The NHS response to the Pandemic.

The public have a right to feel ABANDONED...
...in many ways they were.

But give me a moment to convince you: it was NOT the NHS that abandoned the public...it was our Leadership who abandoned us all.

[RT pls - people need to know].
1/10
2/10
All but the most suggestible would agree: the UK have sh*t the bed with COVID-19. A series of colossal and deadly failures led to the highest mortality rate in Europe,...
3/10
..one of the worst economic declines in the world, and a devastating effect on non-COVID diseases.
4/10
Access to healthcare (or lack of) was amongst the greatest failures. This was not a policy made by individual doctors or nurses. Nor was it anything to do with the NHS-model of healthcare. It was a very clear, discoverable series of CENTRAL decisions and policies.
5/10
The public were being told to STAY HOME. At the same time, doctors and nurses were being told that a plastic apron and a loose fitting mask would protect them against a deadly AIRBORNE pathogen.
6/10
Those who contracted SARS-CoV-2 were also being told to stay home, without anyone checking in on them and without any way to monitor their severity. Their 'follow-up' would not be through their GP...but through a non-clinical Test & Trace system (at a cost of £36bn).
7/10
Overnight, in March 2020, the NHS suffered the worst bed-cut in it's history. That's right, during a pandemic, knowing there will be thousands of additional patients, our Leaders shrunk the NHS further. We still have less beds than before the pandemic.
8/10
And now, as the true debacle of the UK's pandemic response begins to emerge, those responsible are looking for others to blame...GPs, the NHS, the public,..

instead of taking responsibility for the decisions they made.
9/10
No doubt within the NHS there were individual successes and failures. But the systemic failures typifying the national response stem from CENTRAL decision-making and central policies.
10/10
For those who want the evidence of the policies and a more detailed explanation of what actually happened, I provide some below.

For those who are in no doubt where the responsibility lay...make some noise!
END.
#YourNHSNeedsYou
#CovidInquiryNow
yournhsneedsyou.com
Additional Info 1.
Patients were pushed to an online and non-clinical platform for medical advice.

Add info 2.
Testing, triage, and follow-up was assigned to non-clinical, unqualified, often commercial providers (instead of primary or secondary NHS services).

Add Info 3.
Here's a more detailed analysis of the policies that led to (and are continuing to lead to) restricted access to healthcare during this ongoing pandemic

thelancet.com/journals/lanep…
Add Info 4.
There was (and is) a strong reluctance to provide any funding to the NHS. Instead private companies - who failed to deliver - were preferred, and this continues...

Add Info 5.
Whether or not such neglect of the NHS is wilful or not...you decide...

And now we face what will be a brutal winter with less capacity than before the pandemic began...

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More from @danielgoyal

29 Oct
The NHS needs MORE CAPACITY!

NOW!

At the start of the pandemic The UK Government reduced NHS bed capacity. The further into Winter we get the more catastrophic this failure/decision becomes.

There is still time...

1/5

Make Some Noise!
RT pls

#YourNHSNeedsYou
#COVID19
2/5
The math is quite easy:

Going into the Winter we normally have 15% bed capacity available. We currently have 5%.

6% of beds taken up by COVID-19 patients
+
4% of beds cut at the start of the pandemic (was 8%)

That is the 10% loss. Or a 70% reduction in bed availability.
3/5
Almost every other country in the world increased basic care capacity..

It was one of the first things the World Health Organisation advised.

More people to treat = more capacity to treat them.
Read 6 tweets
28 Oct
Why didn't you follow the WHO guidelines and increase basic healthcare capacity?...Why leave us with less beds to deal with more patients?

And why, after 20 months, do we still have less beds than before the pandemic?

[Counts as one question!..my tweet, my rules 😉]
@IanMaher7 @trishgreenhalgh @dgurdasani1 @DrSimonHodes @DrAmirKhanGP @DrSelvarajah @chrischirp @Kit_Yates_Maths @martinmckee @alisonleary1 @Katynurse27 @TigressEllie So far, in this entirely uncontrolled biased sample, and assuming we permit democracy to rule..
Why didn't we follow sage advice sept; increase hospital capacity; listen to other nations/WHO, and why CMO is not independent..
Keep them coming...repetition allowed, as is venting...
Read 4 tweets
27 Oct
To those that use the NHS,

You will have no doubt heard about the pressures on the NHS just now. It is true, we are worried. We have begun this Winter under considerable strain - more than usual. And, I won't lie, we expect things to get worse.
1/15
#NHS
We have little capacity - both emotional or beds. We are short staffed, and on top of all this we have a pandemic to deal with.
I understand you too may be running out of capacity... to face even more calamity after a calamitous 20 months. You too must be worried.
2/15
Firstly, can I say, we are still here. We get up in the morning (or night) and come to work. We donn our PPE, roll up our sleeves and face the avalanche of patients, requests, relatives, battle-hardened colleagues, and a pathogen that we have lost many colleagues to.
3/15
Read 19 tweets
26 Oct
The government's £6bn NHS investment for waiting lists is...

...too little,
...too late,
and raises further concerns about the priorities of this government.

theguardian.com/society/2021/o…
Firstly, don't be fooled. Investment into waiting lists are unavoidable. The restricted access during the pandemic mean a catch-up initiative was always going to be needed.

The first question: would more decisive leadership have led to less restriction to care and less backlog?
The second: how much have the years of underinvestment in the NHS worsened the problem?

The waiting lists have been growing massively under this government prior to COVID.

[source BBC - chart is over 10 years]
Read 16 tweets
24 Oct
Summary thread (for me too).

Clinical care for COVID-19 in the UK: shortcomings and lessons to be learned.

+

My view on what next...
Here, I summarise the threads I have written over the last couple of months.

It will tell part of the story of the UK's national response from a clinical perspective.

I have attached the previous threads only for those who wish more detail.
There are several critical failures in the clinical pandemic response, including:
1. The Herd Immunity Strategy
2. Reducing basic healthcare capacity
3. Bypassing primary care triage for non-clinical Covid triage
4. No Covid follow-up service
Read 23 tweets
22 Oct
The truth about the GP crisis...from a non-GP doctor.

I share this with you for 3 reasons:

1. To highlight the source (and fault) of the current GP crisis.

2. Because the primary care crisis is at a critical point and can be salvaged.

3. Public support matters.
We go back to March 2020, when all the health service staff were preparing for the arrival of this new, unknown pathogen. We were all nervous.

Those who expected to be right in the thick of it were:

Primary care - GPs, DN's, receptionists, etc
A&E (+ paramedics)
Medicine
ICU
For those who don't know, the typical pathway begins with the GP or Practice Nurse..

they assess, then either test and send home with advice, or send to A&E for further assessment...

if deemed 'unwell', they are admitted to medics.

That is what we were preparing for.
Read 20 tweets

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