Panorama 27th April

[noavailablename]

Everyone should watch this.
My colleague was interviewed for it, but doesn't actually appear on the programme. Their company makes PPE and has been offering to supply the UK since March. Still trying. Can't get through to anyone who can place an order. The people they can get through to can't give them a contact.
They have been supplying the NHS for 30 years, so are on the list of regular suppliers.
They have been supplying New Zealand among other countries.
There has to be a public inquiry after this.
I am so angry and sad for all the NHS workers who have died.

See also

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52440641

The government failed to buy crucial protective equipment to cope with a pandemic, a BBC investigation has found.

There were no gowns, visors, swabs or body bags in the government's pandemic stockpile when Covid-19 reached the UK.

The investigation by BBC Panorama found that vital items were left out of the stockpile when it was set up in 2009 and that the government subsequently ignored a warning from its own advisers to buy missing equipment.

The government also failed to stockpile visors, the swabs needed for testing and the body bags needed for the dead.

Professor John Ashton, a public health expert and long-standing critic of the government, told the programme the lack of preparation was breathtaking.

"The consequence of not planning; not ordering kit; not having stockpiles is that we are sending into the front line doctors, nurses, other health workers and social care workers without the equipment to keep them safe," he said.

Also damning is the fact that the government removed COVID's classification as a High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) not on clinical grounds as they claimed, but because there was not enough PPE for healthcare workers to use if following the guidance for dealing with HCIDs. Instead they downgraded it and sent frontline workers to manage COVID with lower grade PPE not designed for such a serious and infectious disease, directly leading to the deaths of many healthcare workers. This government has blood on its hands

Makes me very suspicious.
Ties in with the antibody tests. Somehow we couldnt find tests but many other countries were using them.
Couldnt get reagents yet firms saying they had them.
Ventilators from dyson cancelled..

Yes theyve said the nhs who have died are not the icu stsff (who have the ppe). So it is the decision that people working on non confirmed cases dont get the masks. Surely if its your life you wear the ppe until the perrson is proved negative not the other way around. The gov decided not to test anyone. Couldnt get a test if not back from hotspots.
Also not testing people have clesred the virus so everyone back at work after 7-14days when thry know it can take much longer.

Yes imo the gov would have behaved differently if looking at a manslaughter/murder prison sentence..

Also im interested in how the herd immunity was decided.
If it was just Bj decision then something needs to change. To protect us alk fron people who cant understand the science and also have the conflict of interest re the economy.
The people running a pandemic need to be independent.
And eg in eu where they had shengen they need it to be together and independent of the gov.

I am convinced they could have got uk manufacturing doing the ppe. It is clear that that needs to be kept within countries with at least the ability to scale up. (Relying on china where 2-3 of the last risks have come from is stupid.).
Also clear we need to have drugs manufacture here. (And hand gel. And warehouses of food)

I am really angry that UK shot itself in a foot by relying on foreign economies so much to the point of not being able to make essential PPE supplies at home and flying overalls from eg Turkey.

Hope it's a lesson for the future: keep jobs in UK.

Just look at figures for countries who have been testing, stopping flights, quarantining travellers, supplying PPE to all HCPs.
The UK is a disgrace.

I am really angry that UK shot itself in a foot by relying on foreign economies so much to the point of not being able to make essential PPE supplies at home and flying overalls from eg Turkey.

Don’t fool yourself thinking that this is happening because the UK cannot rely on producing equipment themselves, they are simply choosing not to order it despite of the number of UK business able to produce them quickly.

@TheMotherofAllDilemmas why do you think this is then?

Well, that would be even worse! But why?

It was truly laughable early on when Boris was asking to buy ventilators from anywhere in the world when other countries were doing that too.

It is sheer lack of organisation.

When a company that has been supplying the stuff to the NHS for 30 years ends up shipping it halfway round the world, having tried to offer it to the NHS for weeks, you have to wonder why. They offered it at the usual price, not an inflated price as has sometimes been reported.

I can't believe this thread isn't running on active. I thought MN would be all over this. Such a disgrace

All this clapping for the NHS is being encouraged as a propaganda exercise. It would have been better to prevent HCPs from dying.One of the HCPs currently seriously ill is a former colleague of DH. He is extremely upset. Many of his friends are still working and are distraught over it all.

I have been trying to raise this with various officials/media for weeks. I have been ridiculed, ignored, shouted down. I hope the people concerned are ashamed.

John Ashton is very brave man.

And HCP's have been told to keep quiet - are we a dictatorship?

At least the media has picked this up now. I can't believe it has taken so long.
I was accused of lying about this by a radio journalist a couple of days before the Turkey shipment was mentioned on the news. Later that day, reports from manufacturers were coming in, saying exactly what I had been trying to raise.

If you voted Tory, what do you think of this?

Ok is your company the PPE company no one wants to talk to because after supplying the NHS with PPE for decades when they need it most you racked your process up 800% and then starting shipping abroad out of spite
And as for the ventilators we haven't needed them
The EU joint deal would have involved Europe deciding how many each country got. We aren't exactly teacher's pet in Europe and Macron had ringfenced new ventilators for France

Didkdt
If that was directed at me,
No.

Still no order placed.
My colleague has a son who is a junior doctor on the front line. He has no PPE except for a paper mask and a plastic apron.
He is BAME too, so probably at higher risk.
I am so upset for them.