The huge hospital nearest my home has been appealing non-stop for equipment over the last few weeks. Schools and beauty salons have turned out their cupboards and donated whatever they could. School technicians have been using 3 D printers to make visors. There have been a number of comments on local Facebook pages from nurses and others that they don't have the right equipment.

TRust managers can't procure when the orders can't be fulfilled because the equipment isn't there!!!

I remember during the coalition government that Philip Green was brought in as a procurement "tsar" because trusts were doing their own thing and not getting economies of scale. That's when Supply Chain Coordination Limited was formed and there was a reversal of the previous policy to fragment. It's a government-owned company and is supposed to be able to supply the NHS. It's not the trusts' fault if it can't do its job because it doesn't have the stuff in its warehouses.

The attempt to blame individual managers is misguided.

Surely the problem has been with Supply Chain Coordination Limited, a Limited company wholly owned by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which has been responsible for supplying the NHS trusts since 2016. It has been unable to supply the trusts with its orders because it failed to stockpile. This isn't to do with the inefficiency of trusts or ward managers but with supply issues.

It seems an awful lot of attack dogs have been let off the leash on social media over the last day or so.

Absolutely right EllanVannen the Government provide the money but each trust decides how it will spend its share. To blame the Government for being unprepared for CV-19 is a complete joke and trial by TV is not at all what we need today. This particular pandemic was completely unexpected, a flu pandemic was not, and so the preparations allowed for what would be needed for the expected epidemic plus some additional capacity. To blame the Government for being unprepared for an unexpected and completely different disease is like blaming the BBC for not having made numerous extra editions of Eastenders to cover their inability to create new drama content during lockdown. It is a ludicrous argument.