One of the lessons I take form the PPE shortages is that we in the UK and EU should not rely on the far east and Asis to manufacture all our goods. We need to keep skills and capacity at home so we can shift up a gear when needed.
I do remember there being companies specialising in clothing and costumes who offered to use their skills to supply PPE but were turned down by the UK govt. Politicians seem to have a built-in failure these days to see what's under their nose and act wisely.
Depends which company they have shares in or will give them a backhander. 😡
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Then I would suggest, having a pandemic review becomes pointless. It is a Gov/country thing, not NHS - isn't it? Putting in place measures to mitigate the effects of a pandemic is the whole point of a pandemic review - being prepared (as best you can be).
NHS departments typically work to annual budgets, with penalties for overspending, and penalties for underspending ( it’s assumed that if you underspend, you didn’t need that much money, and next years budget is reduced ) I’m not aware that there is usually money unaccounted for to stockpile supplies for future use, let alone an emergency and unprecedented increase in requirements.
I suspect any pandemic review would have been likely to use SARS as the baseline for calculation. SARS was nothing like as virulent and fast spreading as Covid19. Whatever was decided in the pandemic it certainly fell short of what ended up being required, but nothing like Covid19 was predicted, or planned for, by any Government as far as I'm aware.
I think some of you might be surprised just how much planning there was regarding pandemics, at least by the medical profession, however Governments of all hues won't [ can't ] afford what it would entail.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
@punkdoc, thanks for the observations about planning by the medical profession. In this instance I think it really is a case of can't afford. Just one example is the emergency hospitals which were set up and never used. How much did they cost and was effectively wasted. It could be argued that there should be more hospitals anyway, but then we run into the same staffing issues that already exist. In an ideal world all the problems would be solved, but we have to exist in the real world.
Successive governments encourage the electorate to expect to pay as little tax as possible, rather than asking what services the electorate expects and being honest about how much the required standard of care would cost.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Really fortunate here that the Nightingale Hospital in Exeter ( formerly a branch of Homebase!) was taken over by the local hospital trust, and is now used, among other things, for day case hip replacements, and eye surgery. There are also facilities for MRI, Cat scans and ultrasounds. Great that the set up money wasn’t wasted, and helping to reduce local waiting lists.
Is it a false economy though? How much was spent on PPE after the pandemic hit, compared to what could have been saved by providing some additional buffer cover pre-pandemic? And isn't that always going to be the case - once a pandemic hits, medical kit is at a premium.
...what could that £10bn have bought pre-pandemic in way of PPE? And given we had £15bn back from Brexit.....as widely advertised on a red bus.
Wasn't the panic to buy additional PPE one of the driving forces behind the £10bn farce? - we would obviously never have had enough PPE(how could anyone) but we may have had enough time to set proper purchasing procedures in place.
It will be interesting to see what the inquiry makes of it all.
The bottom line, @steveTu, is that there would not have been the room anywhere to store the amount of PPE required, so it had to be bought on a month by month basis. Therefore although money could have been saved, it is not as much as you might think. The bigger issue with regard to PPE, is, who the contracts were given too, and the money that was wasted there.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border