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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To ask what NHS frontline staff think of Breathtaking?

495 replies

CloudyYellow · 20/02/2024 23:06

I have watched all 3 episodes. I worked on the frontline during Covid. I found it very triggering and my fury is back.

OP posts:
RafaistheKingofClay · 21/02/2024 08:06

I’m behind the scenes and can’t bring myself to watch it but the coverage is bringing back memories of seeing the coverage of HCPs dying due to inadequate PPE and not knowing whether any conversation I had with my sister may be our last.

Scrambledchickens · 21/02/2024 08:06

I started watching it and had to stop, remember the fear of the time, not having the right PPE. Reigniting the fury and frustration at the tories was just too much.

crumblingschools · 21/02/2024 08:08

And that is an issue @peakygold?

Would you have preferred it if the shops interrogated every NHS staff member to see how many people they had seen die that day before letting them jump the queue

Wrongsideofpennines · 21/02/2024 08:11

I'm frontline NHS but not in an acute hospital so one step removed. Our trust lost several colleagues to covid. I've also not seen it yet but some colleagues have and are angry. We were going in to people's homes with no PPE. Patients whose partners were admitted to hospital with covid, who died of covid, they had literally been sat in the same room coughing over staff but because our patient had no symptoms we didn't need PPE.

Boomer55 · 21/02/2024 08:12

Uselessbossnohelp · 21/02/2024 08:01

I work on issues around social care. I remember being sent the guidance from Dept of Health around discharging patients to clear hospitals in readiness for Covid19 from colleagues asking for my thoughts

I remember reading the plan to discharge patients to care homes without testing and emailing back saying (paraphrase) ‘that is madness, they’ll discharge old people with covid into care homes and it’ll cause carnage’

many ppl working in social care desperately tried to amend the plans around care homes so they at least tested first but it was a flat no. The result was thousands of older people dying needlessly in care homes

im still boggled that that was allowed to happen

Yes, my Dad died, alone, in a care home. The staff couldn’t get any PPE, and our hospital discharged positive patients into care homes. Covid ripped around his care home, and he died of it.

The day my dad had to die alone, Johnson and co were having a garden party, complete with a buffet and cases of wine.

My DD works for the NHS, and was seconded to ITU, but she did, at least, get plenty of PPE.

I felt sorry for all essential workers - many of whom had no PPE, and many who copped abuse from members of the public. No freebies were thrown their way.

My DH caught Covid last year, although he was fully vaccinated. He died of it.

The whole thing was a shambles.😡

Mischance · 21/02/2024 08:12

The juxtaposition of BJ spouting bollocks and Hancock looking like a frightened child alongside depictions of what was actually happening on the wards was very telling.

Edicts were descending from above based on nonsense. Managers were toeing the line on these edicts when they should have been listening to the professionals.

Thingamebobwotsit · 21/02/2024 08:12

Caught 10 mins of it. Cried throughout.

I hope this makes people angry enough to demand more of our current and future governments. We deserve better.

BrassOlive · 21/02/2024 08:17

We did our best

We know you did, we know 💐

The clapping may have stopped and the government may have decimated your workplace but never doubt the profound, profound gratitude that so many of us carry in hearts for what you and your colleagues did at that time. It will never be forgotten.

mumsneedwine · 21/02/2024 08:17

'Emma', the medical student is probably now an F3. Unlikely to have got a specialist job as there are not enough jobs to go round - competition ratios of 1:10-20. No locum work as PAs taking their jobs. GPs being made redundant.
She's probably earning about £22 an hour, having started on £14. Graduated early to help out, losing all the good bits of being young.
The government have repaid these people by cutting their pay (doctors lost the equivalent of a months wages in pay stagnation during Covid), cutting training places so they can't get jobs, and blaming everything on them from hospital waiting lists to the recession.
That's just the doctors.
Thank you NHS my arse.

FUPAgirl · 21/02/2024 08:18

peakygold · 21/02/2024 08:02

It's a dramatisation of a book an NHS doctor found time to write during the pandemic! I'm sure the series won't document how NHS staff were given free food, free takeaways and discounts, and propelled to the front of every supermarket and petrol queue, whatever their role in the organisation 🙄

Yes free food was shown, as was the bitterness and hatred that some members of the public demonstrated towards NHS staff.

So don't worry, your views were well represented 😊

Cuppateafather · 21/02/2024 08:18

@peakygold what is the problem with thar exactly?

I'm assuming you were furloughed and cozy making banana bread whilst learning tiktok dances and upset you had to queue?

Theatrefan12 · 21/02/2024 08:18

peakygold · 21/02/2024 08:02

It's a dramatisation of a book an NHS doctor found time to write during the pandemic! I'm sure the series won't document how NHS staff were given free food, free takeaways and discounts, and propelled to the front of every supermarket and petrol queue, whatever their role in the organisation 🙄

Ah I bet you were one of the people they refer to in episode 3 (look I can do a 🙄 too)

Book wasn’t written during covid - her diary was, which like millions of other people is a perfectly legit way of decompressing at the end of the day

Free/discounted food - why do you care? Was it coming out of your pocket? Or was it a nice thing that people did because they were wanting to help but couldn’t exactly help out at a hospital

Jump to the front of the queue - again I couldn’t be petty enough to be bothered by this. If someone jumps the queue so they can get home from a multi hour shift a bit quicker and get the rest they needed to do it all again, you would need to be a bit of a dick of person to be irritated by that

LizzieSiddal · 21/02/2024 08:19

Lets remember that all the while we had no PPE, British manufacturers where trying to get in contact with the goverment and offering to make PPE. They don’t even get responses as ministers were too busy with the “VIP Lane” which was giving out billions of pounds to (friends)individuals who didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Angry

Why are none of these ministers in prison for gross negligence?

RafaistheKingofClay · 21/02/2024 08:21

LizzieSiddal · 21/02/2024 08:19

Lets remember that all the while we had no PPE, British manufacturers where trying to get in contact with the goverment and offering to make PPE. They don’t even get responses as ministers were too busy with the “VIP Lane” which was giving out billions of pounds to (friends)individuals who didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Angry

Why are none of these ministers in prison for gross negligence?

I have to keep a little bit of hope that Boris might see the inside of a jail cell.

TheYearOfSmallThings · 21/02/2024 08:24

I have no intention of watching it, and I'm not even frontline staff. I'm just letting those years go for now! I might watch it in 10 years.

ohtowinthelottery · 21/02/2024 08:29

I watched last night's episode but didn't see the 1st one.
Having lost a very close family member to respiratory failure pre covid and knowing the care and attention they and we received and the impact that had on the staff caring for us , I really feel for those (both staff and relatives of the deceased) who had to endure this dreadful fiasco.

BlindurErBóklausMaður · 21/02/2024 08:34

Cuppateafather · 21/02/2024 08:18

@peakygold what is the problem with thar exactly?

I'm assuming you were furloughed and cozy making banana bread whilst learning tiktok dances and upset you had to queue?

Advanced Search says got it in one. Except SAHM.

AS also says was "working on a ward" in the past, yet continues to scattergun MN with such vile opinions of NHS staff, that I can only presume she was selling Bounty photoshoots.

Thinks Norovirus is comparable to the pandemic so fucking hope has no medical training as that would really be an indictment.

Cuppateafather · 21/02/2024 08:36

BlindurErBóklausMaður · 21/02/2024 08:34

Advanced Search says got it in one. Except SAHM.

AS also says was "working on a ward" in the past, yet continues to scattergun MN with such vile opinions of NHS staff, that I can only presume she was selling Bounty photoshoots.

Thinks Norovirus is comparable to the pandemic so fucking hope has no medical training as that would really be an indictment.

What a revolting person. There truly are no words.

getitgotitgood · 21/02/2024 08:37

StuffLoriThangs · 20/02/2024 23:55

This isn’t entertainment to me. Those years of my life were hell. I don’t want to rewatch it back. There was very little done to protect me and the people I love.

Sadly though, many people only take notice of such stuff if it is dramatised. Reams and reams of factual programmes have been made about various scandals and issues, but they don't get the traction a drama gets.
It's almost as if the public only believes something happened if a well-known actor/actress stars in a programme and then it is discussed endlessly on GMB

getitgotitgood · 21/02/2024 08:38

Janetsmug · 21/02/2024 04:30

I wasn't planning to watch it, mostly because I want to forget Covid ever happened, but I feel cowardly now reading the comments so maybe I will watch after all. I'm not NHS or a keyworker and it feels wrong to purposely close my eyes to what you all went through, everyone should know what you went through for all the reasons mentioned in this thread. I will watch, and I hope the programme generates some sort of positive effect.

Forgetting history means it is doomed to repeat itself
If more people knew/cared about the past, so many things would not happen in the present...

Arriettyborrower · 21/02/2024 08:51

Luna a very close friend lives in NZ asked me had I seen it and was it really like this, she was shocked, she was surprised it aired there first, I said two words - Covid inquiry!

I am senior frontline clinical/management who worked non stop throughout, often clinically but also having to work with the information coming from PHE and DoH, the scenes with the execs in breathtaking resonated, the absolute sticking to the rules/policy, not listening to the frontline staff who were actually living this thing day in day out and KNEW the risks, knew what the teams and patients needed, were articulating this eloquently and passionately yet were not listened to because the execs were scared/weak/ill informed and not brave enough to listen to their clinical teams.

The lack of support from PHE, DoH, government around the public refusing to wear masks or PPE and the direction at exec level that because of this we had to let them in and our teams had to treat them….. well, that in and of itself, was breathtaking.

Many of my friends and colleagues have watched this, we are all triggered by it, and have all cried. There is a huge sense of disbelief that this actually happened to us all. Johnson and Hancock were despicable. Obviously the after effects are still ongoing and are far reaching, so so so many people who didn’t access services then and still now who then present late with cancers or other conditions then die. Who knows how many people died as a result of not accessing services in 2020/21 is this even being recorded?

I am so angry again.

Tinytigertail · 21/02/2024 08:52

I was redeployed into a designated Covid hospital. I didn't watch but caught the end last night, someone had their name sharpied onto their visor and that really brought it all back to me. Sharing PPE, relying on a local bloke with a 3D printer to make us visors - an absolute shit show and I'm angry all over again.

zeibesaffron · 21/02/2024 08:55

It was triggering and accurate - I didn’t get past half of episode 1.

LemonGelato · 21/02/2024 09:06

I watched it. Reminded me of something - at the very start of it a call went out across the public sector for donations of PPE. A local hospital was co-ordinating it all and we could also volunteer to help receive, inventory and dispatch it out.

I was working for a museum/art gallery and the Conservation department (who work with dust and toxic chemicals) dug out boxes of the high level respiratory masks and sent them.

It's surreal to think that some NHS workers not getting Covid was dependent on someone scrabbling around in the storage cupboards of bloody art galleries, universities and museums. Just a tiny drop in the ocean of need at the time and demonstrates how absolutely ridiculous it all was.

Rosestulips · 21/02/2024 09:20

The whole thing still makes me angry, some of it was a difficult watch. Especially the patients dying alone and non covid patients not being able to get life saving surgery

I am glad there were brave doctors who voiced their concerns.

The protestors who were adamant that hospitals were empty and we were lying make me so angry. Absolute fucking idiots living their best life bored on furlough

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