UK Government knew the risks and did nothing

[Cam77]

Between July 2016 and January 2020 the British government spent three and a half years talking about and furiously negotiating Brexit - three and half years trying to solve a crisis completely of its own making.

In December 2020 in the weeks before the election, Boris Johnson, a chief architect of Brexit, did speak a couple of times about the NHS, a few vague promises about future nurses (who they had just months before gleefully blocked a pay rise for) and future hospitals.

In October 2016, three months after the Brexit vote, the UK government ran a national pandemic flu exercise, codenamed Exercise Cygnus. The report of its findings was not made publicly available, but the then chief medical officer Sally Davies commented on what she had learnt from it in December 2016.

“We’ve just had in the UK a three-day exercise on flu, on a pandemic that killed a lot of people,” she told the World Innovation Summit for Health at the time. “It became clear that we could not cope with the excess bodies,” Davies said. One conclusion was that Britain, as Davies put it, faced the threat of “inadequate ventilation” in a future pandemic.

Despite the severe failings exposed by Exercise Cygnus, the government’s planning for a future pandemic did not change after December 2016 – at least not formally. The government’s roadmap for how to respond to a coronavirus-like pandemic has long been available online, and the three key documents – the 70-page “Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy”, 78-page “Health and Social Care Influenza Pandemic Preparedness and Response” and 88-page “Pandemic Influenza Response Plan” – were published in 2011, 2012 and 2014 respectively. These plans were tested and failed, yet these documents were not rewritten or revised.

They share a glaring shortcoming: not one of them mentions ventilators, which are now in such high demand that Matthew Hancock, the Health Secretary, told British manufacturers on 14 March, “If you produce a ventilator, we will buy it. No number [you produce] is too high.”
www.newstatesman.com/politics/health/2020/03/government-documents-show-no-planning-ventilators-event-pandemic

I think no government would have been ready. The only one that was ready really was S.Korea because they had had SARs.

Can you imagine if any government had said 'we want to buy 100,000 ventialtors 'just in case' or build extra mortuaries 'just in case'? People would have said it was a waste of money because they weren't clearly going to be used, and pandemics don't happen so often. They'd have said use the money for flood protection or education or whatever instead.

I could agree with you that the response could/should have got going faster, but it isn't obvious that we should have had loads of stock/spare capacity hanging around 'just I case'.

I agree teenplus. These Party Political broadcasts are tiresome.

Do tell us more about all the major European governments with lower death rates per capita than ours who rushed out to buy 100,000 ventilators just in case five years ago.

I’ll wait!

Just about every government in the world had the same knowledge and pretty much the same (lack) of preparedness, other than those which had experienced SARS.

People keep voting for the Tories despite knowing their attitude to the NHS - go figure.

@Cam77 The tories could come round and shoot everyone’s nearest and dearest in the face and people would still vote for them.

It is unutterably depressing

I really wish people would try and luck for the positives the government has achieved in such a short space of time instead of constantly scare mongering. It’s a pandemic, absolutely horrendous times, but everybody is working flat out...

Just so you know, as of today, the following European countries all have higher death rates per capita (Switzerland is just below us):

Spain
Italy
Belgium
France
The Netherlands

Is Boris Johnson running all these countries too? Or maybe we’re living through an unprecedented pandemic than no one was ready for?

I guess we’ll never know!

*look

Tiresome post

Also, those who experienced SARs and MERs (South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan) had a completely different strategy which didn't include buying loads of ventilators. Instead they did a massive amount of testing, traced and contained all cases, told people to stay home who were sick, did lots of mitigation such as social distancing, wearing masks, taking temperatures etc and as a result did not need to shut down their economies. They basically got out in front of the virus instead of just reacting after letting it get out of hand.

The UK is not including those who die at home or die in care homes in their death toll.

I hate the govt op but i can't see it would be any different if we had a Labour govt.

What do you think of the Chinese govt as I have seen many posts where you defend them.

If changes had been made after SARS we wouldn't be in this situation.

Anyone would think the op has an axe to grind 🙄

The dangers from a pandemic such as this have been known for a whilst. Unfortunately Brexit has taken the focus for such a long time with no energy and time spent on anything else. After all this is over it will be clear that there were great failings and unprepairedness, not just on ventilators but even just on crisis management.

Fuck, if netflix was even warning of the risks (Bill Gates also), then why were we not planning for this and why didn't we recognise and take action as soon as details were coming out of China about the virus?

Also worth remembering that governments have planning strategies for all kinds of emergencies - major terrorist attack, nuclear accident, dirty bomb, etc. etc. You can never be in a perfect state of readiness for every possible disaster, it would cost billions. Knowing what you would need and where your weaknesses are is probably the best you can do.

The just wash your hands to Happy birthday and we will all be fine from Jacob Rees Mogg etc was patronising and deluded in the extreme The govt had only to look at Italy and start mobilising but there was a definite feeling of look at how the foreigners can’t cope and in out little Island we will be fine and dandy mentality from this Govt.

Goodness this isn’t a political issue! No government would have stockpiled ventilators just in case.

Whether you like it or not, our government (or more precisely our civil service) has done an amazing job with their emergency response to an unprecedented situation.

But feel free to bash an belittle them right?

@CendrillonSings

If you have a pandemic readiness exercise and it points out failings and the Govt does nothing, even in January when it was clear this was coming our way, we didn't order in PPE or ventilators...what would you call that?

The NHS doesn't need 100,000 ventilators, its an additional 20,000 across all types not just ICU ones

As we don't count community deaths and triage those that go to hospital (as we have always done) UK cannot say how many deaths we have in relation to other countries, however we are significantly ahead of Germany, who have just given us a small number of ventilators (more than any Dyson or F1 teams have managed to make) Oh an ICU bed count 5 x lower than Germany's.

One thing is clear though, Tory supporters will never accept any criticism of their party or govt, so scrutiny of the Govt is called "tiresome" pathetic.

Last time I looked I still had free speech i would criticise any govt that Sat on their hands whilst drs nurses carers bus drivers taxi drivers have died when we could look at our European neighbours and have actually prepared so much better.

One thing is clear though, Tory supporters will never accept any criticism of their party or govt, so scrutiny of the Govt is called "tiresome" pathetic.

And tory-haters will never give praise where it's due, such as getting the Nightingale hospitals up and running, or the ££££££ of support for businesses.

'twas ever thus. People see things through their own tint of glasses.

Praise where it’s due ? Some people in the hospitals will be there due to a lack of PPE by the very govt you are defending
but feel free to be deluded

Corbyn would have saved us alllllll

Thank fuck we don't have a labour government right now

PPE takes time to source and supply, especially when half the planet is after the same thing, they’ve done it as fast as they can.

Or do you think we should have had warehouses full of boxes and boxes of it, sitting there going out of date every few years and having to be thrown out unused and replenished?

Nowhere in my post did I say Corbin would have done a better job I stated this govt haven’t done a good job , there is a difference.but perhaps too subtle for some.
I am totally aware it takes a while this is why I stated the govt should have prepared earlier, not sure how to make that clearer either.