How did a country with an international reputation for public health get it so wrong?

Boris is reported as giving PHE the chop after this pandemic. Time to cut the bureaucracy. Layers of managers. Too much red tape. Time to streamline it and make it fit for purpose. Coronavirus has shone a strong light onto it’s failings!

Apologies growstuff I tried to open your link but the WiFi signal isn’t strong enough tonight.
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Well COVID has certainly shine a light onto the failings of that complete failure Johnson that’s for sure. And like all incompetents he needs to pass the blame on.

Great article growstuff. Nothing we didn't know but confirmed. Spot on.

Absolutely Urmstongran

It is not the NHS which is failing at the coal face. Having watched the programme on BBC Wales filmed in an Aneurin Bevan hospital I will never say they themselves got it wrong - but why, oh why, did a hospital under a Labour administration become the one which had the least equipment in the whole of Western Europe in ICU to cope with this crisis?

The administrators and the CE need to go.

Sorry, suzie, but Wales has a Labour administration and in fact this could be down to local administration.

NHS Wales

‘Setting health policy for the NHS in Wales and the funding
for health services is the responsibility of the Welsh Government ‘

Urmstongran The Conservatives created Public Health England when they destroyed local public health systems. There has been constant criticism of top-down, centralised so-called reform. Why didn't the Conservatives listen before now?

The article isn't just about Public Health England or any specific failing, but a whole catalogue of them. Sadly, people have been speaking up about the dangers of the so-called reforms, but most of them were silenced.

Callistemon I don't know that much about healthcare in Wales apart from the fact that it's devolved, but I'm afraid your train of thought has lost me.

If you read the article it's about much more than blaming local administration, whether that's in Wales or an English trust.

I haven't read the link up yet,, sorry.

But how can a country with devolved responsibilities for public health have an international reputation when it may vary according to countries or even by region?

Even now, the government is getting it wrong. Finding, testing, tracing and isolating is crucial to reducing transmission rates. The people best placed to do that work are GPs, local community healthcare teams and social workers, but the government has outsourced the contract to SERCO, who have hardly started recruiting and intend to do most of the work remotely from call centres. The people already in place to do the work haven't even been told what's going on.

Perhaps those looking from afar are not aware of how healthcare is devolved and administered here.

Callistemon My guess is that that is part of the problem. I assume SAGE advises the Westminster government and some financial decisions are made which affect the whole of the UK. However, the devolved nature of healthcare means there are even more "layers". Apparently, the devolved administrations have been complaining about lack of consultation and communication.

The article talks about Westminster, then mostly about England. Even in England, healthcare has been devolved, so all the various organisations compete against each other for resources and communication is poor. The 2012 changes cunningly meant that healthcare is no longer the responsibility of the Department for Health. It can wash its hands of responsibility and say "it's not us gov" - it's the trusts and CCGs, who messed up. The "NHS" is no more than a brand name in many cases because so much has been outsourced.

Quite frankly, it's an absolute shambles - and the Conservative government is responsible for introducing such a shambolic system.

Maybe you're not aware how shambolic it is in England either.

But this is a distraction from the article.

Of course it is GS. Smoke and mirrors until they need NHS treatment and are at the sharp end.

Any suggestions as to who would do better ?

Perhaps watching the BBC Wales programme filmed in the ICU of the Royal Gwent Hospital, broadcast this week, may give an indication of how much worse it is in Wales than in many areas of England and, in fact, of the whole of Western Europe.
The staff are wonderful, doing their best for all their patients.

Every document, every notice, has to be translated into Welsh taking vital funding away from essential services. As a senior nurse said once "everyone speaks English round here, it's a vanity project".

EV, that ISN'T the point. Those that are our leaders should do better. They have had advice and know what but the piecemeal privatisation and lack of organisation is costing hundreds of lives everyday.

Gagaojo just stop it.

I don't know what I have done to annoy you but enough is enough.
Thank you.

EllanVannin Try watching the meetings broadcast by "Independent Sage". Unfortunately, the politicians, civil servants and local authority public health officials who could do better have long been retired off.

Am I missing something? Where has GagaJo had a go at you specifically Callistemon?

Callistemon There's not much those of us in England can do about translating everything into Welsh. It's up to you in Wales to change that, if you dare. I don't feel it's my place to comment on Welsh nationalism.