This remains a disgrace. On FoL’s ward the management continue to ration PPE and the doctors are now refusing to see patients themselves, leaving the nurses and care assistants on the front line, still with inadequate protection.
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I simply don’t know how this is not a national scandal.
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To be honest I’m seething over it, particularly as it’s entirely avoidable - ie if this shower of a government had acted in basic precaution and worst case planning back in January, instead of listening to that soul-less Gollum Cummings, we might not be in this inexcusable position.
Perhaps if members of the Cabinet had their own children ringing and texting them after each shift telling them how fearful and upset they are about having to work in such risky and inappropriate conditions then maybe we’d see a little more focus on sorting this basic equipment issue out properly rather than this drawn out series of weak commitment and nonsense of banging pots for the NHS workers - fuck that just look after the much needed staff that you keep saying you value so very much.
Deeds, not just words you feckless wonders 
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I wonder if there are restrictions on what the media can and cannot do during the crisis (including mentioning these restrictions)?
I imagine most of the control will be close to source i.e. it will be incumbent on those who get access to the information not to let it go any further. But it certainly feels as though strong steers are being given over the tenor of the news presentations i.e. ‘Frighten the people enough to keep them away from one another, but don’t push them into anger or gloom or panic’. The deal is the usual one - co-operative journalists will get access and unco-operative ones will be squeezed out.
The effectiveness of super-injunctions has taken a kicking since news went online and global.
VB
Been following this guy. Interesting look at vaccines/treatment stuff
A week (or two?) back the Grauniad put out a call for front-line stories from NHS workers. A few were published, though a few days later there were documented threats to whistle-blowers from management…
The NHS has a pretty brutal well entrenched top down bullying culture and silences dissent despite preaching that openness will lead to reduced risk and improved practice.
What will happen is that ‘horror stories’ from the front line will be squashed and collective feedback channelled instead through professional bodies such as the BMA and RCN etc.
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There’s enough alternative media routes that it will get out somehow. Especially if/when some senior nhs type people get ill and realise what’s really important
Unfortunately it’ll all be a bit late when, as you say, they’ve had months to gear up for this,
It would have taken years. Once the news got out from China, governments across the world would have been starting to stockpile. It’s got a lot in common with the much vilified ‘panic-buying’ that ordinary people indulged in. Supply of PPE is normally matched to demand. There haven’t been tens of mask-manufacturing plants quietly ticking over since the last big pandemic (2009 ? Past Flu Pandemics | Pandemic Influenza (Flu) | CDC) waiting to spin up to speed when the next one hit. So when demand suddenly exploded it was every government for itself. Ours was slow off the mark. But I’m not aware that anyone had a hundred million of the things stashed away in their equivalent of a disused Welsh slate mine.
VB
and the government spin machines will be going full tilt. We’ve already seen distractor stories and attempts to shift blame to China.
They will need 1984 levels of rewriting to get out of this though.
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The NHS are notorious for holding lots of stock in every available space in the chain from hospitals where every cupboard, desk and shelf is usually overstocked with basic equipment, through to the distribution and suppliers. It’s improved a bit in the last 10 years but not that much - it’s definitely not JIT like auto industry and supermarkets.
This also meant that the production capacity was at an artificially high level so better able to cope with a finite upswing in total demand (but as you say, unlikely to reach unprecedented levels we are at now very quickly).
You will know the details loads better than I Wayne, and we’ve all heard the stories of masks being brought into service with old (and fortunately not very important) ‘use by’ dates on them. So there clearly were stores. One of the hard decisions that must be being made every day is how quickly to release them to the front line. Perhaps we could equip everyone to their heart’s content if we were prepared to risk running out in a few weeks ? But how much PPE do we hold back for if/when this goes from dreadful to much worse than dreadful ? I’m glad it’s not me making that call.
VB
It’s obviously a very patchy situation, such is the sprawling behemoth that is the NHS, but my wife’s team that works in the community now has access to some PPE.
The problem is, the guidelines for using it are nearly all centred around hospital use. For instance putting it on and taking it off in a certain order, with hand washing in between. The best they can do is use a bit of hand gel in place of a sink and muddle through.
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Agree it’s a tough call. A consideration would likely be what’s the difference in infection/ staff sickness and workforce numbers reduction to treat patients in either scenario (before you get to duty of care and limiting deaths of front line workers) set against the replenishment rates for the period in which they will run out by.
I’m not sure of the value in having staff being placed in a position where they need to create their own ‘protection’ from wearing bin liners which would seem a last resort etc whilst you are holding back the proper equipment for a ‘rainier day’?
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They wasted the months they did have
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Definitely better than nowt!
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A complex, super efficient JIT setup is definitely not what you want when things go pop. You want a nice inefficient system with loads of stock and duplication - and spare capacity
Yes agree which was partly the point I was making. However the need to be more effective with available funding given the flat-cash/ negative real terms funding of the NHS for the past 10 years has meant that reducing spend at all costs has been the overriding principle.
Unfortunately that means that just when we hit a pandemic crisis of a scale we haven’t seen for about a 100 years, the NHS has fewer beds, fewer nurses and doctors, and less equipment to be able to cope, and was already in a precariously clinically dangerous starting point to begin with - ie no headroom or spare capacity at all to cope with winter pressures let alone COVID19.
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