The UK may be facing a uniquely difficult situation in that there is currently a critical shortage of nurses, doctors and NHS beds. In England alone the shortage of medics is @45,000 nurses and over 10,000 doctors with the net result that current levels of NHS services are severely stretched, and existing medics are suffering from burn out and exhaustion as a consequence of extraordinary levels of sustained pressures that have been ongoing for the last few years. This will place them at significant risk of severe infections, before any battle against the coronavirus starts, and the UK cannot afford to lose any medical staff to widespread illness. A severe flu season has already stretched services to the maximum, both in terms of personnel and resources on top of an already bad situation.
This thread is designed to allow us to discuss the issues facing the UK, post relevant news stories on how the UK plans to manage this epidemic and brainstorm ideas as to how the UK could manage the issues that a major coronavirus outbreak would bring. There are insufficient resources to employ the tactics used by China. Police numbers have been cut to the bone over years of austerity, as have the numbers of armed forces, before any consideration of societal issues.
What are the sort of things we could discuss?
As an example, the current focus would appear to be self isolation for entire families if there is a suspected case; however, like the US there is a preponderance of zero hour contracts, with many low paid workers; a large proportion of households literally live paycheck to paycheck. Without measures to keep people fed, it is difficult to see how self isolation at home can work (people will not be able to afford to comply) and this will apply to a large sector of the population, especially those living in cities. Working from home will not be an option for those working in the restaurant or retail sectors, who are major employers. School closures will also directly affect low income households who rely on the childcare to enable them to work. What are the current UK plans to assist and help families to manage in these circumstances? What happens when people get really sick and there are no hospital beds? I cannot see people complying with a 'stay at home' order in these circumstances.
Again, for example: Hospitals are completely full with almost zero spare bed capacity. Current options available to discuss could be e.g.
1. Cancel all elective surgery nationally NOW to allow us to start clearing beds. What are the issues that would result from doing this?
2. Bed blocking is a significant factor in the UK. Much of the problem relates to who pays for a nursing home bed, and arranging this with local authorities. Should government temporarily agree to fund this directly (whilst we are in emergency mode) to clear beds where possible?
3. Are there any factories capable of manufacturing PPE equipment domestically or are we entirely reliant on imports? How resilient are our supply chains? What stocks are currently held within hospitals? If we do not have domestic manufacturing capacity are there companies that could be requested to start manufacture?
Hopefully this is enough to get going with and stimulate discussion.
This thread is designed to allow us to discuss the issues facing the UK, post relevant news stories on how the UK plans to manage this epidemic and brainstorm ideas as to how the UK could manage the issues that a major coronavirus outbreak would bring. There are insufficient resources to employ the tactics used by China. Police numbers have been cut to the bone over years of austerity, as have the numbers of armed forces, before any consideration of societal issues.
What are the sort of things we could discuss?
As an example, the current focus would appear to be self isolation for entire families if there is a suspected case; however, like the US there is a preponderance of zero hour contracts, with many low paid workers; a large proportion of households literally live paycheck to paycheck. Without measures to keep people fed, it is difficult to see how self isolation at home can work (people will not be able to afford to comply) and this will apply to a large sector of the population, especially those living in cities. Working from home will not be an option for those working in the restaurant or retail sectors, who are major employers. School closures will also directly affect low income households who rely on the childcare to enable them to work. What are the current UK plans to assist and help families to manage in these circumstances? What happens when people get really sick and there are no hospital beds? I cannot see people complying with a 'stay at home' order in these circumstances.
Again, for example: Hospitals are completely full with almost zero spare bed capacity. Current options available to discuss could be e.g.
1. Cancel all elective surgery nationally NOW to allow us to start clearing beds. What are the issues that would result from doing this?
2. Bed blocking is a significant factor in the UK. Much of the problem relates to who pays for a nursing home bed, and arranging this with local authorities. Should government temporarily agree to fund this directly (whilst we are in emergency mode) to clear beds where possible?
3. Are there any factories capable of manufacturing PPE equipment domestically or are we entirely reliant on imports? How resilient are our supply chains? What stocks are currently held within hospitals? If we do not have domestic manufacturing capacity are there companies that could be requested to start manufacture?
Hopefully this is enough to get going with and stimulate discussion.
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