COVID-19 UK & Beyond

[P.K.]

1 hour ago, wrighty said:

Well you'd better report me then.  And all my colleagues.  We are currently failing to provide, for example, joint replacement services to patients that could benefit greatly from them if only we had not diverted the whole health service to preparing for and dealing with covid.  I really think you have no idea of how health services work PK.  I'd like nothing better than to go into the hospital and do a good day's work in the operating theatre but I can't.  We don't have beds - due to covid.  We don't have theatre capacity - due to covid.  Pre-assessment is not fully online - due to covid.  Clinic throughput is reduced - due to covid.

The upshot is that patients cannot access appropriate elective healthcare services due to covid.  So as I'm one of the healthcare professionals paid to manage that situation, and clearly in your view failing to do so, you'd better contact the GMC.

@wrighty

You obviously do not like the service configuration as is right now but do you agree with it?

For info who actually makes the decisions re service levels and is there political input?

Thanks.

[TheTeapot]

Pretty sure that any defenders of the Boris regime will describe it as a hit piece, but Dispatches on C4 has just torn the UK gov a new hole on their response to the virus. And I still think they were mild about it. 

[wrighty]

52 minutes ago, P.K. said:

@wrighty

You obviously do not like the service configuration as is right now but do you agree with it?

For info who actually makes the decisions re service levels and is there political input?

Thanks.

You accused me of sarcasm previously - I think frustration better describes my state of being right now. No I don’t like the current service configuration. It was absolutely necessary a few weeks ago, and I cannot criticise either the medics, the management or the politicians with regard to how things here were managed a few weeks ago - I was a part of that process and I stand by the decisions we made. 
 

Now though I’m frustrated with where we are.  There is no known covid on island, but the guidelines are that we treat everyone as though they might be positive. I absolutely understand the risk is not zero, but the risk (of other things) never was zero. It’s slowing everything down.  In a fracture clinic, the most basic of orthopaedic roles, I could see 12 patients in an hour.  I now see the same number in a whole morning. 
 

The decisions re service levels are wholly clinically led. The politicians may rubber stamp, but clinicians decide.  The issue is that we are all guided by professional bodies who are invariably UK based. We feel damned if we do and damned if we don’t. We need Manx guidance, given our zero viral load, but are looking over our shoulders towards UK threat levels. And if we get it wrong, for whatever reason, it’s the UK standards we’ll be judged against.

Does that answer your points? 

[woolley]

4 minutes ago, wrighty said:

You accused me of sarcasm previously - I think frustration better describes my state of being right now. No I don’t like the current service configuration. It was absolutely necessary a few weeks ago, and I cannot criticise either the medics, the management or the politicians with regard to how things here were managed a few weeks ago - I was a part of that process and I stand by the decisions we made. 
 

Now though I’m frustrated with where we are.  There is no known covid on island, but the guidelines are that we treat everyone as though they might be positive. I absolutely understand the risk is not zero, but the risk (of other things) never was zero. It’s slowing everything down.  In a fracture clinic, the most basic of orthopaedic roles, I could see 12 patients in an hour.  I now see the same number in a whole morning. 
 

The decisions re service levels are wholly clinically led. The politicians may rubber stamp, but clinicians decide.  The issue is that we are all guided by professional bodies who are invariably UK based. We feel damned if we do and damned if we don’t. We need Manx guidance, given our zero viral load, but are looking over our shoulders towards UK threat levels. And if we get it wrong, for whatever reason, it’s the UK standards we’ll be judged against.

Does that answer your points? 

I am wondering what the various specialists who are not being allowed to specialise are doing with their time. I appreciate that there will be some like yourself with alternative skills who can be very useful in the pandemic response, but what about the rest? Are they laid off? Or are they performing "security duties" outside the hospital along with the "redeployed" railway staff.

We have people desperate for those services and a hospital reconfigured for something that isn't happening. Whole carnival seems nuts to me.

[P.K.]

55 minutes ago, wrighty said:

You accused me of sarcasm previously - I think frustration better describes my state of being right now. No I don’t like the current service configuration. It was absolutely necessary a few weeks ago, and I cannot criticise either the medics, the management or the politicians with regard to how things here were managed a few weeks ago - I was a part of that process and I stand by the decisions we made. 
 

Now though I’m frustrated with where we are.  There is no known covid on island, but the guidelines are that we treat everyone as though they might be positive. I absolutely understand the risk is not zero, but the risk (of other things) never was zero. It’s slowing everything down.  In a fracture clinic, the most basic of orthopaedic roles, I could see 12 patients in an hour.  I now see the same number in a whole morning. 
 

The decisions re service levels are wholly clinically led. The politicians may rubber stamp, but clinicians decide.  The issue is that we are all guided by professional bodies who are invariably UK based. We feel damned if we do and damned if we don’t. We need Manx guidance, given our zero viral load, but are looking over our shoulders towards UK threat levels. And if we get it wrong, for whatever reason, it’s the UK standards we’ll be judged against.

Does that answer your points? 

It most certainly does and thank you.

The frustration is obvious. Especially if you are following UK guidelines when they clearly no longer apply to the island. Are they directives issued by PHE? Because that's an organisation that hasn't exactly covered itself in glory in recent times.

Pity you can't reconfigure to a sort-of halfway house.

What does it take to free the logjam?

[P.K.]

Here we go. The first salvo at Bozo and his Bungling Brexiteers over the shambles that is their handling of the pandemic. Their SME's were saying 20k fatalities would be a good result. We are now over twice that:

UK ministers face legal challenge for refusal to order PPE inquiry 

Ministers are facing a high court legal challenge after they refused to order an urgent investigation into the shortages of personal protective equipment faced by NHS staff during the coronavirus pandemic.

Doctors, lawyers and campaigners for older people’s welfare issued proceedings on Monday which they hope will lead to a judicial review of the government’s efforts to ensure that health professionals and social care staff had enough PPE to keep them safe.

They want to compel ministers to hold an independent inquiry into PPE and ensure staff in settings looking after Covid-19 patients will be able to obtain the gowns, masks, eye protection and gloves they need if, as many doctors fear, there is a second wave of the disease.

About 300 UK health workers have so far died of Covid-19, and many NHS staff groups and families claim inadequate PPE played a key role in exposing them.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/08/uk-ministers-face-legal-challenge-for-refusal-to-order-ppe-inquiry

[Uhtred]

After that exceptionally poor performance presenting his latest Covid-19 proposals this evening, not withstanding that he was only elected as party leader last year, Johnson, in my opinion, will soon have the skids under him. He’s embarrassing his party. The vultures - Sunak, Gove, Hunt, are circling, and they scent blood.

Edited June 10, 2020 by Uhtred

[P.K.]

1 hour ago, Uhtred said:

After that exceptionally poor performance presenting his latest Covid-19 proposals this evening, not withstanding that he was only elected as party leader last year, Johnson, in my opinion, will soon have the skids under him. He’s embarrassing his party. The vultures - Sunak, Gove, Hunt, are circling, and they scent blood.

I'm not so sure.

His backers have put up a lot of dosh to get their precious brexit. Being venture capitalists the harder the better.

Sure they're having a bit of a wobble right now as according to the Excess "Boris Wants To Fix Unfair Brexit Deal" which is the deal Bozo struck with the EU and then told all and sundry how wonderful it was.

So clearly a tiny chink of reality has spilled into what passes for Bozo's reality.

Being in the middle of a pandemic and with UK PLC's finances shot to shit only a completely amoral moron would want an EU exit in January.

Step foward Bozo Johnson.

That's the thing. Bozo is probably the only one stupid enough to let it happen because in Bozo's world consequences are the awful things that only ever catch up with other people....

Edited June 10, 2020 by P.K.

[Uhtred]

1 hour ago, P.K. said:

I'm not so sure.

His backers have put up a lot of dosh to get their precious brexit. Being venture capitalists the harder the better.

Sure they're having a bit of a wobble right now as according to the Excess "Boris Wants To Fix Unfair Brexit Deal" which is the deal Bozo struck with the EU and then told all and sundry how wonderful it was.

So clearly a tiny chink of reality has spilled into what passes for Bozo's reality.

Being in the middle of a pandemic and with UK PLC's finances shot to shit only a completely amoral moron would want an EU exit in January.

Step foward Bozo Johnson.

That's the thing. Bozo is probably the only one stupid enough to let it happen because in Bozo's world consequences are the awful things that only ever catch up with other people....

You are completely correct that Bozo is the stooge of shadowy and potent forces busting a gut for EU exit - some of whom are less shadowy and in the Tory Parliamentary Party. And of course he and his cheerleaders at the Mail and Telegraph did a splendid job lying, bamboozling and dog-whistling the hard of thinking into going along with it. But...once Brexit is over, Johnson’s purpose is met. And he’s demonstrably a shockingly bad PM. (He’s not alone of course; with the exception of Sunak every Cabinet Minister that’s been paraded on Coronavirus duty has been frankly awful - most particularly Raab and Patel, with Hancock close behind). If, as seems likely, the Tories start to slump in the polls and, just as likely, Starmer out-performs Bozo both inside and outside the Commons chamber, things will rapidly look bleak for De Pfeffel. The Tories are ruthless bastards; they’ll have him dropped the instant he looks like a liability. And I’d say that’s not so far off.

[woolley]

Looks like a lot of wishful thinking there, boys. They don't have to bust a gut for Brexit. We already have it. Just the future relationship being discussed.

[P.K.]

17 minutes ago, woolley said:

Looks like a lot of wishful thinking there, boys. They don't have to bust a gut for Brexit. We already have it. Just the future relationship being discussed.

Which, of course, isn't the important bit!

There's a definite air of Bozo unreality creeping in here....

[woolley]

56 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Which, of course, isn't the important bit!

There's a definite air of Bozo unreality creeping in here....

It's no big deal. The EU is a busted flush. It's finished.

[P.K.]

8 hours ago, woolley said:

It's no big deal. The EU is a busted flush. It's finished.

With the massive financial hit by Covid-19 that's entirely possible.

In just over a week or so I guess we'll find out:

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/covid-19-coronavirus-outbreak-and-the-eu-s-response

[P.K.]

Coronavirus: Dexamethasone proves first life-saving drug

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281

 

 

 

[TheTeapot]

I guess people are pretty bored of the virus now, and insulated from the bad stuff by living here have almost forgotten it is still actually a thing. Here's a fun graph