Name: Coronavirus: How can we improve NHS support? | Question Time - BBC
Uploaded: 2020-03-28T18:57:54.000Z
Duration: 15 min 55 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Here we are again, of course, with no audience, for the reasons we all know is very strange and rather frightening times for all of us and instead off our usual five Panelists.

To-infinitive

We have four in order to have suitable social distancing.

I'm a local GP, and unfortunately, I've been having to self isolate for the past week and 1/2.

I've not been able to get remote access to be able to work from home.

There's been no testing for an H S stuff on.

My colleagues on the front line have had to go and buy their own scrubs on dhe I equipment from D.

Stores because the personal protective equipment has not bean adequate.

I would have thought that these were problems that could have Bean anticipated and dealt with in advance.

I would like to know what specific problems people expect the n hs toe have in the next few weeks and months on what they think can be done in advance to sort them out.

So, Richard, there's two aspects of this isn't a how we got to this point and was enough done to stop was getting to this point.

And is there anything coming down the track that we need to be preparing for now?

Well, first of all, I am received 2030 messages a day from front line N HS workers across the country, telling stories very similar to what Adam was just telling us.

And honestly, it's sorry to say this, but it's a national scandal.

We knew in the last week of January that this was coming.

The message from China was absolutely clear that a new virus with pandemic potential waas hitting cities people were being admitted to hospital, admitted to intensive care units on dying on the mortality was growing.

We knew that 11 weeks ago, and then we wasted February when we could have acted time when we could have ramped up testing time when we could have got personal protective equipment ready and disseminated.

I'm hearing that not just personal protective equipment is not available.

It's the wrong kind of personal protective equipment.

We're putting our health workers who we've just all clapped here in the front lines without the armor they need to defend themselves.

They're wearing surgical masks, which are not W h o standard.

They're wearing thin plastic aprons, which are not standard on.

They're wearing rubber gloves, which only cover their wrist, exposing their arms, too.

That is nothing short off a national scandal.

The hypocrisy off clapping N HS workers and yet the government not supporting them to go into the front line is tragic, and it was preventable.

I'm sorry to say, but it was preventable.

We had the secretary for health on the program last week, and I questioned him pretty closely about supply of equipment, and Matt Hanka was saying a new mobile numbers of lawyers.

We're going to be out over the weekend, so we're on Thursday said by Sunday, all the hospitals, as far as he could say at that point, all the hospitals will have sufficient personal protective equipment.

Here we are a week on, and no, they don't.

Richard has to say, Well, this is a big challenge, but we are ramping up supply very rapidly, and I'm sorry to hear there's a problem it shows the hospital where you can't be surprised by what you heard, because we've all been hearing it well.

I hear that myself and I'm the Cabinet minister responsible for local government to look after social care.

So I hear from social care providers as well, because we need to get this equipment not just the hospitals, but to care homes, to pharmacists, to GPS to people who work in homeless shelters, many different important settings.

But we are now getting very significant quantities.

Tens of millions of items of equipment, from gloves to face masks onto other items of peopIe are now flowing through.

This has become for us, a military operation.

You've seen some of the pictures off the armed forces delivering this hospital's supplies on Richard.

Well, that's just supplies are flowing through the hospital.

They will tell us tonight, Tell us tonight because people watching at home and number will be GPS working in the health care system of social.

When do you think people who need it in the health system will have the correct and sufficient person protector equipment?

What I do know is that you don't know what I What I do know is that in the last 48 hours, for example, 25 million packs of gloves have bean delivered 15 million face masks, almost two million items of eye protection.

So these are very large quantities way, probably not much more than what we are.

I know you believe it, but it's simply not true.

I mean, these are the messages that I've had today.

The lack of clear guidance and testing is cordial, causing huge anxiety, totally inadequate P p e.

No scrubs, no testing equipment, sleepwalking into this totally unequipped and unprepared when we had the luxury of two months to prepare that other countries didn't.

We need to get much more equipment out that that is happening primarily now, P.

On testing were also increasing the amount of testing that's available again.

We need to go further because this is all about testing.

One day last week, I think we reached 8000.

Ultimately, 250,000 has a huge effort to be done there on then on the antibody test, which is the other type of test for people who've already had it there.

We've ordered 3.5 million of those tests.

They're gonna want to ensure that it's reliable and clearly is, the chief medical officer said.

There's nothing worse than an unreliable test.

But if we can prove that that is reliable, then we have millions of those flowing on within weeks, they should be within the system.

Well, let let's just stick stick to the person protective equipment from him because that's what Adam was RC about.

Firstly, I think one has to say to Adam again, a huge thank you for everything that he and the hundreds and thousands of GPS who are in many situations, right in the front line of what's going on here.

Andi, I've got good friends who are her GPS, who are doing tests of patients and checking patients in the car parts of their surgeries because it's not safe to bring them inside who are working.

Double, triple and quadruple shifts sometimes so huge, Thank you.

I have to say I have a lot of sympathy with the views that Richard expressed, which it's hard to understand why we got quarters shorter as we did in this crisis, why we didn't have the foresight to understand Maur aunt to take those steps.

We could have steak taken with equipment with tests and many other aspects of what we need to be ready for this.

No, not talking about long range planning over two or three years, I'm saying, when we saw it happening in China and then initially, which was so close to home, I've got very good friends in in Italy, with whom I've been on the phone since late January early February.

The government has to really take away the lessons from that.

Of course, that doesn't help now, Now it's all about getting stuff to the frontline on.

That's the logistics and business problem, and I know a little bit about those sorts of things.

That's about making sure that you have so much focus on managing the supplies and flows of products.

And I really hope that the governments getting the best helping can there because that absolutely is a solvable problem.

If there are 30 million pairs of gloves or have really is in the country, they absolutely should and can be with people in the front line.

Let's get that done and let me read you another treat here from Christopher Luke, who says, I'm a psychiatric nurse working on an acute mental health ward myself.

And many of my colleagues feel our patients and the staff have been all but forgotten about.

Ease of personal protective equipment and mental health hospitals across the country are not equipped for something like Covert.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Coronavirus: How can we improve NHS support? | Question Time - BBC

vulnerable

potential

absolutely

mental