Is our PM, infallible and free of any blame?

There are some of us who understand the situation and there are some who don't.

Why create a caustic post then buzz off ? I refer to spabbygirl.
Any suggestions as to who could have done a better job during this time than BJ ?

And is there not some kind of body like OfSted who should be involved.

Isn't it the Quality Care Commission? Or is that not operative in Scotland?

On PMQs just now, Johnson has said that his government takes full responsibility for the handling of the covid crisis. I wonder how long it will be before he turns round and finds another group to blame?

But for now, Johnson fans don't have a leg to stand on. Their hero takes full responsibility!

He also did not apologise to care home workers for his 'failure to follow procedures' remark, despite being asked to. I doubt they will feel compensated for it by the 'empty praise' he gave them instead.

paddyanne

The two privately run homes near me had deaths,according to staff it was management at fault .PPE was locked away and had to be obtained through a manager who was rarely IN the homes therefor staff had to work without it .One of the deaths was the mother of a friend of my son.The same story was repeated by other homes in the same chain across Scotland .
In these cases the home was clearly at fault ,the fees are not cheap,surely the people who live there are entitled to be treated safely .They pay enough for the privilege of being there and the owners cant treat them like cash cows and leave them to suffer or die because they dont want to spend the money to keep them safe,but still send profits to shareholders

If this is true, which I am not doubting by the way, then surely this should be exposed in the press at the very least ? And is there not some kind of body like OfSted who should be involved. Those homes should not get away with it.

I can remember not so long ago that Johnson was praising all the essential workers. Call me cynical but I knew it wouldnt last.

I am just astounded how short other people’s memories are.

It is backfiring cos people see Boris for what he is more and more often.

Indeed, there's now 1,6 million home care workers and the relatives and friends of 25,000+ dead elderly people who he has just succeeded in thoroughly p*ssing off...

To go back to Wwmk2s' post on the first page when she posted the Michael Dougan tweet. Here is the first one he made, which perhaps gives context to his supposed lack of 'balance'

Friend working in care home described trauma of watching own patients suffocate to death while feeling totally alone, abandoned by Government. Now Johnson blames care homes on his regime's negligent national manslaughter of elderly & vulnerable? A coward devoid of morals or shame

twitter.com/mdouganlpool/status/1280434318679199746

There were more comments of a similar nature, about the experience of friends and relatives working in care homes, in the comments on his tweet. It was a heartbreaking read.

Who do you think could have handled the situation better Spabbygirl ?

This gov't & Boris has behaved appallingly, the covid death rate shows that, we still haven't got a decent track & trace system so more will be dying, it doesn't take a Phd to realise that people discharged from Hospital may well be carrying covid yet they weren't tested, I don't see this as an oversight but deliberate carelessness, some NHS Trusts did test their discharge people cos common sense says so. The whole Tory way of doing things stinks, I am a social worker & watched brilliant Sure Start centres shut & more young people on care orders who are mostly placed with foster carers via private fostering agencies, the market is dominated by 3 major agencies who are owned by private equity groups based in offshore tax havens. Thats why our public services are run down and broke, they have been starved of cash since 2010 when the tories took over, at first in a coalition. So no, I think Boris is a bumbling Buffon intended to put a cute cuddly bear personality on a regime that is ruthlessly single minded about acquisition of money for the already wealthy. It is backfiring cos people see Boris for what he is more and more often.

I agree Paddyanne. When my D did agency work for a private company years ago she was horrified firstly at the fees that patients were paying but more horrified at the penny-pinching methods---like 3 pads left for a very incontinent woman who literally " swam " out of her bed each morning. These items were counted as per use ? It came as no surprise to me that PPE was a laxed essential !!

These poor unsuspecting people were not getting their money's worth of anything, it was disgusting and the staff were horrible too. This was the 80's. My D loved the job but became unpopular when her caring attitude came into question !

I haven’t really studied the Irish or Scottish responses MaizieD so wouldn’t be fair for me to comment, perhaps Irish and Scottish Grans could give their input? By the way, here in Wales we’re told masks are an individual choice as their science isn’t clear!

I think the only countries with brilliant government are the ones with no deaths, especially larger countries like Vietnam. Smaller island countries would have found it easier to close down so they have come through unscathed.

Agree paddyanne.
Unfortunately many care homes are regarded as cash cows, but there are many others where the patients are looked after lovingly, and many where there have been no Covid19 cases. We have have to acknowledge the good and the bad.

I think Scotland has done well too. Think I’ll move in next door to paddyanne.
Having said that, the area I live in is doing reasonably well, but only sixty miles from London, and so I’m worried about spread, especially as the winter arrives.

The two privately run homes near me had deaths,according to staff it was management at fault .PPE was locked away and had to be obtained through a manager who was rarely IN the homes therefor staff had to work without it .One of the deaths was the mother of a friend of my son.The same story was repeated by other homes in the same chain across Scotland .
In these cases the home was clearly at fault ,the fees are not cheap,surely the people who live there are entitled to be treated safely .They pay enough for the privilege of being there and the owners cant treat them like cash cows and leave them to suffer or die because they dont want to spend the money to keep them safe,but still send profits to shareholders

No government is coming out of this one smelling of roses - blue, red or any shade in between.

Don't you think that Scotland has done rather well, Pantglas? I do. I like Nicola.

There are a few who have done well, such as the PM of New Zealand, but most countries have had some successes and some failures, and some are unfortunate enough to have had to suffer idiocy in my opinion, I’m thinking of the USA and Brazil in particular. Others have to contend with secrecy such as China.

Overall I think we’ve not done very well. Lockdown too late, not closing borders, poor provision of PPE, care home management, lockdown not strong enough, blatant breaking of lockdown legislation such as huge crowds gathering, poor testing and tracking. With all that going on we’ve done better than we deserve to be honest.

Having said all that, we have to remember that even the scientists disagree on some things, and even the scientists break the rules. The wearing of masks is an example. Masks help, no they don’t, yes they do, no they don’t. Well I believe masks help to prevent spread and offer at least some protection to me. So I wear a mask when I feel it’s appropriate eg shopping.

I think we need to differentiate between what Johnson/tories have done/not done in England and what’s happened in NI/Scotland and Wales.

In Wales Drayford/Labour was the last to test homes and 28% of COVID deaths occurred there - not sure on Irish/Scottish figures.

No government is coming out of this one smelling of roses - blue, red or any shade in between.

I can’t understand why any government should think that it is financially a good idea to hand over something like Care and Nursing Homes to the private sector. They are simply making cash cows out of the vulnerable.

Oh, Furret dear. Where have you been all these years? It's ideological, isn't it? All part of the tory aim, which started with Thatcher, to 'shrink the state'. Based on the complete myth that 'the state' somehow has a finite amount of money and 'can't afford' to be paying for anything but the most minimal of services.

Also on the belief that state funded institutions are inefficient and wasteful and that ;the market' can provide more efficiently and economically. That worked well didn't it when we look at the PPE scandal?

Of course, as we are now seeing, marketisation, breaking a monolith into small easy to sell parts means that the buck can get merrily passed around with nobody taking ultimate responsibility for failure.

It's great, isn't it...

The writing was on the wall from the very beginning as the government's answer to everything was "we're following the science"
The government were never going to take the blame if things went wrong.. They had a scapegoat lined up... The scientists
So Boris's statement about the care workers doesn't surprise me at all
No apology either.. Boris and Cummings are cut from the same cloth

I believe the best care homes now are run by non-profit making organisations which are also sometimes charities. They pay decent wages, invest in proper training and put the needs of the residents at the heart of their homes. It's a model that should be adopted everywhere.

I can’t understand why any government should think that it is financially a good idea to hand over something like Care and Nursing Homes to the private sector. They are simply making cash cows out of the vulnerable.

To make a profit, as they do, they pay minimum wages and push up the cost to relatives and the local councils.

These should all be brought back under local council control where they can be monitored and work in tally with the NHS.

I believe that once upon a time most residential homes for the elderly, children's homes and nurseries were run by local authorities.

Much of this provision is now privately run - privatisation being the mantra of the Conservative party and, to some extent, New Labour.

I don't think the wholesale privatisation of such important services is a good thing. I see many nurseries in my area which appear to be housed in what looks like quite unsuitable buildings with very little natural light and outside space.

However, I am sure there are many good homes with good management and hard working employees. I think it is wrong to imply that the spread of the virus in homes was a result of poor practice. It has been widely reported and confirmed that elderly patients with the virus were released from hospital and returned to residential homes, where - with the shortage of PPE and under staffing - it would be extremely difficult to stop the spread of it.

We already know that there are certain areas of the country where the virus has been particularly prevalent, and other areas where it has not been a significant problem. In my opinion, this too has to be taken into account. No doubt residential homes where the fees are significantly higher than the average are able to employ more carers and cleaners and thus provide a safer environment.

EllanVannin

GGumteenth, I'm asking why some homes avoided the virus yet many didn't. ? All managed the same, aren't they ? I didn't mention suitability.

I've had another think about what you are trying to get at. How can we know which homes avoided the virus and which didn't without carrying out a huge survey? What exactly would we find out?

You seem - and I cannot be sure because you do not say - to want to find a way of blaming the homes rather than the government. That doesn't actually work in any way.

Firstly, we don't know that all homes that did not have any virus deaths (about two thirds of them I think but that might be worth checking) were homes that disobeyed the government and did what they thought was best. You seem to be making an assumption about that. What if you are right? Then you have to disobey Johnson in order to live. Why have him running the country if he is that bad?

What if there was an even spread. We still have all the evidence that some deaths occurred because the government did not ready themselves and could not provide PPE, did not ask for shut down for all early enough and did not shut down the homes early enough, etc., etc.

You still come out with the same thing. The buck stops with the man at the top. He obviously did not cause all the deaths but his lack of preparedness and decisiveness increased the number.

You would not blame the soldiers if they were not prepared for war. It is the governments duty to protect us. They were warned and guided but did nothing but run down the services we need. All governments will try and learn from the things that went wrong but we have had a far worse outcome.

The responsibility lies with Johnson and the man who said he was a coward for what he said was right - and polite.

EllanVannin

GGumteenth, I'm asking why some homes avoided the virus yet many didn't. ? All managed the same, aren't they ? I didn't mention suitability.

There really is no point in rehashing all that has been said but it does answer your question. It might be worth just reading it again.

GGumteenth, I'm asking why some homes avoided the virus yet many didn't. ? All managed the same, aren't they ? I didn't mention suitability.

for the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

for the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe dangerous gaff