ChaoticMusings

The NHS was never on track to be overwhelmed with coronavirus patients this winter but No10 was forced to hit the lockdown panic button because of its 'gloomster' scientific advisers, top experts fumed today.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned the health service could collapse and seriously ill non-Covid patients could be turned away unless Covid-19's resurgence is nipped in the bud.

But eminent doctors and scientists told MailOnline ministers had got their priorities twisted by sacrificing people's physical and mental wellbeing to save the NHS — which was designed to protect the people.

They claimed wards are no busier than they normally are at this time of year and that a large chunk of the people being treated for Covid-19 were either already in hospital when they caught the virus or would've been admitted for other reasons.

Oxford University's Professor Carl Heneghan, an expert in evidence-based medicine and practicing GP, said his analysis suggested a fifth of infected patients in the NHS acquired the virus in hospital, meaning they were already taking up a bed before contracting the disease.

NHS England has about 140,000 beds at its disposal - including capacity at the seven Nightingale hospital built during the first wave and thousands of beds commandeered from the private sector - and currently there are just shy of 10,500 Covid-19 patients in its hospitals. It means people with the disease are occupying fewer than 10 per cent of the health service's overall capacity.

Leaked documents suggest the NHS on a national scale is actually treating fewer patients than it was last year. Just 84 per cent of all hospital beds were occupied across the country on Tuesday, according to the document, which is lower than the 92 per cent recorded over the autumn of 2019.

It is true that a small handful of hospitals in hotspots in the North West are under strain after bearing the brunt of a surge in infections in recent months. But Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, said: 'This is supposed to be a national health service, if Leeds' ICU is full, we can send patients to Newcastle, for example. We do it all the time, for other conditions.'

Both Professor Sikora and Professor Heneghan claimed the health service is put under pressure every winter from other seasonal illnesses - due to having the lowest bed capacity per population in Europe - yet it manages to come out the other side without the need for the UK to adopt crude interventions.

Another senior NHS intensive care doctor made similar comments to MailOnline but claimed they were silenced by health bosses, who threatened them with disciplinary action if they contradicted the hospital data used to justify the lockdown.

One told this website: 'It is my personal view a lockdown was not needed right now, the data they've used has been conveniently sampled. The official rationale from the Government will be to ensure people are safe and lives are saved but I think the real reason is they do not want to receive the same criticism they did the first time round.

The first lockdown, while successful in protecting the NHS from being overwhelmed with Covid-19, has had a catastrophic effect on healthcare across the board. There were 27million fewer GP appointments than normal during the shut down, raising fears it led to the worsening of other conditions such as asthma and diabetes.

Tens of thousands less people than average went for cancer checks during that time and there were hundreds more deaths from heart attacks. Nearly a million people have lost their jobs since March and, when the furlough scheme ends next year, this is expected to rise again.

I doubt her experience in a small corner of Cornwall is representative of what NHS workers have gone through elsewhere.

Well this was published over 2 weeks ago, so someone is releasing wrong information.


www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/18/revealed-some-manchester-area-hospitals-already-full

Digger wrote:

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The NHS was never on track to be overwhelmed with coronavirus patients this winter but No10 was forced to hit the lockdown panic button because of its 'gloomster' scientific advisers, top experts fumed today.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned the health service could collapse and seriously ill non-Covid patients could be turned away unless Covid-19's resurgence is nipped in the bud.

But eminent doctors and scientists told MailOnline ministers had got their priorities twisted by sacrificing people's physical and mental wellbeing to save the NHS — which was designed to protect the people.

They claimed wards are no busier than they normally are at this time of year and that a large chunk of the people being treated for Covid-19 were either already in hospital when they caught the virus or would've been admitted for other reasons.

Oxford University's Professor Carl Heneghan, an expert in evidence-based medicine and practicing GP, said his analysis suggested a fifth of infected patients in the NHS acquired the virus in hospital, meaning they were already taking up a bed before contracting the disease.

NHS England has about 140,000 beds at its disposal - including capacity at the seven Nightingale hospital built during the first wave and thousands of beds commandeered from the private sector - and currently there are just shy of 10,500 Covid-19 patients in its hospitals. It means people with the disease are occupying fewer than 10 per cent of the health service's overall capacity.

Leaked documents suggest the NHS on a national scale is actually treating fewer patients than it was last year. Just 84 per cent of all hospital beds were occupied across the country on Tuesday, according to the document, which is lower than the 92 per cent recorded over the autumn of 2019.

It is true that a small handful of hospitals in hotspots in the North West are under strain after bearing the brunt of a surge in infections in recent months. But Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, said: 'This is supposed to be a national health service, if Leeds' ICU is full, we can send patients to Newcastle, for example. We do it all the time, for other conditions.'

Both Professor Sikora and Professor Heneghan claimed the health service is put under pressure every winter from other seasonal illnesses - due to having the lowest bed capacity per population in Europe - yet it manages to come out the other side without the need for the UK to adopt crude interventions.

Another senior NHS intensive care doctor made similar comments to MailOnline but claimed they were silenced by health bosses, who threatened them with disciplinary action if they contradicted the hospital data used to justify the lockdown.

One told this website: 'It is my personal view a lockdown was not needed right now, the data they've used has been conveniently sampled. The official rationale from the Government will be to ensure people are safe and lives are saved but I think the real reason is they do not want to receive the same criticism they did the first time round.

The first lockdown, while successful in protecting the NHS from being overwhelmed with Covid-19, has had a catastrophic effect on healthcare across the board. There were 27million fewer GP appointments than normal during the shut down, raising fears it led to the worsening of other conditions such as asthma and diabetes.

Tens of thousands less people than average went for cancer checks during that time and there were hundreds more deaths from heart attacks. Nearly a million people have lost their jobs since March and, when the furlough scheme ends next year, this is expected to rise again.

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 I know of Heneghan. I've heard a lot from him in various articles and on some radio stations. He's very well qualified in the area.

There is more and more heat being aimed at Vallance and Witty of late. Personally I also don't particularly trust them. Using 3 week old data in the press conference the other day reinforced that a little more. 

She went on to claim that the flu and Covid cases are now recorded as 'the same thing' on death certificates.

That^^ from your first post, yeah I've heard that before. 

It's very difficult to know what to think at times now. I still find it strange how France, Spain, Italy, UK. Seem to do things basically in tandem, the virus goes crazy pretty much in unison. Actually this time around even more so the case.

-- Edited by JP on Thursday 5th of November 2020 07:49:12 PM

I've just had an interesting convo on the phone with a friend who lives in Exeter. She works for the NHS. At the hospital one of the staff members complained of Covid symptoms including loss of taste and smell. instead of sending her home or for testing, the manager told her she had to stay as they were short staffed. This friend of mine then complained, saying the woman should be tested and sent home. A huge row ensued, so she went over the manager's head, and told the top brass. The woman was tested positive for Covid and sent home. But not before she spent a whole day contaminating all and sundry including going down to the canteen to eat. The manager had to apologise to my friend and received a warning.

What a state of affairs!

Digger wrote:

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I've just had an interesting convo on the phone with a friend who lives in Exeter. She works for the NHS. At the hospital one of the staff members complained of Covid symptoms including loss of taste and smell. instead of sending her home or for testing, the manager told her she had to stay as they were short staffed. This friend of mine then complained, saying the woman should be tested and sent home. A huge row ensued, so she went over the manager's head, and told the top brass. The woman was tested positive for Covid and sent home. But not before she spent a whole day contaminating all and sundry including going down to the canteen to eat. The manager had to apologise to my friend and received a warning.

What a state of affairs!

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 I dont think that's a one off tbh, I know someone who works for an organisation that deals solely with the elderly. The staff were told to go in to work when many of them could have easily worked from home, and when the boss was asked what they should do if they or a member of their family became ill, they were told to carry on, but he still didn't want anyone working from home.

One woman flatly refused as her job could be done perfectly online, she was downgraded and her promotion which was pending  was given to someone else.

Poca wrote:

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OH told me he woke up with a sore throat this morning, no temp or cough etc.... anyway, that’s him in the spare room for the foreseeable! ..... paranoid or what? 

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 I had a sore throat the other day.  It was quite bad and I thought the worst.  But it only lasted a day or so and I'm fine.

Without coronavirus remember this is the season of colds and the flu.  In academia there is something called Freshers Flu - the great mixing of undergraduates from all over the country and the world plus the autumn period.

John Doe wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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I doubt her experience in a small corner of Cornwall is representative of what NHS workers have gone through elsewhere.

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She sounds like a conspiracy theorist nutter to me - oh and if she does not follow the rules and gets COVID it will be her fault.

-- Edited by John Doe on Thursday 5th of November 2020 07:31:52 PM

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If you attack someone you don't know for reporting on her experiences as an NHS worker in a hospital in Cornwall, you will be shutting down the voices of ordinary people

including all forms of whistle blowers.  That is authoritarianism.