disgusted that nurses/carers/doctors are dying for lack of PPE in 6th richest country

[wemustnotforget]

When this is all over (or maybe now) we must hold Boris and team responsible for risking so many lives.

Our health secretary said this -
“We need everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource it is,” he said on Friday. “Everyone should use the equipment they clinically need, in line with the guidelines: no more and no less.”

Nurses, porters, doctors are sacrificing their own safety and Matt Hockock has nerves to say they must not OVERUSE PPE, they dont have PPEs. Why was he chosen for this job when his background is in economics?

From wikipedia -
He studied at Exeter College, Oxford, and graduated with a first in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and went on to Christ's College, Cambridge, to earn an MPhil degree in Economics.[5][6] Hancock became a member of the Conservative Party in 1999.[7]
After university, Hancock briefly worked for his family's computer software company, before moving to London to work as an economist at the Bank of England, specialising in the housing market.

A doctor who warned Boris a month ago about risks of medical staff working without PPEs has died of corona virus at the age of 53.

In his message to the prime minister, Dr Chowdhury wrote: "Please ensure urgently PPE for each and every NHS health worker in the UK.

"Remember we may be doctors/nurses/HCAs/allied health workers who are in direct contact with patients, but we are also human beings to practice human rights like others, to live in this world disease free with our family and children.

"Otherwise in future our children will lose interest to go to medical school.
news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-doctor-who-warned-prime-minister-about-ppe-dies-with-covid-19-11971068

And for those who are going to say I am making it political at the time of crisis, no I am not. I want this government to be accountable for their actions.

Why UK declined EU's offer of collective PPE purchase.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/26/no-10-boris-johnson-accused-of-putting-brexit-over-breathing-in-covid-19-ventilator-row

I disagree a little with the supply and demand argument...the gowns and visors are plastic.....nothing fancy about them at all. My dad has more protection out lambing on a farm than I do in hospital. Local companies have started making PPE....money could be spent getting them from other industries or ramping up production in these local companies but instead we are just told to get on with it.

It’s not about stockpiles. It’s about having a supply chain and procurement plan ahead of need. It’s about having agreements with U.K. based firms so jobs were retained and a new supply chain became available.
We managed to source WHO standard PPE plus scrubs for our family and friends very easily.
I don’t stockpile torches and batteries in case of power cuts. I have a couple and know where I can get others, if I need them.

@ MichaelBoobins and all care home workers

It’s about having agreements with U.K. based firms so jobs were retained and a new supply chain became available

Ha! I wish! We tender for PPE by reverse auction. Cheapest wins. Labour were the same. Noone wants to pay more than they have to.

We make PPE for the military. At the moment China provides a lot of it, or Germany. Because it's cheaper (we have the minimum wage here which makes manufacturering expensive).

If the military run out of PPE, who is to blame?

To go back a bit Why can he not just say 'sorry, we are doing our best but I am sorry that nurses are in in this position at this time".

Because when Priti Patel gave her version of an apology for the lack of PPE provison some had experienced the journalist came straight back with "So you are apologising for the danger you have put NHS staff in, the deaths, the pain, the misery etc etc etc"

Some of the journalist questions have been absolute shit stirring, fear mongering bollocks. All aimed at getting a good twist for a fear filled, rabble rousing headilne... as can be seen by the many threads here that swallow them, hook, line and sinker!

We had PPE stocks; the external supply chain was stymied by the global need and the internal one by ????. Stocks were being sent out to NHS centres but not then sent outwards? I don't know, but there seems to have been a bottle neck somewhere.

But that doesn't make a good headline. Not a big enough stick to beat any government with.. and god forbid it might be the NHS's own distribution system that failed! We won't know until long after this is all over!

Totally agree samphire

Samphire I don't really understand....I'm in a hospital and there is not enough PPE......like OP said. It's an NHs hospital..the government have ultimate responsibility to sort this out: find out what's happening/get it there asap as they are currently asking people to work for them with inadequate levels. Priti Patel said she's sorry if people 'feel' there's not enough......that is an insult.

The NHS distribution centre should be looking into why some trusts have plenty and some have very little.

Hopefully hospital trusts will be sued under the Health and Safety Act for the deaths of healthcare professionals who caught this due to inadequate PPE. Why aren't the health and safety executive investigating as they would any other death at work?

Why aren't the health and safety executive investigating as they would any other death at work?

I think they possibly will eventually.

Don’t you understand- they are heroes, and we clap for them! why would tgey need PPE if they get clapping?
Healthcare workers in a developed country should not need to be heros (being a hero implies you are endangering yourself - this should not be necessary for healthcare workers!)

I'm in a hospital and there is not enough PPE

Have staff lodged an official complaint detailing specific incidents?

I think they possibly will eventually.

Why eventually? If I were working on a building site and fell off the scaffolding then an investigation would be done immediately, especially if I were seriously.injured or died.

The hospital is a place of work. If staff are dying due to their working environment then why aren't the usual work place protections in place?

Some of the journalist questions have been absolute shit stirring, fear mongering bollocks. All aimed at getting a good twist for a fear filled, rabble rousing headilne... as can be seen by the many threads here that swallow them, hook, line and sinker! In the absence of parliament sitting they are all we have in terms of holding the Gov to account.

Laura Kuenssberg has been particularly shit.

Yet another vile NHS bashing thread. I assume you lot saying we have have enough will be the first to refuse a critical care bed should you need it? Or be accepting when we refuse to treat your relatives due to lack of PPE?

Huh? It's not me saying they have enough. It's some NHS trusts. Are you saying the NHS is vilely bashing itself?

People who say 'we've known about this virus since december'
Well the WHO said in mid January there was no evidence of human to human transmission. If the NHS has stockpiled in December people would have said they were crazy and it was a waste of money.

There's so much ignorant nonsense on this thread.

The government DOES buy and stockpile PPE. Each govt is obliged to as part of the Pandemic Preparedness Plan that's been in place for 30+ years to my knowledge.

Here's the link to the 2014 version
www.gov.uk/government/publications/pandemic-influenza-response-plan

@flippit81 is absolutely right. Jeremy Hunt took the decision after swine flu that we'd had the pandemic and didn't need to continue stockpiling PPE in the same quantities. It saved £20m. The NHS annual budget is 134 BILLION.

People need to understand this pandemic has been forecast, expected and planned for for decades. It was overdue.

We have pandemics on average every 30 years. Our last serious one was Hong Kong flu in 1968.

It's not rocket science. Just ordinary science and any costs to limit its damage to society and the economy are an investment. But we all know govt track records on investment. Govt is concerned about the next 5 years not 30.

We must develop a national infrastructure and supply chain designed to switch production rapidly and flexibly when needed to produce what the UK needs in such situations (and food production). And spend the resources needed to enable proper planning.

Surgical masks are just not good enough. All healthcare workers should have FP3 facemasks goggles and gowns.and there should be enough staff to rotate their time wearing it.

There's so much ignorant nonsense on this thread

I've stopped reading any posts on mumsnet that start with this sentence. Sorry if you made some good points mandroid

With all due respect Sir Simon Stevens is ultimately reponsible for the management of the NHS. He is a former Labour Councillor and left wing adviser to Tony Blair, Frank Dobson and Alan Milburn. NHS Resource Management was delegated to NHS England in 2012.

I am still mystified at Simon Steven's appointment and can only imagine it was a sop to the Lib Dems under the coalition government.

The NHS needs root and branch reform and its management needs to be dealt with by transparently appointed experts from across all political affiliations and political comment one way or the other needs to cease within it to be replaced with facts, objective analysis and common sense. And some hard decisions need to be taken about essential treatment and care and about what is not essential and whether non essential interventions should be funded by a form of social insurance.

The NHS is free only at the point of delivery and its accountability in relation to patients and standards of clinical, social and human kind care need to be wholly accountable to the public and specifically to patients.

All employees should work in a safe environment. After this crisis many members of the revenuen raising public will have no jobs and will stop raising revenue. Those who work in the NHS have secure, remunerated futures. Let's perhaps not forget that.

Objectively the NHS workers who died, tragically, number less than 20, the porters and cleaners as important as the consultants. We don't know all their ages or whether they had any co-morbidities and nor should we because those things relate to their personal data.

Yes OP it is shocking. We knew this was coming. And zero effort was made in the months before to buy PPE.

And thanks I did not know Jeremy Hunt was to blame.

OhTheRoses great post. He's definitely keeping his head down!

People who say 'we've known about this virus since december'
Well the WHO said in mid January there was no evidence of human to human transmission.

Indeed - Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet and now a very vocal critic of the government tweeted this on the 23rd Jan:

"A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity.There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language."

Exactly.