The honeymoon will be shorter than most

The way things are going the NHS is going to outsource everything else---then what happens when there's nothing left for anything else ?

Ah well, never mind, we'll still have a free NHS if nothing else !!

Yes, I fully understand what you're saying Maizie but I also object to the blame being laid at the feet of the government.

But the Govt didn’t do nearly enough in terms of pandemic planning, having the correct stocks of PPE and having testing facilities - not necessarily running, but there to deal with surges. It just didn’t.

You seem to take any criticism of this Govt very personally.

The U.K. has not done well responding to Covid 19 in fact it could be argued that only the US is doing worse. The restrictions of movement have proved inadequate and the lack of PPE negligent, despite a major simulation 2 years ago responding to a pandemic PPE was not ensured.

Germany along with other countries has taken different strategies with a much lower death rate and sufficient PPE not only for front line workers but the population at large. There is no doubt that successive Tory governments have failed us, were they distracted by other politics, or was it all part of the austerity drive.

Look. I don't care if you are Left or Right or any other possible political orientation.

Watch Panorama on iplayer. Is this made up? I don't think so.

Our government failed to to keep a stockpile of PPE for the NHS when it was clear a pandemic was on the cards.

When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out they reduced the level of safety kit required for front line staff.

NHS staff are dying and will continue to die. I'm not into the blame game. I just want the government to really work day and night on this rather than just claiming that that is what they are doing.

The way things are going the NHS is going to outsource everything else---then what happens when there's nothing left for anything else ?

Can you explain this statement, EV?

It was a government decision to inaugurate a central supplies organisation. If you read the Guardian article you see the statement 'The government owns the stock'. One naturally assumes that not only does the government own the stock but it was also responsible for purchasing it. If so, it is the government which has failed to purchase sufficient PPE. It also seems that the government has failed to monitor the private company which was responsible for managing the stock, a responsibility which includes updating it...
We also know that the government failed to act on the recommendations of the report on the Cygnus exercise, on the grounds that increasing the stock levels wouldn't be cost effective, and that it failed to take action on recommendations last year to purchase items such as gowns which weren't stocked at all. It could, in all fairness, be said that this happened under a slightly different government, but the current one took no action on emergency stocks when it was obvious that a pandemic was on our doorstep.

It appears to be Whitewaves mission to start as many
Threads along these lines as possible.I imagine they will carry on for the next five years......and if the LP don’t get in then, for the following five years.

I think 'laughing emojis' are inappropriate Lemon, when so many thousands of lives have been lost unecessarily
Of course the Government should be questioned, their response has been woeful
So I support Whitewave and anyone else who will hold them to account

The emoji is for WWM2 mission......nothing to do with covid19 ( neither is the mission!)

I do wonder though what you mean by ‘unnecessarily’
How were those ‘thousands’ of deaths to be prevented?The NHS have been working hard to save as many patients as they can.

Exactly boat. Stop the spin and do your best.

It’s rubbish ( John Crace) to say that care home deaths were not thought to be worth recording.Because elderly residents die all the time ( for various reasons) early on the cause of death may have been recorded as heart failure / stroke etc because that’s what happened ( even if they happened to also have the virus.) Later, the figures were recorded but obviously were not so easy to be counted as deaths occurring in hospitals.

Well let me think...
Cheltenham had 250,000 attending and Gloucestershire has a much higher than average rate of deaths
Liverpool had an influx of Madrid supporters, when they weren't even allowed to attend football matches in their own country
Liverpool also has a higher than average death rate
That's what I mean by uneccessary
Decisions have consequences, grave consequences, certainly nothing worth smirking about

Were you riding a high horse at Cheltenham this year by any chance?
The government at that time were still allowing outdoor events by taking advice from medical experts.
Has Gloucestershire got a higher rate of covid19 deaths than anywhere in the UK....no, that would be London.

Have any of the women on here who are supporting/excusing the government lost someone close to them,or even an aquaintance? That might change your views on how its been handled.Tonight my husbands uncle is in intensive care ,up until now my son s two friends have lost their mums ,my daughter has 2 friends who have lost dads a lovely wee woman who used to work for us died last weekend .Its hard .We wake up and wOnder who will be next.
With flights still arrivng daily ,disgorging their occupants without any attempt to trace where they go this could go on for a long time .I would happily have closed our border between Scotland and England and I know a lot of people feel the same.WE have no power to stop the flights ,only WM can do that and they appear to be very reluctant .The whole sorry mess they have created will surely be investigated when the virus is finally under control ,just the lies they tell daily is enough to scare the bejesus out of me ,its an ever revolving door of new liars .HOW is it possible to make excuses for them ?

I kind of think that you have lost the argument when you resort to personal remarks

I wasn’t aware that only people from Gloucestershire attended Cheltenham.

Excellent posts Dollymc1

paddyanne - I’m so sorry to hear about your husband’s uncle, that must be such a worry for you. Sending you lots of positive thoughts and I hope he recovers

Dollymc1

Your statement about Gloucestershire is rather disingenuous.

Gloucestershire has the highest rate of infection of any county in the South-West.
However, the South-West has the lowest rate of infection in the country.

Do you think it is mainly Gloucestershire people who attended the Cheltenham Festival? Very many people attending are Irish.

Whether or not it should have gone ahead is debatable, but your statement is incorrect.

Back in the 50s my mother contracted encephalitis whilst she was nursing. Since I was still at junior school at that time, I don't have the exact details. What I do remember is that she was seriously ill. When she came out of hospital her head was shaved where she'd had fluid drawn from it. She also had several lumber punctures, the effects of which caused back problems throughout her life.

I am mentioning this because it happened 60 years ago and yet many front line staff have died this year as the result of a virus and I find this totally shocking..

Turning to the numbers of people who have died, I noticed on the news this evening, during a discussion of the number of deaths in care homes, that the cumulative total (excluding deaths in the community) was described as the total number of deaths. Previously this figure has always been described as the total number of deaths in hospital. Is this obfuscation? The figure certainly didn't include the number of deaths in the community.

I think that we are in for a shock when the final figures are announced.

Looking at the deaths registered as covid related in the figures released by the ONS today for w/e 17th April I think that you need to add 50% to the 'deaths in hospital' currently released daily by the government to get anywhere near a true figure for covid deaths.

The government is warned in 2016/17 and again in June 2019 that there are totally insufficient stocks of PPE to deal with an epidemic/pandemic. Despite being aware since late December of this dangerous new virus, the prime minister allows major events involving thousands of people to go ahead. No measures are taken at airports to check whether incoming passengers are possibly carrying the virus. The prime minister tells people to follow distancing and hand washing guidelines and asks them not to visit bars and restaurants (but doesn't close them till some days later), then later proceeds to cheerily relate how he has shaken hands with "everybody", including several Covid patients - following which he goes down with the virus himself. Is he criticised by his fans for this? No, he is treated as a hero for having survived. Had an "ordinary" person been seen to have behaved in such a way he would have been deemed to be, the now much used word "selfish" in exposing himself and others to further contagion.

It seems to me that there is an insidious campaign to get people blaming each other for the many deaths that have occurred and which continue to occur. The vast majority of people have abided by - and in many cases gone way beyond - the regulations re distancing, isolation, etc, etc. Some people won't even leave their homes to go out for a walk - even though they have been told they may go out for "exercise" once a day. A culture of one-upmanship seems to have evolved whereby those who deny themselves even their legitimate right to take exercise or to go shopping, whilst maintaining social distance, feel obliged to monitor and criticise the perfectly legitimate actions of others.

Now there are suggestions that it is the NHS, not the government, which is responsible for decisions relating to purchase and storage of vital equipment. Failing that, health workers are exaggerating the shortage of equipment, or, if there are shortages it is due to health workers being wasteful.

As James O'Brien said in his broadcast, do people really think that the hundreds of health workers who are ringing his and other programmes complaining of shortages are lying?

This government is so deceitful - on the one hand encouraging well meaning but ultimately unproductive gestures such as hand clapping, one minute silences, badges, etc, etc,. whilst on the other casting doubt on the very same people's accounts of shortages.

Excellent post ellanvannin. Just where would you have done all this testing whitwavemark2? The UK does not have the number of testing facilities that Germany has. The UK did not have enough texting stick things as many countries were trying to procure them and the type needed are only made in China and Germany. The government has written off £15.6 billion debt of the NHS. Do pepke really think the government are not trying night and day to procure more PPE from other countries? They promised to get to 100,000 tests a day by end of month and they are on target to do so. First NHS were screaming for ventilators as we onlynhad 8000. Boris begged 200 from Trump and worked with McClarron racing cars, Rolls Royce and BAE Systemsvto dedign and make more ventilators, also Dyson and GTech designed and made more as we could nit get parts for traditional ventilators as only come from China. Next we hear NHS wants visors so many colleges with 3d printors mad those. Then we hear NZHS staff say there will not be enough CV beds so army turn event centres into Nightingdale hospitals, which actually have hardly been used. The Birmingham one has been open for 2 weeks and not 1 patient yet. Usually NHS orders own stock of PPE and they did not have enough stock and were bidding against each other which pushed up prices so the government said it would procure PPE to distibute centrally but nothing to stop individual hospital trusts from ordering their own. All government has had is criticism especially from the press. The other evening I heard an interview with a nurse on Sky. She imediately said their were huge shortages of PPE and blamed government. Sky interviewer asked if her hospital had actually run out and she had to work without any. She said not yet, but only had a few days worth left. She also said sometimes she changes all PPE 8 or 9 times on one 8 hour shift. If you are working on a ward where every patient has covid you would not need to change all PPE between every patient. One or 2 sets might last all shift. Visors can be washed in soapy water and used again. In 3 or 4 days would get another shipment in so not actually run out at all, just a fear of running low. In care homes it is very difficult to keep clients apart, especially as some have dementia and wonder around. Some patients don't show symptoms and so may be spreading Covid unknowingly. Also many care homes do not have Oxygen, which seems to be best treatment for Covid. The government is doing its best. They can't help it if some flout the rules. They have bailed out much of the work force with the fulough scheme so trying to protect jobs and aconomy and help for self employed who don't even pay class 1 NIC, so are very lucky to get bailed out. The government ordered lockdown at about right time, any earlier and people would have revolted and any later and it would have too firm a hold. People have been in lock down light, as still alowed to excercise for 1 hour each day, for 6 weeks and now many are getting impatient and breaking rules. Boris has said he won't put economy before lives. Now he is being criticised for that. I am very grateful Boris has a strong team around him and we have not got ditherer May in charge. Despite many people believing he is work shy we now know he worked himself so hard he did not get medical help in week before he was hospitalized.

Just one small point …

The NHS trust debt has actually been reassigned to equity, which means that the trusts will have to pay the Department of Health and Social Care interest, currently 3.5% a year. It's not actually costing the Treasury anything and could end up with the trusts paying more.

Another point …

The Nightingale hospitals haven't been staffed. Hospitals wishing to use the facilities have to release their own staff. Moreover, they're not equipped for the most critically ill, who would have to be transferred back into hospitals.