I have been asking about the big decline in non CV 19 work in the NHS this year. Like most people I am grateful for the tireless work the CV 19 teams put in to nurse and treat those with CV 19 during the peak period of the pandemic in the spring and subsequently. Some medical and research staff have also made important advances in understanding this nasty disease which is a great contribution for all of us. Now it should be possible to use the extra capacity put in earlier this year for CV 19 and to run the rest of the NHS for the many other conditions that need treating.
The government tells me in answer to Parliamentary Questions that it has “paused ” data collection and assessment of productivity this year owing to the CV 19 problems.
They state “we expect NHS productivity will have fallen considerably in 2020-21 because of increased spending on the Covid 19 response and due to reductions in elective and non elective admissions to prevent further infections in hospitals”. In other words, because they persevered with mixed use hospitals with CV 19 treated alongside other conditions they removed elective non urgent surgery for a period from the hospitals altogether. They saw a reduced number of patients with other more serious and urgent conditions. Fear of infection spreading meant more social distancing and lower workloads for non CV 19.
I was also told that “for July and August,( after the end of lockdown), total completed pathways from referral to treatment were 61% of those for the same period in 2019.” By August the NHS was achieving 71% of previous year levels for first outpatient appointments.
This means we are still short of significant capacity to handle non CV 19 matters. It also indicates that the decision to carry on treating CV 19 in General hospitals rather than creating isolation hospitals comes with a cost in lost activity for other conditions. In many places around the country it is possible to designate a Nightingale or one of the existing General Hospitals as a specialist isolation hospital to free the others to work normally at full capacity. We need the CV19 capacity added through Nightingales, and through acquisition of many more ventilators and intensive care equipment for CV 19 and we need to get back to previous capacity for everything else.
November 6, 2020
Some problems with dedicated CV-19 hospitals.
We are still calling this a pandemic when, in fact, it’s a syndemic.
The vast majority of critical CV-19 patients are actually being killed by the comorbidities they have and their body’s overreaction to the disease. The Nightingales are not equipped to deal with comorbidities such as cancer, morbid obesity, diabetes, dialysis … The Nightingales were built when we knew little about the disease and thought it was a pandemic and that otherwise healthy people would be on ventilators in large numbers. They were, in effect, dying rooms – ventilators ineffective or even harmful. I put a video from a NY doctor on here at the outset of this crisis.
There remains the problem of infection within the NHS. That once a ward or member of staff is infected the whole system within a hospital starts to collapse. And that many members of NHS staff, I’m afraid to say, have comorbidities themselves.
I am also unconvinced that ethnicity has nothing to do with the higher death rates among BAMEs working within the NHS and the Left have claimed – with some success – that this is down to poverty. I know London postmen who own ÂŁ800k London houses by virtue of the fact that they bought them a long while ago.
I would counter this by saying that a Metropolitan police constable works in London, with lots of exposure to the disease whilst living in poverty himself. On ÂŁ35k a year he is earning a lot less than a single mum living on benefits yet the death rates among London police officers for CV-19 remains low. There is age to consider but many officers are in their 50s as well and won’t be living anywhere special. Relatively few of them are black.
We should not be dithering about Vit D being given to BAMEs to boost their immunity.
The Left really are that wicked that they’d distract from the real issues in order to bring down the Tories and blame this on poverty rather than biology.
November 6, 2020
The above comment could answer Andy’s “500 deaths a day. How many are you prepared to let die ?” comment yesterday.
This is a syndemic. It is vitally important for us to be calling it so.
The way to handle the 500 is (and always was) targeted shielding.
We should also look at this issue through a wider lens. Economic depression is going to kill a lot of people in otherwise good health and they will go uncounted. It will also collapse the NHS or reduce it to a very basic service if there are no taxpayers to pay for it.
November 6, 2020
No Longer Anon, The real question for Andy – and most MPs – is how many non-covid patients is they prepared to let die?
As someone else has said the NHS has become the National Covid Service, where covid patients have priority, and the rest of us can go hang.
The smug self righteous virtue signalling by MPs voting for Lockdown 2 is sickening. Literally.
November 6, 2020
NLA
“We are still calling this a pandemic when, in fact, itâs a syndemic.”
Indeed.
There are some accomplished professionals claiming that CV19 is now very much weakened as a pathogen and they say it’s questionable as to whether it should be classed as such.
Isolation of those having comorbidity, i.e the minority, was the answer. Also closing the airports in the first instance.
Never the less it was always syndemic, government fed the people BS and made it out to be pandemic for sinister reasons I’m sure.
One day the truth will out, hopefully the con men responsible will still be alive to face justice.
November 6, 2020
Prof Carl Heneghan calls covid19 an epidemic, rather than a pandemic. That is the truth – it is no longer a pandemic.
November 6, 2020
Good morning
It is not just the financial cost that one has to consider but, as pointed out by many here and in the media, the human cost as well.
We will not forget this !
November 6, 2020
This morning the Daily Telegraph published the graphs of the forecast, correction modelled, admissions and deaths that were originally published to justify the shutdown. Next to to it they published a revised graph which reflected the correction of many errors. There are significant differences. In the light of this it is necessary to rename SAGE. I suggest it should now be called STUPID, Science Technocrats’ Useless Pseudo Information Dissemination. Their modelling produces such a wide range of outcomes that not only is it useless it is also dangerous in its influence on life and death policy decisions.
November 6, 2020
Great comment!
November 6, 2020
Very good.
+1
November 6, 2020
+1
We will not.
But unless we are very wary elections vis US will be WORTHLESS!
November 6, 2020
The human cost is not seen as a problem to our rulers, the govt is shipping in thousands of replacements and paying for them from our taxes, while doing nothing to stop the invasion. That is what a few million houses are being built for.
November 6, 2020
JR,
You need to look at the fiddled figures. A number of papers highlighting how the fiddled figures from Saturday to justify lock down now altered!
Tis does not bode well. Your Govt. made the point a the outset to be open and transparent to win public trust. it has failed.
Govt. death figures are fiddled. We need to know who died ‘FROM’ Chinese virus not anyone who might have had it at some point and could be included. We also need to make sure influenza, flu and pneumonia are kept separate because at this time of year the numbers ill and die from these illnesses always peak.
Witty and Valance need to be sacked. Their figures on 21/09/2020 live on TV were no where near accurate- even May pointed that out this week. Last Saturday, again, wild exaggerated figures claimed. Back tracked a little at select committee and now quietly altered! Disgraceful for public confidence. The US with a population of over 300 million did not achieve these scare mongering figures at its peak!
Time for Govt. to walk or leading figures to be sacked.
People (like Ian says below) can see with their own eyes hospitals are not full. Delayed appointments and delayed appt. at GPs. I got an appointment for next Thursday! Still free at the point of entry for ALL the world! When does Johnson want people to clap?
November 6, 2020
“We will not forget this !”
Alas, the vast majority will. Left and Right they will vote the label regardless of the quality of the candidate.
JF
November 6, 2020
Forget what?
November 6, 2020
Or forgive.
November 6, 2020
Irish doctor interview: “The Price Of Truth”. Witness…#Leadership.
A compassionate and emotionally charged interview with a brave Irish doctor, one who tried to speak up. To speak up for a balanced and proportionate response to this challenging viral issue.
Compassion. Rationality. Logic. Science. And more – those virtues that seemed to suddenly disappear in 2020.
Can we bring them back, before it is too late?
Ivor Cummins on YOUTUBE
November 6, 2020
Let’s address the real issue that this article doesn’t address. The NHS has become a political organisation that acts politically, thinks politically and behaves politically.
What does this ‘acts politically’ mean in real terms? It means an organisation whose primary function was the provision of medical services to the public free at the point of use has now become an organisation whose primary function is to expand its political powers at all costs
The socialist, unionised, pro-Labour NHS has deliberately created an environment of fear and deliberately removed access to non-CV19 treatment to stoke resentment hoping this reflects badly on a Tory government, which of course it will do
Unfortunately the Tory party because it is now nothing more than a vehicle of career progress and personal enrichment couldn’t care less about this dire state of affairs. There is something to be said for wealthy MPs who don’t sell their soul to the devil for a few quid. Johnson is a classic example
There is now no party to represent those who now reside outside the Socialist State except for a few hardy souls who refuse to be consumed by the Socialist behemoth that’s been under construction since 1997
I don’t stand on corners clapping like a North Korean lackey. This social conditioning, Pavlovian exercise to ensure compliance, accept impoverishment and force agreement told me all I needed to know about the what the NHS had become
November 6, 2020
Indeed. The NHS is the modern Labour equivalent of the 1970s trades unions. It has the Tories over a barrel.
November 6, 2020
And YES. I did feel bullied into clapping for the NHS. It was most sinister.
It marked the end of Conservatism.
November 7, 2020
some neighbours asked ‘where’s Fred?’ My better half said ‘ he’s indoors, doesn’t do street clapping!’
They were speechless.
November 6, 2020
Iâve never really thought about this before Dominic, I wonder why âthe rightâ doesnât offer a union to compete with the left wing socialist unions offering the same protections.
Why donât more men go into nursing it canât just be the title of ânurseâ putting them off, they can work their way up into very high pay bands. I wonder what the ratios are of the staff make up.
November 7, 2020
Men would not get selected. Only diverse backgrounds need apply. Same for a lot of public sector bodies.
Simon Stevens should be sacked. How can he remain in situ?
November 6, 2020
Indeed a dismal performance. Boris in announcing the new more harm than good shut down:-
And let me explain why the overrunning of the NHS would be a medical and moral disaster beyond the raw loss of life
Because the huge exponential growth in the number of patients – by no means all of them elderly, by the way – would mean that doctors and nurses would be forced to choose which patients to treat
Who would get oxygen and who wouldn’t
Who would live and who would die,
And doctors and nurses would be forced to choose between saving covid patients and non-covid patients
And the sheer weight of covid demand would mean depriving tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of non-covid patients of the care they need.
The NHS has been rationing treatment and picking and choosing for years. Only about 10,000 of the 70,000 excess death this year were even in hospital. 60,000 died at home or in care home many with no NHS treatment or help at all.
Where does Boris get millions from? Currently about 11,000 bed occupied by Covid patients and already at the peak and even declining slightly.
November 6, 2020
@LL you have changed your tune from “ventilators on stand by for all and hang the cost” in March.
November 6, 2020
Not really – March was rather different we had a peak of over 10,000 deaths in a week. The NHS did not cope and the lockdown then was sensible (though done late) to buy them time. We had about 70,000 excess deaths.
The position now is we have only circa 2,000 PW and the new infections have now levelled off and are starting to declining as we are near herd immunity in most places.
The NHS has also got rather better at treating Covid patient. Though it is still far worse than (for example) Germany.
November 6, 2020
With people dying at 10,000 per week you might well need most of the beds and staff in NHS hospitals to treat just the Covid Patients. In the March peak most were Covid patients were failed badly and about 85% of them died at home or in nursing homes with little or no hospital care at all.
Indeed many were even infected in hospital then dumped into care homes or back home to infect others.
Currently only about 6% of NHS bed are Covid and that is not likely to increase much from the current position as infections are decreasing on average.
November 7, 2020
Dress it up any way you want. You went socialist for around three weeks. Interventionist and excess spending on redundant capacity.
Your bin the red tape and talk of wasting tax funds ring hollow.
In a clinch you cried for more intervention not less
November 7, 2020
Narrow Shoulders – that is complete and utter drivel go back and read what I actually said.
The NHS kills nearly all competition (by being free at the pont of use) so it is really the only health system we had available and a dire one it is. They did indeed need more facilities. In fact of the excess deaths of about 70,000 only about 10,000 died in hospital. Most the other circa 60,000 died at home or in nursing homes.
November 7, 2020
Narrow Shoulders – that is complete and utter drivel go back and read what I actually said.
The NHS kills nearly all competition (by being free at the pont of use) so it is really the only health system we had available and a dire one it is. They did indeed need more facilities for Covid Patients and time to cope. In fact of the excess deaths of about 70,000 only about 10,000 actually died in hospital. Most the other circa 60,000 died at home or in nursing homes many with not care whatsoever.
November 6, 2020
The NHS has 1250 hospitals, with 170,000 beds. Do the maths.
November 6, 2020
About 10,000 currently with Covid patients in them or 6%.
November 6, 2020
Why is Stevens still in post? He failed to plan and prepare the NHS for a pandemic on every level. Logistics a complete mess all round the country, NHS app for test and trace complete farce, separating ordinary health care from highly infectious disease failed. Allowed old people into hospital consigning them to death, failed. In response to separating vulnerable and elderly to protect them he then made stupid remarks about age apartheid! What does he have to do to get sacked?
He runs a typical left wing public organisation where political clap trap, diversity junk, bean counting and bureaucracy take priority over the service it is intended to provide ie healthcare!
November 6, 2020
Why our host doesnât use forum software that allows users the very basic ability to indicate a quote puzzles me.
If you want to show you are quoting something you need to write the word blockquote with a less than sign before it and a greater than sign after it (with no spaces), then the text you are quoting then the word blockquote after the text you are quoting with a less than sign before it, then a forward slash and with a greater than sign after it. Because of the limitations of the software used on this site, I cannot type exactly what needs to be typed to demonstrate. But if you do it properly you can make clear what you are quoting. Like:
November 6, 2020
In your nightmare scenario “who would live and who would die” the answer might very well be, all those 75 or older who, at best, would be given palliative treatment (morphine etc) and be left to die. Whether or not death would take place in a hospital bed, care home or at home is probably open to debate.
By the way, does anyone know how many private hospital beds have been taken over by the NHS, or why those beds are not included in the total numbers available? IN addition, I believe the NHS has also taken over Hospice facilities but, again, I have seen nothing about that in the government figures.
November 6, 2020
Excellent new interview with Dr Mike Yeadon by Julia Hartley Brewer (a link is on the excellent Lockdownsceptic.org). I think Mike Yeadon is exactly right looking at the numbers, logic and facts. The Coronavirus pandemic is âfundamentally over in the UK.
The project fear pushed by Sage and the Government without them even being able to say what the false positive rate of their test is is absolutely appalling. Surely Whitty and Vallance can see this so what is driving them and this insanity? Without this figure almost all the figures they come out with a highly dubious.
Death are about normal for this time of year as are respiritory death so what is the issue?
November 6, 2020
Doctors take those decisions every day, regardless of whether there is a pandemic of not. The NHS is, after all, primarily a means of rationing healthcare capacity.
Your histrionics are misplaced.
November 6, 2020
An excellent Telegraph podcast (Planet Normal) yesterday with a Charles Moore interview. Even the usually sound Moore is turning into rather a soft, deluded lefty. It seems he supports free at the point of use healthcare but perhaps more like the German and Australian systems. No Charles âfreeâ is what kills nearly all competition genuine and choice. It means less money in health care and a rather dire state monopoly. Run more for workers than patients.
Some safely net for the few who really cannot pay yes.
It seems that if Biden wins as looks very likely now we have to blame women voters and particulary college âeducatedâ ones. Polls point to record split in US presidential election as female voters sour on Donald Trump.
November 6, 2020
Mel Stride MP interview with Hartley-Brewer worth a listen. He was pathetic and demonstrated as chair of the Treasury Select Committee the dire the calibre of MPs. Another over paid buffoon.
Little knowledge or fact. He could not even demonstrate why he voted for the lock down. Like a fool kept mumbling it was with a heavy heart. In other words he did not know but remained loyal to a dying party. Does he even understand conservatism?
November 6, 2020
Yep he is dire select committee chairman.
November 6, 2020
Well Stride read PPE at Oxford (so is probably unable to grasp logic, science and numbers) but then so did Hartley-Brewer (I think) and she seems finally to have grasped reality – albeit rather late.
November 6, 2020
Oh, I wonder, why ever?
November 6, 2020
Took the mother in law for a laser treatment only to be told it was cancelled.
Hospital was deserted, cubicles empty and wards closed.
Lots of staff wandering around with bits of paper.
Rumour has it Hospital is at about 40% capacity. Everyone still on full salary.
November 6, 2020
And? You are still on full pension. What do you do for it?
November 6, 2020
most of us will have paid in over 40 to 50 years – I think that is a sensible savings plan? Time to draw it before Government and NHS seize all the remaining money in my pot!
November 6, 2020
Usually when a person is in receipt of a pension, they don’t do any work because the have RETIRED, after having paid into the pension scheme for many years.
In my case it was 41 years for the state pension, and similar for my company pension.
Don’t worry. Just go back to watching East Enders.
November 6, 2020
Paid for my pension Andy and continued to pay PAYE at 40% until I was 72.
I’ve never claimed benefits and I get a miserable ÂŁ165 per week state pension. Never worked in the public sector so no taxpayer guaranteed, indexed linked final salary scheme for me.
Good job I made my own provisions so I can live well in retirement.
November 6, 2020
Probably if like many of us he probably completed a lifetime at work for more years than your actual age Andy, and in that time paid all taxes and insurances due, as well as trying to save a bit for the unexpected.
Probably still paying tax of some sort now as well.
Yes the pension is being paid in full, but all other investments/savings have been hit hard, just like everyone else’s.
Yes we know the State pension Scheme only pays out for the expenses of today, but that has always been the case, ask your parents.
Those at work pay for the present day pensioners, just like we paid in for more than 50 years for the past generation, get over it !.
November 6, 2020
exactly. But our generation knew our parent’s state pension was shite….we happily paid taxes hoping it would get better for them.
November 6, 2020
Only worked for a lifetime. 100% capacity, every day of the week (at least).
Are you surrendering your pension rights?
November 6, 2020
Pay money in all your working life perhaps!
November 6, 2020
Andy claims to be a Conservative.
I haven’t heard a single thing he says that is Conservative.
November 6, 2020
Think of all the money the NHS is saving!
Great Reset…to get them ( world âleadersâ) out of their HUGE, HUGE financial troubles?
Comme toujours ….WE PAY!
November 6, 2020
They will not be saving anything they will all be on full pay op or no op.
November 6, 2020
Man I talked to a few days ago had been to the eye centre at ours – He said he was the only patient there, with loads of staff walking about.
November 6, 2020
Many at home on full salary if they can show they are a bit “vulnerable”.
November 6, 2020
Or âself-isolatingâ. All the managers âworking from homeâ.
November 6, 2020
I have a suggestion for better management of the NHS that I know will never be contemplated:
At the current time, most airport staff (including very senior managers) are largely inactive; they are individuals (and groups) who in normal conditions have to deal daily/hourly with:
thousands of passengers, speaking many different languages
freight cargo and animals
complex and potentially dangerous machinery + highly sophisticated technology
legal issues such as Customs&Excise, passport regulations
health&safety issues
anti-terrorism security matters
etc, etc
Why not ask these senior managers to give their views on how NHS management should be reconstructed so that it can manage vastly more successfully people’s health care? Oh, and their suggestions should of course be properly publicised to both Parliament and the MsM. One can but dream.
November 6, 2020
I agree with your comments I have watched the inefficiency of hospitals for many years first hand not something to brag about but it does make you very frustrated at the time and money they waste on a daily basis. I did get an outpatient appointment last week and received the required treatment not a sole in the corridor where I waited and yes I still waited 5 minutes before anyone came to speak to me and 5 minutes for the nurse to prepare the room. When I left not a sole in the corridor a few people around the reception area the only place busy was the phlebotomist bless them.I have another next week so will be interesting to see what happens this time.
November 6, 2020
The biggest bureaucratic anomaly is that the NHS management staff are really just administrators, while the NHS clinical doctors/consultants are the real management
November 6, 2020
We all know how the NHS should be managed. The point is that it is not allowed to be properly managed. Thatâs why itâs so frustrating, itâs not a problem that canât be solved, we are not allowed to solve the problem because they would operate better on 1/4 of their current income and with no requirement for alien staff.
November 6, 2020
+1
November 6, 2020
Lynn
Yep, as many coffee breaks as you like, two hour lunch breaks.
Winner, really.
November 6, 2020
We have one of the worst healthcare systems as measured by outcomes, for a country with UK levels and wealth and development. Just as one would expect of such a dire, top down, state run monopoly. Patients have paid already so are often treated with total and utter contempt. To be deterred from coming in at all if possible.
Save the NHS go and die quietly at home please. Let us hope the appalling failures of the NHS will finally get the government to get real freedom and choice into the system.
November 6, 2020
As Rod Liddle put it in his excellent Spectator piece yesterday:-
Even as those administrators were chucking the elderly out of their beds and into care homes, back in March â a scandal of unparalleled proportions â we were enjoined to open our front doors and clap like retarded seals to show our support for this wheezing, gargantuan diplodocus.
November 6, 2020
+1
November 6, 2020
Indeed.
November 6, 2020
Be careful about blaming administrators â itâs the job of clinical nursing staff to appoint beds, manage dischargers and transfer patients to care sector
November 6, 2020
+1 Money wasted, The NHS needs split and separated into smaller units
November 6, 2020
Mike Durrans
The NHS needs split and separated into smaller units”
Or –
Abolish NHS unions
Make political correctness a criminal offence.
Introduce and maintain a policy of ‘get off bottom and do some graft’ for the money. Same for all publicly funded servants in fact.
November 6, 2020
+1
November 6, 2020
+1
November 6, 2020
+1 to that.
November 6, 2020
LL – – ” Patients have paid already ” – -WE have paid already and now have trouble getting an appointment, while Border Force ferry in a hidden number of replacements, who, having paid nothing in, probably never will and have NO intention of ever doing so ( why bother when someone else has to pay? ), get met at where they are brought ashore, by several WAITING ambulances and staff, paid for by US of course. Their soon-to-follow families will get the same free ( extended for translation ) appointments as all the others do.
November 6, 2020
Having had a lifetime of avoiding the NHS I’ve recently been thrust into its “caring” embrace. On my first appointment, a woman had travelled across town to be told her appointment had been cancelled, but she hadn’t been told as they send all correspondence on a Friday, but she was still sent away.
Literally, a few minutes later a Hong Kong national turned up having flown in from HK that morning. He demanded to see “his” doctor who no longer worked there. Instead of sending him away, they asked him to take a seat as they located a doctor to see him. Apart from the fact this occurred during Covid, the staff didn’t see the irony of providing NHS resources to a health tourist that the rejected woman had paid for.
November 6, 2020
BJC
“a woman had travelled across town to be told her appointment had been cancelled, but she hadnât been told as they send all correspondence on a Friday”
I have a Tennant who has had exactly the same problem….three times in a row.
November 6, 2020
I have found on the mercifully few occasions I have really needed the NHS that the service provided was excellent. I donât understand why you feel the need to constantly slag off the NHS. Health services provided exclusively by private companies terrifies me. Many people would be unable to afford insurance premiums (unless, perhaps, landlord cut rents by ÂŁ300 a month) and would have to hope their employer would cover them – like in the States. There, if you lose your job you lose your healthcare.
The NHS may well be inefficient etc. but Iâll take that any day over a private system. Difficult to envisage a private system that would care for some poor soul living on the streets suffering from hypothermia.
November 7, 2020
Mike, I respect your views but the important qualifier in your post is “mercifully few occasions”. Those of us who have been primary carers for patients with long-term problems, particularly ailments that are relatively rare, will be aware of the ever-present entrenched inefficiencies and block-headedness of administrative and management personnel.
November 6, 2020
đ„ 17 Officers đźââïž To Close Gym đ€Šââïž How Did It Come To This?
Unbelievable disproportionate use of resources surely? 17 officers close down a gym…
YOU TUBE
To think the likes of Fraser Nelson feel sorry for Boris Johnson
November 7, 2020
Bar bells, steroid abusers… anger.
Not something I would like to tackle. (In fact I did have to deal with a steroid/drugs abuser the other week at work. Frightening stuff. It took four officers to get him down and cuff him. )
November 6, 2020
Much of the NHS output is not just low but actually negative – some examples:-
A relative of mine was infected with Covid at hospital (after going in for a minor stroke) then dumped into a care home (untested) to infect others, then sent home to extended family then back to hospital finally tested positive and died the day after.
Lots of patients are lied to and told they do not need operations when they actually do (as the NHS has large waiting times and rationing). Many could happily pay and if told the truth they would do. Perhaps then falling down the stair due to poor eye sight, knee or hip issues or something.
About 17% of Covid infections were actually acquired hospital (plus the ones acquired in care homes due to NHS negligence in dumping infected patients into them)
Thousands of other examples every day.
November 6, 2020
even before covid NHS England top down stopped all hemorrhoid operations, leaving many people to walk around constantly dripping blood everywhere they go, so a massive cross infection risk within the community, taking many people out of the jobs market for want of simple cheap treatment, and masking the symptoms of cancer for the percentage that develop it. and they get away with lying to the patients saying they dont need these operations, when the week before (and still now in Scotland and Wales) they told the same patients they definitely do need operations.
November 6, 2020
An haemorrhoid operation costs ÂŁ2500 private. So many clinical services you have to pay for now like: hearing tests and aids; opticians and treatments; dentists; podiatrists; allergy tests; I hope all these bills are totted up to give a true cost of how much the UK public spend on their healthcare as well as private insurance policies because some people have hospitals theyâd rather not use, there is a vast difference in regions, hospitals in Oxford for example are wonderful compared to those in East Manchester.
November 7, 2020
yep the regional variations are massive in the NHS in all sorts of ways. not reacting to different needs of the local patients, just different fashions and standards of care in each locality.
November 6, 2020
So, under your system – your relative has a stroke at 3.00 in the morning – you donât know if it is a minor stroke or not. Is your private hospital open? How far away is it? Is a private ambulance staffed with experienced paramedics on site within 8 minutes? Time is of the essence with strokes. Letâs pretend there is a private hospital nearby, open at 3 in the morning with the requisite ambulance and crew on hand. And that your relative can prove he is entitled (can pay for) treatment l. Your relative is picked up and the doctor decides he needs a CT scan at once. Is the scanner available and staffed? After emergency care they want your relative out and discharged to a care home. This, presumably – under your system – would be a private care home. Who is organising that? Is there a local CARE home with a vacancy and the right, trained staff? Does your relativeâs insurance cover the cost. Etc. Etc.
Iâll stick with the NHS, thanks.
November 6, 2020
Why are they refusing to consider your isolation idea? I think I heard one of your fellow Spartans say he has evidence that people in the NHS are âscaredâ to highlight the fact that their hospitals are not that busy with Covid and there has been a total over reaction.
Politically I can understand why, Boris damned if he does by you, damned if he doesnât by the opposition and public opinion at the first sight of an âextra bodyâ.
Let all your armchair generals truly understand the frightening responsibility on his shoulders as they fire off from the comfort of their âfront roomsâ
November 6, 2020
Why are they refusing to consider your isolation idea?
Incompetence and powerful vested interests within the NHS. A good piece on this from an insider on lockdownsceptics.org a few days back. It is run for the managers not for the patients.
November 6, 2020
Nigel
Toby Young said on lockdown Sceptics that he was asking hospital surgeons what is going on â at the coal faceâ and they said they are not permitted to say, because when they questioned policy they were told if they value their jobs to keep quiet. This tallies with a Surrey consultant who commented anonymously in July, I think, on Conservative woman. He said the same. He also said that ambulances were driving round on sirens and full lights whilst empty (not on a shout) and he concluded this was to give the impression of more emergencies that there were.
I must say, as someone who lives on an A road, there do seem to have been a large number of siren ringing ambulances on the road, even when the road is empty!
November 6, 2020
Ditto here.
I even mentioned it to my wife and later to my friends.
November 6, 2020
Oh please. Johnson is a coward who runs away or avoids speaking to people. How many U turns on how many different subjects? how many poor decisions before Chinese virus like Brexit signing the WA and NIIP, HS2, Haiwei, budget in March before lock down, giving hundreds of millions to EU and WHO! How many times as he told the EU he will walk away? Last October, June, July and Cotber this year and Barmier announced another two weeks of talks yesterday! Barmier makes him look completely stupid and his word not worth a jot. He cannot make a decision to save his own life.
He still comes up with meaningless three word strap lines when no intelligent person, particularly woman, believes a word he says!
November 6, 2020
A healthcare assistant at Treliske hospital, Truro, made a very interesting address to a crowd in Truro about the true state of Covid in her hospital. Worth listening to as she is not an administrator but someone who actually worked on site. The more information people have “from the inside” rather than from government advisers, the better chance we have to make our own judgements.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8916871/Whistleblower-NHS-worker-reveals-whats-REALLY-going-NHS-hospitals.html
November 6, 2020
Cheers. A good read.
November 6, 2020
What is or should be weighing very heavily on Johnson’s shoulders is the responsibility for a huge, catastrophic policy mistake now threatening all our futures. And God knows it should.
The government has quietly admitted there are 20,000 ‘extra bodies’, dead thanks to the lockdown, and there will be many more.
The whistleblowers beginning to reveal the truth to the Telegraph and other media are not in any kind of ‘comfort’, Nigl.
They’re on the front line now. Let’s clap for them.
November 6, 2020
What exactly is the point of all this mass testing in Liverpool – other than government wanting to be seen to be doing something however daft and expensive it is? The cityâs medical officer says âshort term pain for long term gainâ and âif you test positive with the new test you are highly likely to have Covidâ. So what does highly likely mean and what exactly is the gain?
Cases in Liverpool are already in decline due to herd immunity being reached in most areas here. Forget this and use the money to get more capacity, a real service and competence at the NHS.
November 6, 2020
The total strategy of this Government has been to divert criticism by constantly introducing alarmimg ‘facts’, mantra, financial support to some, presenters, etc.
The only real fact is that it has been a catalogue of errors and incompetence at every level.
November 6, 2020
+1
November 6, 2020
It is a shame you know nothing about the subject. Obviously no one knows how this thing is going to mutate but the current thinking/over arching strategy is that a quick response, highly accurate low cost âspit on a stickâ, similar to a pregnancy test is what is needed to enable anyone but initially key workers to be tested weekly to ensure they are Covid free and therefore fit for work.
Liverpool was the test bed for the first, so far, solution to be tried out. Indeed I know that having been kept a secret from July to roll out it has come as an unwelcome surprise to others in this field who thought they had a competitive advantage.
This is now a very congested field with umpteen start ups/bigger companies etc all rushing to develop such a test and have it certified for use and then the production of cassettes and testing machines has to be scaled up massively, the next challenge developing that capacity, with the government bring very keen it should be in the U.K., looking at sites in the North East.
Large private sector employers like Amazon are looking equally at the need/benefit to test their people weekly and of course places like airports are desperate to acquire such an instant solution.
Your âuninformedâ trashing of the Liverpool experiment does you no favours.
November 6, 2020
Ps I believe the first Liverpool results are disappointing. This is one of the reasons it was set up, as a âtest bedâ.
November 6, 2020
LL,
Presumably to use to scare people number of cases increased!
A number of papers now publishing the Govt. fiddled figures from Saturday have been amended! Does not bode well for public confidence.
November 6, 2020
And they’re not ”cases” anyway.
November 6, 2020
LL – – ” What is the point” – – C-O-N-T-R-O-L.
November 6, 2020
CONTROL – This has been the objective from day one and the MSM and the left wing EU funded BBC have been complicit in promoting this government propaganda.
November 6, 2020
LL,
Questioning the value of mass testing in Liverpool when decline is already happening is valid. If of course this was within the context of a local lockdown strategy it might be argued as a means to come out of local lockdowns quicker.
Overall within sensible designs (sigh), quick tests even of lower sensitivity can reduce R, thus reducing the community/herd immunity threshold.
Given the current national lockdown, one would presume that any such testing capacity would be directed to areas claimed to have higher R and higher hospital utilisation.
November 6, 2020
It is precisely because cases in Liverpool are declining that the state now urgently needs to generate lots of false positives in Liverpool.
Also several businesses in Liverpool have had the temerity to stay open,citing law that the state disagrees with. (laworfiction site is one very helpful resource)
November 6, 2020
Liverpool hospitals capacity limits was a reason why it was prioritised and if this was the case is justifiable when adverse weather is upon us. I notice Lockdown V2 is helped the the sudden bitterly cold North Wind of late over the whole UK and weather forecasts.
November 6, 2020
More smoke and mirrors at last night’s Covid-19 press briefing as NHS CEO Stevens presented data to support government policy/lockdown 2. Skewed, as always, in one direction.
November 6, 2020
Just proved that Simon Stevens is a better politician than our professional politicians, which is to be expected in a command & control state bureaucracy, from its uber bureauct, I guess. Didnt make anything he said any more sensible to anyone with a science O level who could see through the BS.
November 6, 2020
+1
November 6, 2020
+1
November 6, 2020
Do you just refute evidence that is not in line with your thinking ?
Post alternative information about your knowledge of NHS occupancy
Stevens provided real time information so Sir Johnâs assertion that Nightingale Hospitals could be utilized is not feasible as the actual number of Covid patients in hospital beds yesterday was equivalent to 22 NHS hospitals.There are not that number of Nightingale Hospitals
With the number of staff now ill or isolating maybe you could tell us who would staff the extra capacity ?
I see a pattern also in the MSM that critics of lockdown seem to attract a special type determined to blame the PM for their own failure to observe rules that would have kept the virus from spreading .!
November 7, 2020
Numbers Stevens produced were no different to numbers of respiratory illness in previous years. It’s winter coming, that’s mainly problem cos our crap NHS never copes well with winter.
November 6, 2020
I have not long received a copy of my old school’s magazine containing articles from old boys on their activities during the past year. A good third of the contributions are from GPs and Hospital Consultants from which I gather that many of them have switched from their normal speciality to dealing with Covid19. Not at all surprising that there are fewer hips being replaced. Even before Covid19 many specialities were short of specialists leading to long waiting lists. Hardly surprising then to read your findings.
Isolation (Nightingale) hospitals are the way to go but you have to have the staff to man them without diluting the mainstream hospitals that are already short of staff in many areas.
If you wish to lay blame it is down to a succession of governments who have undermanned the sharp end but seem to have let the administration expand to no good effect. To exacerbate the problem government has failed to produce sufficient trained medical staff from our own resources thinking, as usual short term, that it is cheaper to lure them from overseas. The NHS requires a long term plan devoid of government/political interference.
November 6, 2020
@ agricola “…have let the administration expand to no good effect” – likely so but the problem pre-expansion was that there was an insufficiency of information so those allocating resources could not make optimal decisions.
November 6, 2020
Agricola
Your last paragraph sums it all up.
November 6, 2020
An NHS manager showed me a questioneer the NHS sent to all their staff. One question asked them what motivated them to work for the NHS – Muliple choice, they had hoped for âcompassion, kindness and empowermentâ but the answer they got was MONEY!
November 6, 2020
Ask any Doctor – its about making money ….and making more money than the other Doctor
November 7, 2020
we knew that the when the junior doctors wanted to strike over the proposal to shift work including weekends – all sorts of reasons why they couldn’t – once more money was on the table from that ‘monster’ Hunt – they said thanks- back to normal.
November 6, 2020
What you describe is beyond incompetence.
Youâd think in a state of emergency that the situation would âconcentrate the mindâ. During the summer months, after the southern âcasesâ of the country had reduced in number, but before the north got their wave would have been an ideal opportunity to really re-group and prepare for the autumn and winter.
This really shows up that there are too many cooks in the kitchen (quangos) and no-one is prepared or competent enough to take the lead. Typical civil service type mentality- itâs always someone elseâs fault for failure. Thatâs not good enough!
Earlier this year, I read of a hospital which by-passed management and it was said, the department had never run so efficiently.
There needs to be some sort of compromise between the NHS being run as a business but led by the medics too. Even that woman in the news who was going to overhaul the meals, was going to use tablets – can you imagine the cost of that? Cost seems never to of concern…
November 6, 2020
Maybe when the hospitals and all NHS health related concerns were CLOSED, they just lost the productivity figures? Or maybe there was no one there to record all the patients that came through the barred and shuttered doors??
November 6, 2020
Oh Iâm sure that they were so busy dealing with the millions of desperately sick CV19 cases, the was nobody to maintain data? Surely? After all they have spent ÂŁ170 billion this year, they must have done something wonderful because there are a meagre handful of CV19 deaths.
November 6, 2020
At the risk of possibly repeating myself on this site, I remember when hospitals were run by senior medical staff until someone suggested that this was a poor use of their skills. At the time, I thought his was a good idea. However, what has happened (and happens in all large organisations, whether public or business) is that administrations tend to grow over time. A manager feels overstretched, makes a case for an assistant which in turn gives the personnel department (which scarcely existed before) extra work. When this happens with two or three managers an extra personnel officer is required. More staff mean more paperwork, reports, computers, ‘sent all’ emails and so on.
In a business this gradual empire building is periodically culled and administrative staff released. In the NHS, there is no ‘bottom line’ that ultimately demands action and the empire building goes on. Like Brer Fox, they rush around with pencil and paper measuring and marking but doing no actual work at all.
We do need a severe cull of hospital administrators (and their handsome salaries) from time to time and involve senior medical staff in major decisions.
November 6, 2020
Now I am of an age to be a bit bothered about Covid. For that reason I keep well clear of the medical trade for fear they are just as likely to kill me as cure me. Nothing short of a heart attack or a broken leg will induce me to go anywhere near.
I should think any sane medical professional feels much the same and is reluctant to drag people into the system without very good cause. So we are bound to see rather small numbers of people voluntarily going to hospital – only the desperate will risk it.
Running the NHS ‘hot’ looked a smart strategy up till January. Then all that money spent on shiny shoe management consultants did not look so well spent. A bit more capacity and running ‘warm’ looks smarter strategy.
November 6, 2020
The fact they stopped data collection on productivity is pretty damning. They panicked, lost their sense of perspective then shut off the flow of information that would have allowed them to take more balanced view.
They now seem to be stuck in a denial stage, unwilling to do anything that might imply their response to date has been in any way erroneous. We should tell them not to worry: get over it and look for and at all the evidence about this pandemic and change tack before it is too late.
November 6, 2020
Maybe they feel a bit bad about all the er..non COVID related deaths they caused during the First Great Imprisonment?
200,000 was it?
November 6, 2020
I am inclined to believe the reason they have stopped data collection on productivity may be, not so much to stop them making informed decisions, but to stop ‘joe public’ getting the truth from accessing ONS other government data and making FOI requests.
There is already a lot of data out there on social media and other blogs, which damningly contradicts what they have been claiming.
Stopping data collection halts all this. and allows the lies to continue.
November 6, 2020
Those that refuse to learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat them.
November 6, 2020
When they say they donât have enough staff, ask them why the tens of thousands of recently retired doctors that re-registered to help were not used. They could have been used to back fill other roles if nothing else to allow higher throughput.
Ask them why hotels were not commandeered and turned into hospitals, like the Americans did, so that individual rooms were available per patient, and the air pressure could be controlled to reduce cross infection.
Ask them why the nightingale hospitals were not kitted out with individual tents around each patients bed, and air condition machines, so that air pressure could be controlled to minimise cross infection between patients.
Ask them why the nightingale hospitals were not kitted out with X-ray machines, and other testing and other kit, so that they could treat a far wider range of patients.
Ask them why many GP phone lines have been permanently engaged throughout.
Ask them why heart stents and other life saving procedures have been radically reduced.
Ask why the army field ambulance regiments depend on using NHS medics if we go to war, when they should be staffed with their own dedicated staff (which then could be used to back fill within the UK in cases of national emergencies).
Sadly itâs a top down bureaucracy, with poor management, built on hype and propaganda that is badly letting this country down.
Replace the whole thing with a copy of the system in many other developed countries where patients have individual power and the providers of care are forced to bend to the will of the patients and not the other way around.
Ask them how much man time was wasted on tic toc videos.
November 6, 2020
I believe evidence has been shared amongst the professionals in the last few days that the virus is weakening in terms of danger to life, albeit not enough yet to ignore, hence one of the reasons plus, better care, that death rates are falling.
This I think is standard in a virusâ s RNA as it needs to survive not kill all its hosts and it will continue to weaken. Equally numbers of people catching it had been skewed by the concentrations in universities where high percentages have caught it.
Are these true and to what extent reflected in government policy?
November 6, 2020
I very much doubt if the science is settled.
Just avoid hanging round lampposts ..viruses tend to lurk there!
November 6, 2020
I’d think long and hard before buying more ventilators, they seem to simply delay death, otherwise quite agree
November 6, 2020
No they and Oxygen masks of various complexities seem to have their place and are certainly saving many lives.
November 6, 2020
Hopefully with Sir Johns permission: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-ventilators-specia/special-report-as-virus-advances-doctors-rethink-rush-to-ventilate-idUKKCN2251ST
November 6, 2020
Good find!
EVERYONE should watch..all have been saying what nurse says for ages.
Is there a âleftyâ ring about it though?
Always thought this a danger.
Boris yields to left wing pressure then they turn on him for destroying economy.
(If there is any truth in any of it that is).
November 6, 2020
“The Italians were swiftly followed by Cameron Kyle-Sidell, a New York physician who put out a talk on YouTube saying that by preparing to put patients on ventilators, hospitals in America were treating âthe wrong disease.â Ventilation, he feared, would lead to âa tremendous amount of harm to a great number of people in a very short time.â This remains his view, he told Reuters this week.”
Which was the YouTube video I brought here when it came out. I sourced that from a comment thread on the Dr John Campbell YouTube channel who has been bang on the money even before this disease reached Britain.
If only our ‘experts’ would watch him.
This second lock down is insane and based on duff figures. It is going to see Britain turned third world on the Tory watch and in very short time – the contrast before and after is going to be stark and obvious.
In Lord Sumption’s view Boris has broken the law in suspending normalcy. Such checks and balances were there to stop an idiot overreacting and Boris shattered them. YES. Some people must die in order to preserve freedom.
When did we ever doubt that ?
November 6, 2020
With the Nightingale hospitals and the opening up of some dormant wards we have the beds but it is most likely the shortage of trained staff to run these wards that is causing this short fall in everyday treatment.
Training takes years so we will have to live with this situation until we learn to live with CV19
November 6, 2020
Why does it take years for someone to be taught how to put on oxygen mask on someone and monitor them? It is hardly difficult – one days training for someone with a bit of gumption and with suitable skilled oversight of the ward should be plenty.
If they lacked the staff why waste billions on the nightingale hospitals? Total incompetence as usual.
November 6, 2020
The Nightingales cannot cope with the complex comorbidities that the vast majority of critical CV-19 patients have.
This mistake comes from calling CV-19 a ‘pandemic’ instead of what it is and that’s a syndemic.
They built them thinking that every otherwise healthy person was going to need ventilation.
November 6, 2020
Mr Sunak prefers to pay labour to be immobile, not to be trained with a skill that could be needed.
November 6, 2020
Tens of thousands of recently retired doctors re-registered, to help, and absolutely none have been used.
November 6, 2020
They are very good at dancing though!
November 6, 2020
I was told by a friend with hospital links that the reason retired medics have not been taken up for extra hands to assist, is because they are deemed, âvulnerableâ!
Now apart from that being utterly patronising, Iâm sure most retired doctors and nurses are more than aware of the risks.
November 6, 2020
Ah. But we’re not allowed to take our own risks nowadays.
(I am late fifties and have been working throughout. )
November 6, 2020
Training to a standard to provide basic, competent care should take months – not years.
November 6, 2020
Days
November 6, 2020
George,
As you say you can’t “magic” trained staff out of thin air and is it wise to ask retired staff to come back, as they would inherently be in the “at risk” group?
November 6, 2020
Is it reasonable to expect more than 33% of âtrained staff on full payâ to attend work though?
November 6, 2020
It is indeed the sad fact that the Nightingale hospitals can not be opened due to the lack of staff, full stop . Utter waste of money .
My local hospital has over 100 staff off with stress /illness /CV19 test result lag .The hospital simply has not the staff to cope in any meaningful way .
My partner works within the prison system caring for inmates with drug and alcohol addiction , same problem there . 50% of the staff off with the same issues .
Covid or no Covid the NHS would be at bursting point with elderly patients with flu and other breathing related ailments, as it is every year . As we hear every year .
Boris said they had recruited over 30 thousand nurses this year , well done . That probably simply replaces the 30 thousand that left . Probably paying a junior nurse just over 20k to work night and day twelve hour shifts on a seven day rota may have something to do with why so many leave . I take my hat off to them all .
NHS is failing at every quarter . Sorry but it is simply not fit for purpose in its present format . Hence the idiotic lock down to protect the aforementioned .
Who should clap for who this time ?
November 6, 2020
Nurse’s pay scale goes up to 100k with many earning in the 50k region.
November 6, 2020
Clive, a junior nurse once qualified starts on grade 5 ÂŁ24,907 basic not including evening, night and weekend shift extras or the fantastic range of benefits including nhs pension, for a 3 day week, I agree their shifts are too long and I believe this should be stopped because tiredness affects care and they should go back to working 5 shorter days per week instead of 3.
« More broadly, we estimate that the average salary for a Nurse is somewhere between £33,000 and £35,000.« nurses.co.uk The salary ranges at each banding beyond this level are:⹠Band 6: £31,365 to £37,890⹠Band 7: £38,890 to £44,503⹠Band 8: £45,753 to £87,754⹠Band 9: £91,004 to £104,927
November 6, 2020
Exactly. I have pointed out repeatedly on this blog that there was never any staffing for the Nightingale hospitals. That’s not something that people want to hear but it’s not an issue that’s going away.
November 6, 2020
The NHS has betrayed us. Its “stay at home, bother no-one, wait and see if you die without troubling us” current advice on Covid is criminal.
November 6, 2020
+1 well said.
November 6, 2020
And the NHS bought up all the capacity in private hospitals so when a patient couldn’t get timely treatment from the NHS there was no fall back to the private sector.
This despite the insurance companies continuing to charge in full, the government continuing to collect 12% IPT tax on the insurance and still treating it as a taxable benefit and not merely a payment to continue cover in the future (no benefit whatsoever).
So reduced service but monies collected. Just like a furloughed worker, well done our government.
November 6, 2020
Good morning Sir John
I would think the Governments continued use of false data should be a worrying concern for all of us. In affect it means the Government is perpetually going to lie to us to get its own way. It will only end in tears
‘Real servants of the People ‘
November 6, 2020
The Prime Minister of the UK places the citizens of England under house arrest. Yet other parts of the UK that are in a worse state get to do their own thing.
Who is BoJo working for – Nicola?
November 6, 2020
NWO I expect.
Did I see that Nicola has got her Indy2 ref?
Boris, as predicted, doing EU/NWO business of breaking up union?
November 6, 2020
A lie is still a lie no matter how your dress it up
November 6, 2020
It was put before parliament. They voted for it with our kind host and others voting against. There can be no complaints.
November 6, 2020
It is odd that isolation hospitals were not used – historically that was always a standard approach and other countries used them this time. One outcome of that you didn’t mention is that about 20% of current Covid cases in hospital were actually caught in in hospital where patients were already with another illness. Excess deaths in hospitals are currently near zero but are very high at home – people protecting the NHS by dying elsewhere. 3 million missed cancer appointments. Death rates of patients with Covid 3-4 times higher than Germany. Yet still Boris parrots the “envy of the world” lie.
Simon Stevens the NHS boss using misleading statistics – the equivalent of 20 hospitals full of Covid patients he says without telling us there are about 1200 hospitals in the country – so equivalent to about 2% average loading. Project Fear.
November 6, 2020
and a few hundred ‘hospitals ‘ are small units – so 20 of them would be about right.
November 6, 2020
It is very unclear what has been done proactively since the ‘first wave’ and during the drawn out first lockdown.
Data for economy and society destroying decisions recently taken appears dodgy, missing, confused, misrepresented.
When Sir Simon Stevens mentions 11,000 hospitalised covid patients or 22 hospitals worth, I then look (in UK) 223 trusts, 1257 NHS hospitals, ~150,000 beds (reduced of course as much elderly care moved out to care homes, which is another discussion) and 515 private hospitals + Nightingales + military.
Looking at the cases also makes one wonder about the decisions. Around a quarter infected in hospital (so using existing capacity) and a large drop in flu admissions (luck, misdiagnosis, viral interference).
November 6, 2020
Are people unable to see what’s going on? There is no pandemic. The actual figures for deaths are at or below previous years. The alleged over running of hospitals is a total fantasy. I’ve been to five in recent weeks and all are virtually empty. Most departments are closed or minus patients, two I visited in summer the respiratory departments had locked doors and the lights were off.
The actual pandemic is in the hundreds of thousands not being treated and dying from it and suicides due to despair. This is a crime against humanity that most people, apparently, are unable to see because they are blindfolded by fear and manipulation.
The tidal wave of business failures and job losses will destroy prosperity and lower the standard of living in this country for decades. Lower standards of living mena more people die early. This parliament have condemned millions to shorter and harder lives.
November 6, 2020
It’s good to learn that the NHS hospitals have started to fill some wards with the backlog of patients suffering from lack of treatment of other diseases over the past six months. However the management has admitted that a substantial proportion of patients are still acquiring covid infection in hospital and some are drying. They are tested upon arrival and again two weeks later. If the first is negative it has been suggested that this is altered to positive if the second test shows positive. If the patient is very sick because of the underlying disease and dies, then the death is recorded as ‘with covid’ on the death certificate and these are added to the numbers we are given to show the R increasing and justifying lockdown. Some doctors have said that a large proposition of the patients in wards are in this category.
This method of recording reduces the number of deaths caused by hospital infection and conceals the deaths caused by lack of treatment of non covid patients.
The Italians showed that it is possible by separating staff treating covid only and separation of complete upper floors, with no contact between support staff, to avoid cross infection and treat other patients safely.
November 6, 2020
Stred
Just proves it’s down to management- as always.
November 6, 2020
âPlease Sir. How much health can I get for my penny?â
Does productivity drop then when the 17 or so responses rise, as surely they did to cope with the vast influx of COVID cases? Was too much spent per COVID patient which has led to a drop in âproductivityâ? Too many ambulances? Did each COVID patient have the cost of the largely unused Nightingale Hospitals weighted against the âproductivity of their caseâ?
Closed surgeries, hospitals, dental surgeries, mental health units surely SAVED a great deal of money for the good old clap, clap NHS. No worries for many of the staff who were/are being paid by the tax payer.
Donât forget to praise the overburdened medical staff for all those amusing dance videos. How would we have survived imprisonment without those?
November 6, 2020
WE keep seeing reports from nurses and so on, working in the NHS that hospitals are not operating normally – certainly there has been excess capacity in hospitals with staff having nothing to do.
Boris said that normal hospital work should continue, but that is not happening. My wife’s physio was cancelled this week, but she also mentioned on her last appointments how deserted the hospital was – not only a lack of patients but also staff standing around.
It keeps getting repeated that we have to protect the NHS, but from what I’m seeing hospitals are not doing their day job, and were never fully tested with CV-19,. We will never know if hospitals would be truly overwhelmed with the virus because we never even got close — it was all about extrapolating unreliable figures….. To make things look worse than they were?????
November 6, 2020
The NHS currently have 30,000 staff either ill or isolating – I would be wary of sniping at them from the comfort and safety of your bunker.
They are additionally coping with the fact that for obvious reasons they are a particular danger both to staff and patients . For this reason they have to have the strictest safety measures in place which does slow things up.
I have found the service much improved , I assume this is because many older people are too scared to go to the Doctor. Neither can be blamed for that
The NHS may not be perfect but it is by any measure vastly superior to the US system and could be a lot worse
November 6, 2020
I got tired of being scared a few months ago. At the beginning of this crisis I was terrified. I lay in my bed after shifts wondering if any sniffle or rise in body temperature would precipitate suffocation (my worst nightmare having seen my own father die of pneumonia.)
Come out of your bunker. Everything’s fine.
November 6, 2020
Is the NHS vastly superior to health services in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium? Do these Countries have the same % of healthcare staff off work ill or isolating or is it caused by the way we work people in our NHS? Just how does the NHS compare at the moment? We are told we have the worst death rates in the whole of Europe.
November 6, 2020
I attended a long-delayed first post-op check-up at a cancer clinic this week. I found that one of three waiting rooms was being used with around 15 well spaced chairs…………..occupied by just 6 attendees. By the time I left the appointment (20 mins) there were just two people remaining. My previous experience tells me this is always a very busy clinic manned with 3 Reception staff. They were all still at work shuffling paper, despite their massively reduced workload from the few clinical staff allegedly in, but not visible. This was a 10:15 a.m. appointment, not winding down at the tail end of a busy day, i.e. they were not even using their own Covid-safe arrangements to capacity. I suggest that the NHS are more likely to face a major crisis due to de-skilling than to Covid.
November 6, 2020
Sir, the nightingale added no capacity whatever.
They depended, or would have, in staff taken from existing institutions.
Sure you can build and equip a hospital in weeks. It takes years to train doctors and nurses.
If course separating those with Covid , or other infectious diseases from others makes sense as it reduces hospital transmission, but overall capacity takes years to increase as it is limited by staff availability .
November 6, 2020
Remeber Tony Blair. One year he could not find jobs for 30,000 trained doctors.
November 6, 2020
O
November 6, 2020
Sorry. Error on my part
November 6, 2020
+1
November 6, 2020
Y0ou are right to keep emphasising this failure of public service and it is disappointing that so few others in parliament are. Please keep pressurizing the Health Secretary who appears to have tunnel vision and is neglecting his brief. The NHS has let us down badly. As a supplier to the NHS I can see that non CV19 activity must still be down by about a third which given the amount of public money diverted to the NHS is a shocking drop in productivity that very few others are calling out.
November 6, 2020
Yet they will not be giving that money back to the taxpayers who fund it.
November 6, 2020
Will be very interesting to see the full results of the Liverpool city wide testing. Will we find that there are more people in the community that have COVID but no symptoms?
As far as testing goes, give priority to frontline staff, but is there value in testing those with symptoms?
If you have symptoms then isolate yourself – it’s not rocket science
November 6, 2020
Know-Dice
” Liverpool City wide Testing….”
Me thinks there may be a huge number who test positive, which at least should give a reasonable Idea of the real infection rate.
The big question is will they then all self isolate, to help reduce the infection rate at a stroke.
November 6, 2020
infection rate doesn’t equal sickness rate
November 7, 2020
Glen
Indeed but It does mean that they can infect others, who just may become very ill, or even worse.
November 6, 2020
The CV19 crisis has exposed so many problems with the NHS, including the inability to deal with infectious diseases that run rife in hospitals every winter. The other big health issue relating to all respiratory diseases is not doing enough to keep people out of hospitals by prevention or home treatment. I want good healthcare for all and that should include preventative approaches as well. We know that Vitamin D deficiency is a problem, reducing our adaptive immune response. We know there are safe treatments that may reduce the severity of CV19 for many people such as HCQ/Zinc but we’re not allowed to discuss these “alternative” approaches. And, of course, there are alternative ways to help people lose weight, other than taxing sugar, such as low carb diets. All of these require a sensible debate and trust in the people. My lifelong respect for our medical profession has hit rock bottom.
November 6, 2020
They used to say that a cause of hospital infections were visitors sitting on patients beds, hugging ill people with lowered resistance whilst carrying cold and flu and other virus. This has stopped now with covid, no visitations. So what studies are being carried out in hospitals during this perfect test bed time to see how transmissions are happening. If nurses are in full ppe changed regularly between patients, aprons, masked and gloved changed between patients how is it spreading?
November 7, 2020
Typically unchanged very warm, humid air being exchanged ward to ward, corridor to corridor? A breeding ground for all sorts of germs -always has been. Back in the days when nursing staff had control, not management, recovering patients were wheeled out into the fresh air, and sun or wrapped up when chilly.
November 6, 2020
If government and management knew we didn’t have to staff to use the Nightingale hospitals then why the hell did we waste all that money building them? That money could have been used for other things. Governments and the NHS really do know how to waste money whilst giving us a bad service.
November 6, 2020
Fed up,
These local headlines may provide your answer:
https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/nightingale-hospitals-will-become-mass-4668742?fbclid=IwAR2BEtD38C8Dndrlvi9HdwwnjE1cae9b5GpkNh3bBYARRB6CFBEAkWRKpjA
https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/18846452.manchesters-nightingale-hospital-become-mass-vaccination-centre/
November 6, 2020
PR stunt to give so royalty something to open and pretend the government are doing something.
November 6, 2020
Weâve moved from
Small numbers (anyone) of people tested for covid to
Large numbers (anyone) of people tested to
Specific (those only with symptoms) to
Target regional (Liverpool City Region) (anyone)
Donât see a plan
November 6, 2020
the plan is ‘keep changing things, the data, the presenters, the past data, the future predictions, the possible vaccine, the ‘overwhelming’ factor yet all staff working to max, and deserving of a medal.’
November 6, 2020
Indeed they are clearly complete and utter idiots.
November 6, 2020
I reported on here a couple of months ago that a senior civil servant colleague had been warned off to working from home till end of financial year and others furlough till thenâŠâŠ.how did these senior civil servants know the government strategy and plan back in September before parliament or the people
November 6, 2020
I also know senior people that were told they would be working from home for a whole year right from the start glen.
November 6, 2020
How did they know? Via Common Purpose, very likely. The civil service is their breeding ground.
November 6, 2020
+1 they make the plans. Boris looks frightened, confused, distraught, out of his depth. Time for a replacement! We want our Trump!
November 6, 2020
The way things are going, the original could be available in a week or so. And Tony Abbott as Home Secretary.
November 6, 2020
The Dream Team
November 6, 2020
Joe Public ‘looks frightened, confused, distraught’ with just cause.
November 6, 2020
It seems quite clear that it is this failure to plan forward to manage Covid-19 that is behind the need for the present lockdown. Isolation hospitals were a tried and successful means of dealing with highly infectious diseases until comparatively recently, so why not revert to a methodology that is known to work?
I am afraid the NHS shows all the usual shortcomings of a nationalised industry, in particular a complete lack of flexibility when it comes to dealing with new circumstances. We need a Secretary of State who is up to the job of challenging the status quo and a Government that is capable of questioning the statistics that are presented to it and turn out to be false.
I was very glad, though not I have to say surprised, that you voted against the Lockdown, as did our local MP.
November 6, 2020
“The government tells me in answer to Parliamentary Questions that it has âpaused â data collection and assessment of productivity this year owing to the CV 19 problems.”
The government’s poor grasp of data and intelligence in this area is not poor management, it is not a mistake or an oversight. It is intentional.
November 6, 2020
What they are actually saying is that the malperformance of the NHS during the Covid outbreak is being hidden so that invidious comparisons cannot be made with healthcare systems on the continent. Do people really expect much from Oxford PPE graduates? Matt Hancock, Simon Stevens and Dido Harding running the National Institute for Health Protection? Centralise everything and put a Oxford PPE graduate in charge: it’s bound not to work well but they’ll put in a good performance when being cross-examined by the Parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee which is that really counts.
November 6, 2020
As far as Iâm aware Simon Stephens made no reference yesterday to using the Nightingales, either for COVID or non-COVID conditions, yet he parroted figures to have us believe that the NHS is about to be overwhelmed.
Well his figure of 11000 COVID patients (with no clarity on whether they were admitted with it or caught it in hospital) amounts to 8-9 patients for each of our 1300 hospitals. Overwhelmed? Really?!
November 6, 2020
even if you divide the number of hospitals by 3 to eliminate lots of minor specialist units, thats say 400 with an average of approx 30 Covid patients.
If the rate of serious cases was going up in recent weeks as alleged, and the typical stay was 2-4 weeks ( alleged) how come the average beds count is only 30?
Again the stats presented don’t hold water (ok detailed examination).
That man with the dodgy understanding of the original Excel he must still be using, has been doing work for Mr Stephens.
November 6, 2020
One could be forgiven for assuming that a state-funded healthcare system would be truly excellent, however the NHS has always had to ration treatment and was justified by the idea that, with improved treatments, people would become healthier and need less of them. Since the 1970’s , beds have been closed, and hospitals concentrated into large units based, one assumes, on outdated 1960’s-70’s management theory. The NHS resembles a dystopian 1970’s nationalised industry, totally inwardly focussed, where the idea of customer service is alien. It is run largely for the benefit of those who work in it and tries to apply “mass production” techniques to provide care for patients, all of whom are different. There are, of course, areas of excellence, but these exist through clinical leadership rather than management skill, which is sadly lacking.
November 6, 2020
Never mind, they still have time for this:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/greenernhs/a-net-zero-nhs/
“We are committing to tackle climate change by reducing our emissions to net zero. In doing so, our aim is to be the worldâs first ânet zeroâ national health service. We are setting two targets:
For the emissions we control directly (the NHS Carbon Footprint), we will reach net zero by 2040, with an ambition to reach an 80% reduction by 2028 to 2032;
For the emissions we can influence (our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus), we will reach net zero by 2045, with an ambition to reach an 80% reduction by 2036 to 2039.”
November 6, 2020
Iâd prefer they concentrated on the patients…itâs not like theyâve got the rest of the service running efficiently, is it?
November 6, 2020
I think like the Irish farmer and his horse, we should daily reduce the NHSâs rations until itâs living on nothing. Then itâs productivity will not bother any of us.
November 6, 2020
Perhaps they will switch on the life support systems and ventilators when the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing. Or have battery ambulances the need 5 hours charging so are out of use half of the time. We are governed by complete bl**dy fools with their alarmist religion (which is deluded and wrong) and anyway their solutions will not work not even in CO2 terms.
November 6, 2020
30,000 NHS staff are staying at home because of positive test results. Not ill, not incaoacitated, not being treated for anything, just staying at home. No wonder they âcanât copeâ.
November 6, 2020
Sounds too small to me – NHS employs 1.3m.
November 6, 2020
As Shakespear once wrote – there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark
November 6, 2020
OK John but have you asked what the private hospitals that were requisitioned did from March to September?
Private procedures were just stopped even though all the private premiums continued to be taken with no tax reduction either. You think well for the common good so be it, but now weâre finding out they were paid for doing very little! Why should this private business be protected not to function but others youâre sending to the wall?
November 6, 2020
Sorry not you personally but your Government with full parliament backing to close down.
November 6, 2020
Closing our large city hospital to all except covid patients has meant that an annual clinical test (postponed from May until the end of November) has now been scheduled in a building that involves a walk of several miles, and the staff have refused to accommodate waiting patients inside the building: the average delay for this test is (however inexplicably) always 45 to 60 minutes after the scheduled appointment time, and the NHS insists patients must wait outside on the street in the winter cold until they are called, after which they are to be forced out onto the street again to wait for another 20 minutes for Part 2 of the test.
Naturally, they know that very few people will take such a risk. So ‘the NHS has re-scheduled its patient appointments; unfortunately many chose not to attend’ – letting this moribund cadaver of a ‘health service’ off the hook.
November 6, 2020
NHS out put is low because they donât like work
Went online â you can book everything apart from flu jab which must be by telephone
So I attempted to phone my GP to book a seasonal flu jab appointment â three telephone attempts each lasting between 10-15mins no joy
Decided to cycle to GP 30mins away â rang the bell but they wouldnât let me in without an appointment. I said I wanted to make an appointment but was told you can only do this by telephoneâŠ..and it was them that sent me a letter to get a flu jab
Talk about catch 22
November 6, 2020
you should have feigned a heart attack and fallen to the floor.
Mind you, you may have lain there a long time, and probably have died if it were true.
November 6, 2020
Why donât you just go to Boots glen they do NHS flu jabs free and theyâre open 7 days per week.
November 7, 2020
Because I was following my GPs instructions to the letter…..it shouldn’t be so difficult
I’m fit and well – what of other people that aren’t
November 6, 2020
RIP Geoffrey Palmer.
The connection being that line “I’m a Doctor and I want my sausages!” from Fawlty Towers
November 6, 2020
Pure Classic
November 6, 2020
Figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that Englandâs COVID-19 outbreak slowed down last week before the crippling lockdown.
More than half of local authorities saw their positive test rates fall at the end of October, and the COVID Symptom Study predicts that the UK has already passed the peak of the second save. Meanwhile, SAGE revealed the R rate in the UK has remained between 1.1 and 1.3.
Despite this, Downing Street has refused calls to end Englandâs second lockdown early with a spokesman saying: âThe lockdown is for four weeks to the 2nd December.â
Oxford scientists, economists and politicians have criticised the decision to impose a second lockdown as hasty and unnecessary. Graphs used by SAGE to justify the lockdown have been torn apart by experts.
November 6, 2020
Sir John, may I request that you look at this, page there is a link to October 2020 COVID Publication (XLS, 5.60MB) published 1st October: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/ For my area it shows that out of 207 Mechanical Ventilation beds occupied, 2 of them are Covid-19 patients. Of the 10,894 total beds, 36 are Covid-19. I am also suspicious that the next “monthly” report is due 12th Nov conveniently post lockdown.
November 6, 2020
so simplistically: Covid beds are 1 in 302, Ventilation for Covid is 1 in 103.
Brings a new meaning to almost overwhelmed.
November 6, 2020
My friend works for the NHS. Nurses in Worthing hospital are asking the question why are we locked down? There are no cases of Covid.
November 7, 2020
Perhaps the news journalists could do their job and ask Sir Stephen this, are these nurses expected to go to other hospitals to work or are their hospitals running normally?
November 6, 2020
Your comments seem totally obvious to all society, except the NHS.
November 6, 2020
I want to opt-out of the NHS. I want a rebate for the money I have paid in over a lifetime for no treatment whatsoever.
Whose in?
November 7, 2020
Me !
November 6, 2020
“We will not forget this !”
Alas, the vast majority will. Left and Right they will vote the label regardless of the quality of the candidate.
JF
November 6, 2020
Boris’s dodgy dossier.
November 6, 2020
Why don’t we build enough Nightingale hospitals to accommodate ALL COVID-19 patients? Then we could use them as isolation hospitals so that the COVID-19 patients were unable to infect patients in mainstream hospitals, who could be treated without let or hindrance.
If it’s a question of staffing, what has the Government being doing this last 6 months?Instead of wasting billions on furloughing, money should have been spent on training nurses.
November 7, 2020
The question Iâd ask Lindsay is what level of nursing are covid patients requiring on a daily basis? Instead of expecting fully trained RN nurses for every patient we need to reassess nursing as a whole and take it out of the hands of people that have been constantly saying they canât cope for years. If you ran a business like that and regularly told the bank you couldnât cope, you couldnât get staff, you had 40,000 vacancies but hadnât figured out a way to fill them theyâd pull the plug on you. If you constantly filled gaps with the most expensive routes of agencies and emergency staff on double the pay youâd go bankrupt and your other regular staff would quite rightly start to feel peeved when someone else is bragging theyâre on ÂŁ37,000 pa for just a couple of nights per week.
Which Country is considered the best in healthcare – what do Japan do because they donât seem to import hundreds of thousands of nurses trained elsewhere. Lots of pharmacies have closed down in this Country in the past couple of years have their staff been redeployed into hospitals to give out medication?
Why donât we turn the clock back on a system that used to work and those students that know they want to nurse from the age of 16 put them into two years training on the ward and the most capable into degree courses from there and the others into a more vocational longer term training route into higher pay and responsibilities.
November 7, 2020
If nothing else blanket ban on over seventies getting intensive care beds when there was in fact sufficient capacity, being the personal decision of Simon Stevens should result in him being in court for manslaughter.
November 7, 2020
+1
November 7, 2020
You are so right here, spot on, I can see it and I only went to a secondary school, how come NHS managers, paid hundreds of thousands of pounds couldnât work out that designating one hospital per district as a CoVid hospital, and allowing it to manage demand by also taking younger patients with routine issues like broken bones and hernias as and when would be a simple and effective way of managing the crisis.
November 7, 2020
Sir, It is not the workers on the battle front who are pulling down the NHS. It is the vastly over payed layabouts in management and silly organisations like National Health England and other jumped up idiots.
They wasted money having a pandemic exercise, then ignoring the needs revealed. They then threw money at the PPE problem they caused and that was a mess- the buying unseen of trash from Turkey Iâm talking about.
The whole NHS fandango needs examined and slashed of managers and pen pushers back down to the minimal to run the organisation for Doctors and Matrons.
November 7, 2020
Sir John, my own and family experience of the NHS over the past 6 months has been positive. My GP in NE Surrrey saw me face to face to examine a suspicious lump in my skin, arranged a two week referral with a dermatoligist consultant who in turn arranged an appointment with a surgeon also within two weeks. Subsequently, I have had a follow up appointment with the surgeon to review how the wound is healing.
A relative in Dorset has been able to continue chemotherapy throughout lockdown 1 (and hopefully now 2) while another relative in Cambridge has been able to access a clinical psycologist ( though after a few months wait).
In general, my experience over the past 5 years or so is that (as others have noted) the NHS is excellent when the care needed is critical or urgent: A&E, ICU, other high dependence units, two week referral etc. Away from this where the care is more ‘routine’, the quality and efficiency of the NHS drops off rapidly. My personal observation is that the higher the density of beds, the poorer the quality of the care.
November 8, 2020
I’m grateful a growing number of MP’s are starting to ask the pertinent questions that will I hope eventually lead to a more rational response to this mild disease.