Corona Virus

[murphy]

2 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

Well it quite clearly has been. That it has just about been able to add extra capacity by relaxing standards doesn't indicate that extra resources prior to this would have made little difference.

 

 

Well yes, the Nightingale hospitals are testament to the fact that capacity has been expanded to accommodate the extra need, but the point is that anyone who needs care can get it.

 

It would be ridiculous, not to mention ruinous, to routinely run the NHS with tens of thousands of spare capacity though.

[Guest Kopfkino]

18 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I’d love this to be the thing that makes people look into the way we fund the NHS, and look towards the more efficient models in Europe, to how they do it. Unfortunately there is absolutely no way the closed minded would let go of the NHS being anything but 100% state funded. Also I think many (narcissist) enjoy it being the political football they make it. 

 

It's mightily unlikely though. We're far more likely to swap the Union Jack out for the NHS logo and change the national anthem to God Save Our NHS than to even manage a debate about the best way to structure a health service.

[jammie82uk]

35 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

The PPE required for this virus is unprecedented........ and the simultaneous global demand similarly.....

Yet most of the press who ask questions at the daily conference seem to think we are the only ones needing PPE 

like it was said at the conference today it’s not the cost as that don’t matter it’s actually getting hold of any PPE 

 

We currently Have PPE available in this country but it’s a logistical nightmare getting it to the places it needs to be

hospitals that normally have monthly deliveries are now requiring daily deliveries, hospitals that was having 1 or 2 truckloads a month are now needing 30 truck loads a month times that by x amount of hospitals needing supplies and Your talking 100’s if not 1000’s of extra trucks needed to deliver items 

[st albans fox]

24 minutes ago, jammie82uk said:

Yet most of the press who ask questions at the daily conference seem to think we are the only ones needing PPE 

like it was said at the conference today it’s not the cost as that don’t matter it’s actually getting hold of any PPE 

 

We currently Have PPE available in this country but it’s a logistical nightmare getting it to the places it needs to be

hospitals that normally have monthly deliveries are now requiring daily deliveries, hospitals that was having 1 or 2 truckloads a month are now needing 30 truck loads a month times that by x amount of hospitals needing supplies and Your talking 100’s if not 1000’s of extra trucks needed to deliver items 

And I know how much pressure there is on supply from China ......... delivery on sterile surgical masks is 2 weeks, some gowns are simply unavailable till August ..... expect to see ICU NHS staff wearing the hazmat style head to toe suits seen in other parts of the world as these are more available (and expensive). N95 type masks are now twice the price than a month ago and two weeks supply. Nitrile gloves have more than doubled in price in the past week!  And first week may is a holiday in China which puts even more strain on the stretched system. 
 

in addition all supply is 100% payment up front which makes importers even more nervous of what actually arrives ....we’ve seen stories of things being unpacked which weren’t ordered ! 

[bovril]

I think our plan may well end up similar to what Macron announced tonight. 

[Desabafar]

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-10/coronavirus-infection-can-do-lasting-damage-to-the-heart-liver?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

 

Coronavirus infection may cause lasting damage

 

 

i also saw that the UK isn't ruling out that the lab was the source instead of the market. 

 

its all a bit scary, so much unknown and who knows when life will if ever be like we knew it beforehand. hope a vaccine can actually work and be quickly rolled out

[StanSP]

Trump has Abbott-itis/Patel-itis!! (in the interests of fairness, let's play nice )

 

 

 

[WigstonWanderer]

50 minutes ago, Desabafar said:

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-10/coronavirus-infection-can-do-lasting-damage-to-the-heart-liver?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=true

 

Coronavirus infection may cause lasting damage

 

 

i also saw that the UK isn't ruling out that the lab was the source instead of the market. 

 

its all a bit scary, so much unknown and who knows when life will if ever be like we knew it beforehand. hope a vaccine can actually work and be quickly rolled out

The gift that keeps on giving

[yorkie1999]

37 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Trump has Abbott-itis/Patel-itis!! (in the interests of fairness, let's play nice )

 

 

 

Makes you wonder how he actually counts his money

[Beechey]

7 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Makes you wonder how he actually counts his money

It's no wonder he thinks he's so rich despite the bankruptcies

[yorkie1999]

3 hours ago, StanSP said:

It's glaringly obvious they were under-funded for several years. Some hospitals were at breaking point. I don't mean just preparing for this kind of 'once in a generation' event either, just would have been good for them not to suffer so long...

Was it, personally I’ve never had a problem getting to see a doctor, my mums had a lot of problems recently, knees done, falls etc and she’s had no problems getting into hospital, my brother had a hip replacement (warning to all you joggers) and he was in within a month. Maybe other parts of the country are different bet To me, the nhs isn’t as bad as people make out.  Obviously with a world wide viral pandemic there’s going to be problems, but we wouldn’t be able to have 20000-30000 icu beds in readiness, and I know Germany has a lot more beds than us but is that because under normal circumstances, they need more, maybe their population has more unhealthy people living there.

[Stivo]

2 hours ago, murphy said:

Yes, I don't claim to know much about other European health services but I have often wondered why the NHS model. if it's so great, has never been copied.

I am no expert but I thought that the Spanish and Italian National Health Services were very similar to the nhs.

[theessexfox]

3 hours ago, Kopfkino said:

 

It's mightily unlikely though. We're far more likely to swap the Union Jack out for the NHS logo and change the national anthem to God Save Our NHS than to even manage a debate about the best way to structure a health service.

Where’s a good place to start reading up on different healthcare models and the mixed European systems?

[Leicester_Loyal]

The problem with the NHS has always been people misusing it. A&E is always full of pissed up idiots or people who really don't need to be there. We've got people using perscriptions for things like paracetamol rather than buying it for a few pence. People visiting the doctor (prior to Corona) for issues that require staying at home and medication that can be purchased over the counter. Add in to this the fact that there's hundreds of middle management (much like any large Government owned company) who are stealing a salary for not doing a lot and you can see why we have the issues that we do. As someone has already said, even if we doubled the NHS budget, it still wouldn't be enough.

 

What we need is educating, as well as some form of structural reform to try and ensure that the money being spent is being spent well, not wasted. Unfortunately I can't ever see it happening, but hopefully after all this is over changes can be made.

 

I've just read about Macrons lockdown extension, I think we'll go for something similar, but not sure if we'll announce it all in one go. It'd be another 3 weeks in total I'd imagine, which sounds like a lot but we need to get through it (and we will).

[Leicester_Loyal]

As a sidenote, each country thinks that other countries are doing a better job of controlling this than theirs. I've seen German, French, Italian and Spanish reports saying that while there strategy is poor, other countries are doing 'xyz'. The UK media is no different, and no two countries are the same. We can only really look at whose strategy fared the best after all of this is done, and even then we may never be sure due to different circumstances.

[Jattdogg]

 

3 hours ago, MattP said:

I don't ever remember anyone calling for more ICU or ventilators?

 

What this might end up proving is that if people actually look after their health and don't run to A&E for anything and everything we actually have more than enough funding for the service without throwing endless cash at it.

While i dont disagree with this, i do think if people took care of themselves and didn't need A&E as much that the money saved would not go back into the NHS. Let's be honest, the government would probably find a way to misuse the funds elsewhere.

[Guest Kopfkino]

13 minutes ago, theessexfox said:

Where’s a good place to start reading up on different healthcare models and the mixed European systems?

 

The Health in Transition series for individual countries is good. They're 200 page reports but the executive summary and introductions usually give a detailed overview for how healthcare is structured and delivered, and then you can look at any of the rest that may be of interest. Sometimes we tend to generalise and pretend lots of these places have homogenous approaches so it's useful to look at individual countries to see the complexity and uniqueness of each approach. 

 

I guess pick some of the following to look at a range of different approaches Germany, Netherlands, France (centralised like the UK but funded and run a little differently), Israel, Switzerland, Finland (really decentralised and just failed to deliver reform). I guess Spain is an example most similar to the UK, the two most alike in terms of a big focus on a free primary care system. 

[fuchsntf]

1 hour ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

The problem with the NHS has always been people misusing it. A&E is always full of pissed up idiots or people who really don't need to be there. We've got people using perscriptions for things like paracetamol rather than buying it for a few pence. People visiting the doctor (prior to Corona) for issues that require staying at home and medication that can be purchased over the counter. Add in to this the fact that there's hundreds of middle management (much like any large Government owned company) who are stealing a salary for not doing a lot and you can see why we have the issues that we do. As someone has already said, even if we doubled the NHS budget, it still wouldn't be enough.

 

What we need is educating, as well as some form of structural reform to try and ensure that the money being spent is being spent well, not wasted. Unfortunately I can't ever see it happening, but hopefully after all this is over changes can be made.

 

I've just read about Macrons lockdown extension, I think we'll go for something similar, but not sure if we'll announce it all in one go. It'd be another 3 weeks in total I'd imagine, which sounds like a lot but we need to get through it (and we will).

its because,modern Management play %s,The Wards need more doctors,more nurses,and Not doubleshifts.Being asked to do OTT /unnecessary Admin work..

Not enough Specialized equipment. Hospitals who Specialise being closed down.Creating no Local Specialist( heart,cancer,etc) support in many areas,Cut in Ambulance services,Cut in Convalescence- care.Cuts in care-services...

Not enough individual qualified Medical staff being kept on,being Counted as a rescource,like a felt tip pen.

 

Not respected,neither the Profession needs in quaification,or sacrifice nor  Financially recognised neither from inside-organisations,Politicians,Government,but worse of all society..!!!

Only now,when the Need reached desperation..!!!  One reason the Profession since the Late 60s,seen several "Braindrains", even from 3-4 generation highly qualified immigrants...

[leicsmac]

With respect to healthcare systems, the one we have over here (one nationalised and centralised insurance option, accepted everywhere and pretty much meaning free at the point of service, but not necessarily the same "government" employer at all hospitals across the country) seems to have done pretty well over here, but I might suspect there are more important factors at play here in terms of how well each country has dealt with the problem so far.

[Stivo]

7 hours ago, theessexfox said:

Where’s a good place to start reading up on different healthcare models and the mixed European systems?

The best place to start might be the Wikipedia Page on Universal Health Care and follow the links to e.g countries with universal health care.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care

 

 

I would argue that there is much less difference in funding than you might imagine at first reading even where the health service is funded by insurance schemes.
 

E.g in Germany there is a compulsory 14% payroll  health insurance ( split 50:50 employee/ employer) which pays into a state approved non profit  insurance funds which reimburse hospitals and doctors.

Is that so different to an income tax (or a national insurance like tax) being used to pay nhs hospital trusts?

 

in Germany high earners and the self employed can opt out if they take out private insurance which provides the same cover as the compulsory scheme but can e.g provide extra private benefits.

 

That isn’t so different to the equivalent here with  high earners having BUPA whch acts as a topup to the nhs.

 

european countries spend similar proportions of gdp on health in the range 9-11% with the nhs towards the bottom of that (9.2) and Germany the top and with a bigger gdp...

 

 

 

 

[The whole world smiles]

9 hours ago, yorkie1999 said:

Was it, personally I’ve never had a problem getting to see a doctor, my mums had a lot of problems recently, knees done, falls etc and she’s had no problems getting into hospital, my brother had a hip replacement (warning to all you joggers) and he was in within a month. Maybe other parts of the country are different bet To me, the nhs isn’t as bad as people make out.  Obviously with a world wide viral pandemic there’s going to be problems, but we wouldn’t be able to have 20000-30000 icu beds in readiness, and I know Germany has a lot more beds than us but is that because under normal circumstances, they need more, maybe their population has more unhealthy people living there.

Yeah my wife works in the NHS and its widely regarded by pretty much everyone who works in it as having issues with low pay (pay rises have been less than 1% up until last year whilst inflation has been at 3% so staff have been getting poorer year on year). Staff shortages (I think I read they are short 30,000 nurses country wide), staff morale, lack of beds especially in winter. I get that it's still a good service but it's declined considerably in the last 10 years.

[RumbleFox]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-prince-andrew-packs-hospice-gift-bags-in-rare-public-appearance-11971885

 

I know I should have learned by now but now and then I’m still genuinely shocked at how stupid they think we all are. X 

[StanSP]

 

 

[Finnaldo]

15 minutes ago, StanSP said:

 

 

So we’re standing at about 17,000 deaths right? 
 

Situation in care homes sounds horrific. I feel for carers, not trained for this situation and why would they be? Must be a living nightmare.

[l444ry]

1 minute ago, Finnaldo said:

So we’re standing at about 17,000 deaths right? 
 

Situation in care homes sounds horrific. I feel for carers, not trained for this situation and why would they be? Must be a living nightmare.

Up until April 3rd. Situation worse than that by the looks of it.