Quite remarkable the Tories are going with the 'We followed the science' line, even though literally everyone can remember them not doing so. I mean, I'd have flogged the vaccine thing for all it was worth and hoped that nobody realised the people who really needed the vaccine were already dead cos we'd locked them up in a care home petri dish.
One could interpret that as 'the disaster was not quite as huge as it otherwise may have been'. The point still remains that the 'persistent failings' referred to in the same sentence resulted in a situation where the death toll is already at least 138,000. We could decide that the 2020-1 'flu season' would have been a very serious one, resulting in 25,000 deaths (more than double the annual average). We could decide that numerous deaths 'within 28 days of a positive test' actually had nothing to do with Covid. We could decide to ignore that many early covid deaths, especially in care homes, where not recorded as such. That still leaves over 100k deaths; I think 'catastrophe' is in no way emotive in such circumstances. I get your point & you get mine. It's all about emphasis in many cases.
I don't see that. A tragedy, most certainly, but a virulent SARS virus where initial mortality predictions for the UK were 510,000, but worked out at under 200,000, a catastrophy? Personally, I don't think so. But you are entitled to your opinion.
At the time any criticism is "too early to judge" and then afterwards it's "easy to say with hindsight" The report clearly is talking about decisions made at the time. It's why it isn't criticising the government for failing to send an MI6 squad to Wuhan in November. It's criticising the decision of a government that watched Italy in chaos and just told us to wash our hands, but don't really be too careful and make sure to be a strong leader like the PM who isn't scared and goes around shaking hands in hospitals.
The decision would have been suggested by other experts, so to say that not going with expert advice is moot, when every single expert would have had a different idea. I think Meister's suggestion is that their was logical process behind the government's actions, and no doubt expert advice, as I do not believe that they plucked 'herd immunity theory' out of the air. The failing is that the option they chose appears to have cost more lives, but even that is a simplistic calculation, even if it does appear to be the most likely conclusion. Reasearch appears to suggest that natural immunity is stronger than vaccine immunity. That may well mean that having a greater resistance across the population through contraction of the disease has had a tangible effect. I expect to hear more of this when proper research is being done into the crises. Look at Australia and New Zealand now. Commended for their lockdown strategies preventing spread, but now so terrified of any brakout that some parts of the country are becoming hideously authoritarian, and have seen heavy lock downs for most of the pandemic. And they still cannot stop people catching it. We would be in the same situation if we had attempted to completely suppress the disease. What seems like a good situation on paper is not always a good situation in the real world. Follow all the scientific advice, and we would still be in lock down, and the number of non-covid deaths caused by fear of COVID would be soaring.
Or tries to stem the panic with a calm voice and positive words. But are you saying it is "never too early to judge"? Because that is absurd. Or are you denying that it is easier to see how a mistake happened with hindsight? Because that is a most pointless claim. The report entirely relies on hindsight to carry out its purpose, because it is impossible to judge without hindsight. So saying its easy to see that a mistake was made with hindsight is the most logical and fair thing anyone could possibly say, and, in doing so, makes no defence of the mistake, only that it couldn't be known it was a mistake at the time it was made. You are picking the wrong battles (if you want to criticise the Government), and you are miss-iterpretting the purpose of the report, which is to use hind sight to minimise the risk that honest mistakes do not happen again. All the things that people are balling on about now have precedents, and I guarantee the government will be exonerated for mistakes made (by practcally every country in the west) in trying to cope with an unprecedented International crises. The report is not saying the Government were wrong, or deliberately murderous. It is saying "this was a poor strategy and tjis is the reason why it was bad" and " this was a good strategy and this is the reason it was good". The report is being used as a political bludgeon to attack the government. Otherwise, why was no one aware of the extremely positive comments it also made? No one is fooling anyone but themselves.
Except it wasn't a mistake. Or two mistakes. Or three mistakes. It was 'one of the worst public health failings in UK history'. In. UK. History. Let that sink in for a bit. UK history. How many individual mistakes must have been made to add up to such a gigantic overall failure? I dread to think. And it's inconceivable that the people who have presided over such historical monumental failure have not only not resigned or been sacked - they haven't so much as apologised! And the worst bit is that we're all talking as if the failures were all in the past, when the UK at this very moment has amongst the highest new infections and deaths in Europe. The very worst people in power at the very worst time.
Yesterday we had more new infections than all the EU countries added together! We had 42,776. In comparison: Germany 5818 Italy 2772 Portugal 828 Netherlands 2887 In Spain, where I was recently, masks are still required in enclosed spaces and outside when you can't social distance by at least 1.5 metres. No economic cost as far as I can work out but less workers needing to self isolate with Covid. I just don't understand why we don't continue with these very basic precautions, especially when we have labour shortages.
Came back from France on Tuesday. Exactly the same. Pass Sanitaire required in all restaurants, even outside in bars - everyone just gets on with it. Brittany Ferries I had to be reminded to put mask on on the car deck. The thing that runs through the last 7 years is English exceptionalism. "We won't put up with it like Johnny Forriner". "The UK is a freedom loving country". Every other country in Europe has had a humiliation since 1900 with the exception maybe of Sweden and Switzerland. It has made other countries less sure of their superiority if they were ever under that delusion, and more willing to cooperate. We are about to be massively humiliated; my worry is that rather than learning a painful lesson, we'll turn into the Millwall of Europe - No One Likes Us, We Don't Care - and wallow in perpetual victimhood while the country withers.
Yes, but the Government allowed us to have a vaccine whose R+D was 98% funded by the public purse, so none of those **** ups matter.
Just a shame that the thousands of vulnerable people who really needed it were long dead by the time the first jab began to work.
I still love the fact that Boris' advisors told him he really needed to handle this virus properly, so he went to a hospital and shook hands with infected patients...
No doubt someone will be along soon to say that comparisons are invalid and that the French don’t do tests properly, or something.
I’d bet a decent chunk of money that the tabloids will start cranking up the propaganda machine for the government and playing on the fears of old people. Expect to see GP’s and Civil Servants working from home blamed on front pages any day now.
If I was a GP close to retirement, I'd just say **** you and pack it in. I see Covid Javid missed his appointment at the GP conference today.
My probably quite controversial opinion is that GPs will be largely defunct in a few years time. It doesn't make a lot of sense to have to wait to see a jack-of-all-trades GP, who has undergone 7 years training to direct you to the specialist/ pharmacy you need to go to, when technology alone, or technology with the oversight of non-doctors, can do that part faster and cheaper. But in a Covid pandemic and the most dangerous flu season in years, it makes almost no sense to force GPs to have people sit in a waiting room with other sick people, so they can see a GP face-to-face. Especially when technology is also more efficient and cheaper for the taxpayer. Obviously there are some exceptions where people need to have face-to-face appointments (domestic violence cases, or where someone doesn't have the technology to have an adequate video call spring to mind), but I can't imagine these cases make up a massive proportion of the electorate.
Good thing you are not a GP then, what with the Hypocratic Oath and all that. Distressed Woman: Doctor, help me, I have a lump on my breast. Doctor GoBE: **** you. Distressed Woman: Thank you Doctor, you've been an angel.
Call 111. If you have serious symptoms, you will get an emergency appointement or be fast tracked at A+E. It is not ideal, but it works.
As I was saying... https://www.theguardian.com/society...intments-plan-could-lead-to-exodus-of-doctors
Maybe. There is always going to have to be primary care triage, but this may increasingly be done by non GPs, probably nurses, physician associates or online by NHS 111.
Face to face apointments: mimimal waiting lists. Cancel face to face apointments: massive backlogs, increased deaths and debilitating, life shortening illness. GPs: But we don't want to do face to face apointments. General public: ffs. Lefties: hoorah! GPs have had a year and a half to come up with a viable alternative. Not having come up with one, I would suggest they get back to saving lives, and encourage people who have been given cause to think they are expendable in society (because COVID), confidence and the ability to get their illnesses diagnosed. They must consider the public's exposure to the reality of a situation where they are telling people not to come in for consultations, but are literally begging them to come in for face to face flu/COVID jabs, for which they get paid per jab, and can get their more expendable nurse minions to take the risk.
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes this year. It came as quite a shock as my BMI is 21, I don't eat sweet stuff as a rule and I'm pretty fit. Anyhow, I've been hugely impressed with the way my GP and surgery have handled it. When I've needed a blood test or a physical examination they call me in for a face to face with my doctor or the specialist diabetic nurse. But if it's just to discuss the results or to give advice then it all happens over the phone. The NHS app is brilliant if you link it to you complete health record. I can see every single consultation event, appointments, I can get my repeat prescriptions and even see my test results. For example, this week I had a blood test and the diabetic nurse is scheduled to ring me next week. But I can already see the results and they show my blood sugar is back in the normal range thanks to a low carb diet and medication. I feel I'm getting the best care I could while not draining the NHS resources, especially my GP's time. Obviously some people, especially the elderly, prefer face to face consultation but I think the kind of mixed service I'm receiving will work for most and gives the NHS the best bang for it's buck.
In many ways the GP system is triage anyway. The Dr hasn't got a clue in most cases what is up with a patient, but they assess the symptoms, and take the minimal action, and if the patient comes back because it didn't work, they step up the response, and so on. They judge, in many cases, the patient's need based on the amount of demand coming from the patient. The more noise you make, the more likely it is you require attention. Unfortunately it does mean that people who do not push their cause, predominantly because they don't want to be a problem, will find themselves at the back of the queue if the GP solely relies on triage. I am not criticising the system, because it can and should work, and I suspect it is the most efficient, if not perfect, method we have. The problem is not the ability of GPs, but access to their services. On the vast majority of occassions I have got to see my GP, it has been a useful experience. Getting to see them is the problem. I recommend 111. A few years back I contacted my GP's because of severe pain, and was told it would be 17 days to get an appointment. Later that day, I called 111, and within two hours was at my GP's seeing the senior Doctor. Always push your cause. Even in the current situation, doing so will get you seen by someone, and in some cases it may well save your life.
You have extrapolated a single element of the report on a single aspect of the government's response and offered it as a judgement over the entire Government. It is easy to do, but it isn't very clever or very genuine. For instance, you could have quoted this part of the report... "The UK vaccination programme—from discovery of potential vaccines against covid-19 to the vaccination of nearly 80% of the adult population by 1 September 2021—has been one of the most successful and effective initiatives in the history of UK science and public administration." You could then have posted... Let that sink in for a bit. In the history of UK science and public administration. Where we have been innovative leaders in science and administration since the industrial revolution. You could also have stated that it was the best people to do the job at the right time. Personally, I think it is important to consider all aspects of the response, so we can learn from both the positives and the negatives, which is the intention of the report, rather than use it as a tool to mislead people about its true nature. I do not reject any element of the report, and recognise the importance of ALL parts of it. If people are ingoring parts of it, we can assume that those people believe the ignored information to be important and justifiably detrimental to the apparent argument they are making, and that they are seeking to make a political, rather than factual point. Without doubt, the vaccine saved more lives than were lost because of decisions that could have been better, and it must be remembered that the effect of the UK's investment in the vaccine was beneficial world wide. Possibly millions of extra lives were saved because the Government's initiative galvanised, or embarrassed, the very slow moving EU into action. Criticise where it is due. Give praise where it is due. Try to achieve a little balance in your views.
Before that starts let’s be clear that ours are an underestimate. There isn’t the incentive to report it anymore if mild. By all measures we have a lot of disease hanging around and that’s a worrying trend heading into the winter, even if for most the threat of serious illness is low, because ‘not most’ is still a lot of people.
This is spot on in my view. And you only have to watch those documentaries where they show GP appointments to see that a fair proportion is just low-level stuff that could be diverted elsewhere. My GP surgery took a while to get on board with technology but now have an online portal thing via the NHS where you bung in your symptoms and can attach photos and then get a call back from a doctor within 48 hours. For non-urgent visible things, one of which by complete coincidence I have now, it's ideal. GP calls, confirms my diagnosis of the problem having seen the photos, prescribes me some beefed up medication which surpasses the top shelf stuff the pharmacist can hand out and that hasn't cut it so far, and the job's done in 5 minutes. I don't imagine for a second me going in would have added any value at all and would only have taken more time for all of us to end up in the same place. On the flip side, I know a lady who recently had a miscarriage who is quite some physical and no doubt emotional discomfort and her GP surgery can't see her until next Monday, 10 days after the event, and then only offer a telephone consultation at some random time of their choosing between 8am and 6pm. That crosses the line into unacceptable service for me.
TBF a lot of surgeries are now employing physician associates and/or nurse practitioners to lighten the GPs load. But a lot of the issues relate to GP numbers (UCL med schools were recently 'spoken to' by the GMC for not producing enough GPs). Here in the 'Wood we have two surgeries: the Grove and the Fairway (that's two for a population of over 31K). The Fairway should have closed last year (because the medic whose surgery it is wanted to retire) but was kept open due to C19 - incidently no-one wants to take it over. That leaves the Grove - which is struggling (and failing). One of its associates has told me of his plan to build something fit for purpose (he envisages a combined super- surgery, clinic and minor treatment centre to deal with the 'Wood's rapidly ageing AND growing population) on the site of the old Elstree Way clinic and library. But that will cost money - that will have to come out of the building new hospitals fund that's rapidly shrinking before anything's built.
Nah. But some one came along to say f you to people trying to get to see their GP. Funny how politics brings out the best in all of us. Frankly, your post is a little ironic, given that all I have done is point out a huge positive that this thread has attempted to ignore, dismiss and belittle, whilst making no attempt to deny the negatives. So if you were intending to highlight denial, it is fair to say you have done a very good job of it. Thank you for the opportunity to point it out. If you wish to belittle attempts to apply balance, good luck to you.
Freedom of the individual, innit? And I bet those pesky foreigners aren't doing the tests properly...oh, hang on a minute....
I think a lot of people were very complacent about how serious this was and even when it became apparent there was a major crisis we still heard some say “well it only kills a few elderly people who are going to die anyway” Fortunately they saw sense but too late for some . Obviously the vaccine roll has been a great success so the organisers , scientists and NHS deserve great credit for that.
