So are suggesting those running the country are less valuable than someone working in a care home?

i think we all know the answer to this.

[listYes, Brown was criticised in the press for purchasing swine flu vaccines - but not widely beyond the usual inflammatory press as far as I recall. It was largely seen as a sensible move thankfully rendered unnecessary. Remember, the press do not always reflect public opinion - as we've seen with their nit-picking criticism of police enforcement of the lockdown. The public are so overwhelmingly in support of the police and enforcing the lockdown, one wonders why the press would dare go on the attack.

Hard to comment on the purchase of faulty COVID19 tests without having been behind the scenes. Perhaps the Chinese insisted on a 'sold as seen' basis knowing the world's governments are desperate? Other countries are going through the exact same problem with Chinese test orders right now. Who knows. Perhaps instead we should be aiming any anger at the feckin con artists who sold us duff tests, and reconsidering our future relationships?

As for Gove - see, this is the sort of irrelevant crap the left bang on about. Gove is a member of the Cabinet. Like it or not, he has a far more senior standing in the running of the country than pretty much all of us, and things run better when the Cabinet is functioning and able to make decisions. I have no issue with his daughter being tested - or indeed family members of the Cabinet if they are displaying symptoms. Statistically it's an utterly insignificant number of tests in the grand scheme of things. Yes, in reality it's probably as much for Gove's peace of mind as it is to allow him to keep working but again - like it or not, seniority has its privileges. Whatever, move on, it really doesn't matter. He got the nod for the test from Whitty and that will do for me.

Dont know if this is the post that you wanted me to read.

You are letting Hancock and Patel off the hook completely.

As you suggest, the "story" that has been fed to us is that "there IS sufficient PPE to go round" and that any issues with lack of "equipment" is purely down to distribution and nothing at all to do with being a little slow out of the blocks or to do with not having sufficient.

There is an attempt to throw telephone numbers of total numbers of PPE is playground stuff and the bottom line is it doesn't matter how many boxes or pallets there are in a central warehouse, the equipment needs to be in the right place at the right time.
Of course, this cant all be controlled at government level, it's an absolutely huge task of procurement and distribution, made all the more difficult by both the urgency of the situation and world demand plus, problems in manufacture.
However, why not have some honesty instead of the "it's not our fault", which is all that the government ministers have said, deflecting all blame away from themselves.

As for being flanked by experts, you clearly aren't a cynical as me (probably a good thing) but, for all other government issues, they are usually happy to take their advice in private and then decide policy and while accepting that the current crisis is on a whole new level, given the crap that Johnson & Co have come up with of so many previous occasions, you can easily see that, given the gravity of the situation, they dont want any of the brown stuff sticking to them.

I can tell you unequivocally, without any exaggeration and straight from the front line, that this is simply not true. My services were meant to receive an initial allocation of PPE - about half did - the other half didn't, and still haven't. There is an NHS procurement helpline we're supposed to call - it either rings out, or they don't have the equipment to send us - and we are, on a per location basis, looking for fairly modest amounts. It's an absolute joke.

We've solved it ourselves in the end, but at approximately 4 times the usual cost.

Re testing - the DHSC has finally rolled out a pilot of testing sites for SC staff; the roll out happened over Easter Weekend, and I got emails for all 72 of my sites - most of which were directing my staff in say, Nottingham, to go to a testing site in Gateshead - and only under some very prescriptive and complex circumstances. I managed to unpick it this morning and instructed local Managers to book people in for tests - all have thus far been unable to, due to lack of availability.

We are being failed; and as a result, the most vulnerable people in society are being put at extreme risk.

Bren, as you know, I was trying to reply to Cronus and I used the words "story" and "fed" quite deliberately and as I suggested, there is a world of difference in having stock in a warehouse and needing to use something "on the front line".
It's like the supermarkets telling us that there wasn't a supply issue with toilet roll but, if you cant buy it and you have none, there is a problem.
Granted the PPE issue is way more serious and the true colours shine through quite clearly, when Tory ministers blame the nurses and other frontline staff for not using it properly.
You would think that given their leader has received excellent care and says that these same people saved his life that, the Tory ministers may be just a little more honest and admit the supply line problems but, not a bloody chance.

Btw, how are you supposed to get your staff to Gateshead for testing ??

As a private business surely it your responsibility to your employees to provide them with PPE? If you have failed to do so surely that is failing at your end and there is nobody else to blame but the procurement team within your organisation? I have watched plenty of medical professionals on the morning news and despite prompting from the likes of Piers and Naga it is a while since you have heard any say they don't have enough ventilators or PPE - how many items have actually been delivered in the last month 700m+? Much to the disappointment of both

https://www.indy100.com/article/mps-vot ... st-9462946

https://www.indy100.com/article/mps-vot ... st-9462946

The government’s sudden interest in looking after care workers is as a result of the bad press they are receiving. They are once again being reactive and even then they are only offering tests if needed not to all. They I believe have like all sectors closest to the virus tested 1000 care workers out of roughly 300,000.
The longer this goes on the government’s failures will continue to be highlighted be it testing or lack of PPE.

The Government have done the right thing i.e. prioritise the NHS - they would have been slaughtered if they hadn't - care homes are private businesses that charge £20-30k a patient a year - surely it is their responsibility to provide their staff with the appropriate PPE?

What is the average annual charge for a resident £20-30k - so how you can even consider looking at deflecting blame for your employees not having the correct PPE is typical of you and your politics.

Testing has been a major issue that the government has failed miserably to implement.

What the f**k are you talking about?



Correct - and it remains so - and will look even worse when they utterly fail to get anywhere near Boris Johnson's solemn promise of 100k tests per day, the deadline for which was in 2 weeks time.

For accuracy Johnson failed promise was 25,000 tests by now it was Hancock who said 100,000 by the end of April. What proves the government failure on testing is that currently they have a capacity to perform 19,000 a day but are only utilising 14,500 they can’t even do enough to fill the woeful limit they have.