Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Bairnardo]

Why is Leitch worrying about something that hasn't happened off the back of any other protest in the last 20 months?

Because the delegates will of course be following all of the bombproof rules to keep us safe, and his assumption is, scum protestors won't.

Eta Leitch has continue the charade of painting unsafe situations too..... Imagine a situation where there are 9,998 protesters safely protesting outside, then 3 more turn up and no one has have their vaccine status checked. Imminent collapse of the NHS IMO.

[UsedToGoToCentralPark]

My wife's a nurse and the problem is a lack of staff, not just people isolating but people leaving because they have had enough.

[Abdul_Latif]

9 minutes ago, UsedToGoToCentralPark said:

My wife's a nurse and the problem is a lack of staff, not just people isolating but people leaving because they have had enough.

Completely understandable when the staff themselves have been made scapegoat for it all going to shit.

 

[superbigal]

Clearly NHS Lothian or wherever have got this message "slightly" wrong.

When some player breaks his leg at an amateur match on Saturday.

Sure he will not be left prostrate on the turf until the pressure on the trust eases.

Edited October 28, 2021 by superbigal

[DMCs]

56 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

The average salary in Norway is just shy of £53k.

In the UK it is £31.5k

A highly paid, highly taxed society, with excellent low cost at point of use public services like transport and healthcare is infinitely more desirable than the current UK model of low pay, not fit for purpose public services and high cost public transport.

Norway's income tax rates are nearly identical across all income percentiles. The main difference is a higher VAT and a much higher capital gains tax. Plus we have loads of weird little extra consumption taxes that other countries generally subsume under VAT. Norway is just wealthier now that it can actually afford to move away from the "Scandinavian model" to something more moderate.

In Denmark the income taxation is just as progressive as in the UK. The difference is everyone pays a fair bit more. In Sweden it's actually less progressive.

I think a lot of people have this idea that the Nordic model is what they want for an independent Scotland without realising that it's not just everyone richer than you that is paying more tax.

[Michael W]

On 13/09/2021 at 08:45, Michael W said:

The health budget was just over 25% of the total UK tax take in 2019/20. In 2020/21 it was a lot higher due to a big increase in spending a sharp reduction in tax revenues. We'll go with 25% since 2020/21 is an outlier. 

UK tax takes - https://www.statista.com/statistics/284298/total-united-kingdom-hmrc-tax-receipts/

UK spending - https://www.statista.com/statistics/301992/health-spending-uk/

It always comes back to the NHS being underfunded and under resourced, but how much money does it need? Is the NI increase going to cut it? It doesn't seem like it will given that money is changing to a ring-fenced social care levy after two years. So then what do we do - are we just going to wave our hands and say it's fucked again, better raise another tax? 

On the resourcing point, the NHS has over 1.3m employees  (over 1.19m FTE). We are always hearing about shortages and the waiting lists would back this up even before covid hit, but how many employees does it need? I know it's not as simple as that as the figure includes many, many people that are not clinicians or medical staff, but you start to question what staffing level is adequate. The UK total workforce is just under 31m, so 4% of the UK workforce is employed by the NHS. One in 25 people in Britain is employed by the NHS - why on earth isn't that enough? It ought to be. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/281998/employment-figures-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics/may-2021

So, 25% of the tax take the country brings in and also 4% of its workforce. That should be more than enough to sustain a workable system and it seems inexcusable, frankly, that this isn't enough. We need to have a serious conversation about exactly what the NHS needs to function because its resources certainly seem like they ought to be sufficient, but they're not. This will never happen, though, because everyone gets far too defensive when the NHS is criticised and a whole load of strawman arguments about Americans going bust because of healthcare bills will be raised. Fine if we're arguing it should be abolished, but anyone doing so is acting from a very fringe perspective. Saying we should give it more money and hire more nurses is the simple way of avoiding this difficult conversation. 

I value the NHS, don't get me wrong, but object to the way that it appears to be sacrosanct. Criticising it is, in some quarters, the closest thing we now have in the UK to blasphemy. 

Posted this a few weeks back about the NHS. Again, we end up in the same place with discussion, namely not enough money and not enough staff. A quarter of the UK's tax take is spent on healthcare and 1 in 25 of its workforce works for the NHS. Why is this not enough? In the latter case, fully appreciate that not everyone is patient-facing, but the resources on the face of it ought to be adequate. It needs to be explained why it is not. 

We will of course never have a sensible debate about this. This would involve governments and also very senior healthcare professionals having to explain why they have consistently failed to resolve long-standing issues and they'll just chuck each other under the bus. Meanwhile, any criticism of the NHS that goes beyond the government will be treated as blasphemous in its usual way, and that'll be the end of that.

The NHS is the only thing in Britain that enjoys almost universal popularity and a lot of people become irrationally angry when it's criticised, mention something about thousands of Americans going bankrupt due to medical debts and the discussion is shut down. The government is aware of this, hence the military-style platitudes ("our wonderful NHS", "NHS heroes" ) given out when they talk about it and actively play along with the idolatry. This all feeds into the inability to constructively criticise the NHS, as people become overly defensive of it. 

There is a total lack of honesty. Every year, NHS on the brink headlines appear in winter. Why does this keep happening? Clearly we are running a system without much slack in it - please explain why no action is taken to uplift capacity. After all, every single election contains a line about x more doctors and x number of nurses will be hired. Why, then, are we continually being told there aren't enough? Almost like promises aren't being delivered. But, look, we gave it £x of new funding! It's just chucking some money at the problem and hoping it somehow goes away. But it doesn't. 

All we get is round after round of spending increases, seemingly to no effect, and the same problems. A rethink is required, but anything of this nature is doomed to fail: NHS protectionism will kick in and the same people complaining about any given number of problems will pretend it is all fine and there's nothing to see here. Just chuck more money at it, hire more staff (why have no parties ever included this in their manifestos!) and all will be well.

In the meantime, the following questions will be ignored:

How much money does the NHS actually need to run effectively? 

Why is the NHS continually in crisis mode when 1 in every 25 of UK workers are employed by it? 

Why does the NHS seem to have a perennial recruitment crisis? 

Why have the collective sum of government (UK and devolved) actions over the past decade or even beyond, not solved underlying problems? 

The staff question, I expect, is the real humdinger. Not enough wages is, I imagine, at least part of that and now we can't just plunder poorer European nations at will for qualified staff either. 

There has to be an honest assessment of why we remain in this position and what it will take to improve it. How much will it cost and if this means a rise in taxes, how much? Start there. The NHS isn't free; it's free at the point of use, paid for by the UK taxpayer through their wages each month. Indeed, healthcare is the single largest outlay within the budget. Given that we'll be paying for that, the honesty is merited. We pay for it and in return should expect a good return. I don't by any means think the NHS is crap and I certainly wouldn't abolish it either, but it feels like it should be better. To be giving out messages telling people not to go to A&E unless they are basically dying, or to hint/threaten restrictions on the population's activities because the healthcare system is under pressure is not acceptable. 

As it is, we have another round of money thrown at the NHS to reduce backlogs from the budget (how do you do this if there's no capacity?) and of course a new tax for social care forthcoming. Here, have some more money, but nothing else in the way of solutions. Doing the same thing and expecting different results - someone's away googling the Einstein quote. 

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by Michael W

[Lyle Lanley]

5 hours ago, ddfg said:

Has anyone been at football or some other non nightclub setting and been asked to show their "covid passport"? Been at football twice now and not been asked or seen anyone else look like they were having to show any documentation to get in. 

Not sure the validity of the attendance numbers as a deciding point anyway, if i go to a 9,000 seat stadium or a 40,000+ seat stadium I will likely have the same number of people in close proximity to me entering or sitting at my seat, my breath and that of others can only go so far so i'm not really sure of the public health benefits of setting criteria on the basis of attendance, if there is indeed any benefit at all in the entire passport scenario. 

Wasn't asked for mines last night. 

[Left Back]

25 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Posted this a few weeks back about the NHS. Again, we end up in the same place with discussion, namely not enough money and not enough staff. A quarter of the UK's tax take is spent on healthcare and 1 in 25 of its workforce works for the NHS. Why is this not enough? In the latter case, fully appreciate that not everyone is patient-facing, but the resources on the face of it ought to be adequate. It needs to be explained why it is not. 

We will of course never have a sensible debate about this. This would involve governments and also very senior healthcare professionals having to explain why they have consistently failed to resolve long-standing issues and they'll just chuck each other under the bus. Meanwhile, any criticism of the NHS that goes beyond the government will be treated as blasphemous in its usual way, and that'll be the end of that.

The NHS is the only thing in Britain that enjoys almost universal popularity and a lot of people become irrationally angry when it's criticised, mention something about thousands of Americans going bankrupt due to medical debts and the discussion is shut down. The government is aware of this, hence the military-style platitudes ("our wonderful NHS", "NHS heroes" ) given out when they talk about it and actively play along with the idolatry. This all feeds into the inability to constructively criticise the NHS, as people become overly defensive of it. 

There is a total lack of honesty. Every year, NHS on the brink headlines appear in winter. Why does this keep happening? Clearly we are running a system without much slack in it - please explain why no action is taken to uplift capacity. After all, every single election contains a line about x more doctors and x number of nurses will be hired. Why, then, are we continually being told there aren't enough? Almost like promises aren't being delivered. But, look, we gave it £x of new funding! It's just chucking some money at the problem and hoping it somehow goes away. But it doesn't. 

All we get is round after round of spending increases, seemingly to no effect, and the same problems. A rethink is required, but anything of this nature is doomed to fail: NHS protectionism will kick in and the same people complaining about any given number of problems will pretend it is all fine and there's nothing to see here. Just chuck more money at it, hire more staff (why have no parties ever included this in their manifestos!) and all will be well.

In the meantime, the following questions will be ignored:

How much money does the NHS actually need to run effectively? 

Why is the NHS continually in crisis mode when 1 in every 25 of UK workers are employed by it? 

Why does the NHS seem to have a perennial recruitment crisis? 

Why have the collective sum of government (UK and devolved) actions over the past decade or even beyond, not solved underlying problems? 

The staff question, I expect, is the real humdinger. Not enough wages is, I imagine, at least part of that and now we can't just plunder poorer European nations at will for qualified staff either. 

There has to be an honest assessment of why we remain in this position and what it will take to improve it. How much will it cost and if this means a rise in taxes, how much? Start there. The NHS isn't free; it's free at the point of use, paid for by the UK taxpayer through their wages each month. Indeed, healthcare is the single largest outlay within the budget. Given that we'll be paying for that, the honesty is merited. We pay for it and in return should expect a good return. I don't by any means think the NHS is crap and I certainly wouldn't abolish it either, but it feels like it should be better. To be giving out messages telling people not to go. To A&E unless they are basically dying, or to hint/threaten restrictions on the population's activities because the healthcare system is under pressure is not acceptable. 

As it is, we have another round of money thrown at the NHS to reduce backlogs from the budget (how do you do this if there's no capacity?) and of course a new tax for social care forthcoming. Here, have some more money, but nothing else in the way of solutions. Doing the same thing and expecting different results - someone's away googling the Einstein quote. 

 

You say the amount spend and the amount of people ought to be enough but is it really?  Seeing as Germany was used as a comparison earlier here's a comparison of the amount that is spent on heathcare in the two countries.

Here's what that buys in terms of doctors, nurses and hospital beds.

 

I'm not saying there isn't wastage in the NHS.  there will be the same as there is in any large organisation but the simple fact of the matter is if you want better then it has to be paid for.  Efficiency will only get you so far. 

The difference between German spend and UK spend is approx. $1,000 per capita.  That equates to approx. $6.5bn per year additional the UK would have to spend on health to be on a par.  Are there $6.5bn in efficiency savings in the NHS that could be transferred to frontline services?  I don't know but it seems a big number.

To  be able to say "it should be enough" you'd have to compare the UK to another country with equivalent health spend (don't know one of the top of my head and can't be arsed looking tbh).  If we're lagging behind them in terms of doctors, nurses and beds then it becomes a valid statement.

ETA here's a graph from Kingsfund showing how much we actually spend on healthcare.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-nhs

I don't think it's unfair to draw the conclusion we probably don't spend enough but I agree it has to be spent in the right way.

I also just added the Netherlands into the worldbank graphs above.  They also have more doctors, nurses and beds than us but world bank also says they spend almost as much as Germany per capita so the above may be a total waste of time and effort.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Left Back

[Billy Jean King]

I've never heard of A&E telling someone to go away and make a doctors appointment.

You've lost me here. I meant you see triage first to see if you need to see an A&E doc

[gav-ffc]

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

Why is Leitch worrying about something that hasn't happened off the back of any other protest in the last 20 months?

So he can try and stay relevant.

[DMCs]

24 minutes ago, Left Back said:

I don't think it's unfair to draw the conclusion we probably don't spend enough but I agree it has to be spent in the right way.

I also just added the Netherlands into the worldbank graphs above.  They also have more doctors, nurses and beds than us but world bank also says they spend almost as much as Germany per capita so the above may be a total waste of time and effort.

The differences exist but they aren't as stark as you are saying. The reason Germany spends more is because they are wealthier and have more to spend.

GDP isn't the best method to use nowadays as due to globalisation you get a lot of oddities that means it's often quite removed from living standards. The Americans spend a lot of healthcare but not that much more proportionally nor the Irish that much less. Basically GDP per capita understates American household income and overstates Irish household income.

[vikingTON]

Perhaps the pressure on A and E would be reduced if we stopped treating Covid patients like they've actually got Ebola, with all the knock-on consequences this has on limited capacity and limited time. Pre-2020, non-OCD levels of distancing, sanitising and PPE was good enough to deal with the tens of thousands of patients who were in a hospital because of or with flu every year. It is time to act in a similarly proportionate manner to another respiratory virus, for which highly effective treatments now exist. 

Another reason why resources are under pressure is that enforcing lockdown by fear-driven media and state propaganda has turned many treatable, early-stage problems into urgent health emergencies. A straightforward case of the chickens coming home to roost, that the lockdown psychos ignored all along. 

Edited October 28, 2021 by vikingTON

[welshbairn]

A while ago, I think under Blair, there were arguments that the reason the chart topping French for healthcare had so short waiting lists, and Brits were going over for instant hip replacements, was that they had twice as many doctors but paid them half as much. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore. This chart is about comparisons with average pay in individual countries so ignores how we've been poaching medical staff trained abroad. 

 

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/0acc1895-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/0acc1895-en

Edited October 28, 2021 by welshbairn

[Michael W]

32 minutes ago, Left Back said:

You say the amount spend and the amount of people ought to be enough but is it really?  Seeing as Germany was used as a comparison earlier here's a comparison of the amount that is spent on heathcare in the two countries.

Here's what that buys in terms of doctors, nurses and hospital beds.

 

I'm not saying there isn't wastage in the NHS.  there will be the same as there is in any large organisation but the simple fact of the matter is if you want better then it has to be paid for.  Efficiency will only get you so far. 

The difference between German spend and UK spend is approx. $1,000 per capita.  That equates to approx. $6.5bn per year additional the UK would have to spend on health to be on a par.  Are there $6.5bn in efficiency savings in the NHS that could be transferred to frontline services?  I don't know but it seems a big number.

To  be able to say "it should be enough" you'd have to compare the UK to another country with equivalent health spend (don't know one of the top of my head and can't be arsed looking tbh).  If we're lagging behind them in terms of doctors, nurses and beds then it becomes a valid statement.

ETA here's a graph from Kingsfund showing how much we actually spend on healthcare.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-nhs

I don't think it's unfair to draw the conclusion we probably don't spend enough but I agree it has to be spent in the right way.

I also just added the Netherlands into the worldbank graphs above.  They also have more doctors, nurses and beds than us but world bank also says they spend almost as much as Germany per capita so the above may be a total waste of time and effort.

If the difference to bridge the gap with Germany in terms of what they have in beds, nurses and doctors truly was $6.5bn, then we ought to just pay it. It's about 1% of our overall tax take (I'm ignoring the 2020/2021 figures as an abberation). But is that all it will take? It seems hard to square that when Sunak has committed a higher amount than that simply to help clear the backlog never mind resolve the long standing problems. Indeed, it woukd only be something like a 3% increase to the healthcare budget. Somehow it seems there's more to it. 

I'm also a bit hard pushed as to what a like for like system might be, tbh. The US, although in the chart, is certainly not a good comparison as it doesn't have an NHS, yet spends more than 1.5x what we do in GDP terms. Talk about dreadful value for money. Germany of course has the private element to it as well - is that making a substantial difference there? A lot of the healthcare spending (and indeed other spending) must be from state level as well, as the federal budget allocation on health is pretty low- https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/cabinet-budget-2021-1790544 I have no idea how tax in Germany is structured tbh, and who pays what. Either way, the people pay it to someone, who allocates it. Even looking at France and Ireland, both countries charge for doctors appointments which will presumably be fed back into the Health budget. In terms of equivalence, I guess there's s not a huge departure from the NHS other than that, but might make the comparison more tricky. The Netherlands also requires health insurance to be taken out costing around 100EUR a month. 

There is no doubt that there are inefficiencies in the NHS and I'm sure there are in Germany etc as well, as they are a fact of life. I'm not claiming that addressing those would save the day, it's just that on the face of it, there are a lot of resources being directed at the NHS and it is only right to question why that isn't apparently sufficient.

[deegee]

My customer in Ireland pays approx €100+ per month for health insurance for his family. I haven’t a clue about the nuances of their HSE but whenever I am over, the radio is always filled with stories of lack of nurses leaving for better pay in UK, USA etc. Always issues with lack of rural services and their Children’s Hospital in Dublin has caused a scandal due to budget overspending, location heart of Dublin suits highly paid doctors but no low cost accommodation or ease of parking for other staff and patients’ families etc.

I personally think a blend of NHS (with protection of access to services for all) but option to go private for some services will be the future, as current funding versus demand versus results really isn’t working as well as it could.

[superbigal]

Daily Summary for @oaksoft :   Deaths 20 (27 day before),  ICU cases 58 up 1   (8 new admissions),  In hospital with confirmed Covid 932  up 7  (97 new admissions).    Not the best  with admissions steadily rising again.

Figures for Jags.  1st Vaccines  1,407  2nd vaccines  2,020   NO UPDATE AS YET

Daily Cases Update: All gains in last 4 days wiped due to under reporting.  Quality counting from ScotGOV. So we rise 2% and it is nigh on impossible to work out what will happen tomorrow.

Glasgow is bottom of the table if you exclude the Shetlands. Quite remarkable.

Clackmannanshire 40% worse than any other council is a shocker.

Orkney no idea what is going on.    All the neighbourhood data is unavailable.

Much of Europe is surging as well in terms of weekly increase. Czech up 110%, Hungary 101%, Norway 78%, Denmark 78% Poland 74% the quickest risers in last week.

Total Cases Scotland 7 days 19th October to 25th October  were  17,460 to 17,800 up 1.95%, Positivity was 9.0% now 9.1%.  Cases per 100K were 319.4  now 325.6

Home Nations Daily Cases per 100K update  :  UK Average   485.6 to 481.5 down 0.84%, England  487.4 to 484.1 down 0.64%, Wales 732.9 to 713.2 down 2.69%, Northern Ireland  470.4 to 466.8 down 0.77%  Deaths  207

In Europe for travellers (Countries Population over 3 Million) Serbia 555 (weekly change up 4%), Romania 522 (weekly -5%), Croatia 511 (weekly up 72%), Bulgaria 476 (Weekly up 36%),  Slovakia 400 (weekly up 64%), Belgium 353 (Week up 72%), Ukraine 338 (Week up 45%), Ireland  286 (Weekly up 8%), Austria 277 (Week up 44%), Moldova 273 (Weekly up 1%),  These are the only countries over 250 cases per 100K.   The Baltic states Latvia 940, Lithuania 741, & Estonia 810 with smaller populations are in a bad way 

Scotland  peaks in wave 4 at 817.1 for 1st Sep to 7th Sep, (UK was 392.1), Cases that day were 44,663 and positivity 12.5%

Scotland peaks in Wave 3 at 425.1 for 27th June to 3rd July, (UK was 229.9) . Cases that day were 23,222 and positivity 10.8%

Scotland  peaked in wave 2 at 301.9 for figures 29th Dec to 4th Jan, (UK was 642.1)    Cases that day were 16,496 and test positivity rate was 11.9%  

Council progress in last 24 Hours as follows.

Click cases by neighbourhood to see the spread on the geographical map. 
https://public.tableau.com/profile/phs.covid.19#!/vizhome/COVID-19DailyDashboard_15960160643010/Overview

Clackmannanshire 598.6 to 614.2  Crashes through the 600 barrier and miles clear at the top.

West Lothian  425.4 to 436.8 

Stirling  428.4 to 434.7 

Fife  411.9 to 429.5

North Lanarkshire  398.1 to 415.4  

East Ayrshire  425.2 to 406.3   

Orkney Islands 205.4 to 403.3   Not sure if I trust these figures today FFS

Aberdeenshire   364.7 to 383.1

Dundee City  356.8 to 362.9 

East Lothian  348.5 to 361.4  

Falkirk  364.3 to 353.1

West Dunbartonshire  328.3 to 341.9

East Dunbartonshire  344.8 to 341.1 

Angus  294.4 to 338.5  Up 6 places and near 15%

Perth & Kinross  325.9 to 332.4  

BELOW AVERAGE

South Lanarkshire   312.0 to 309.2 

Argyll & Bute  305.5 to 306.7 

Highlands  305.0 to 302.4

Renfrewshire  305.5 to 296.0  

South Ayrshire 292.5 to 294.3

Scottish  Borders  298.5 to 290.7  

Dumfries & Galloway 281.2 to 290.6

North Ayrshire  290.5 to 290.5

Inverclyde  292.0 to 289.4

Aberdeen City  271.1 to 282.9

Moray 265.4 to 282.1

East Renfrewshire 281.1 to 274.8  

Western Isles    237.7 to 271.7 

City Of Edinburgh    248.7 to 256.8

Midlothian   244.8 to 256.6

Glasgow City  238.3 to 230.8

Shetland Islands   56.8 to 79.0

Edited October 28, 2021 by superbigal

[Elixir]

Cheers, Linda's crying!

 

[scottsdad]

3 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Given that the USA has a dreadful health system and yet they spend much more than anyone else, that graph might not be a good indicator of anything TBH.

A teacher of mine once said that the health service in the US was far and away the best in the world, so long as you had money. If you had no money it was one of the worst.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

3 hours ago, Abdul_Latif said:

Taxes are far too low to fund what we need at the moment, nevermind the socialist utopia that Scots seem to want post Indy.

You want better services like the Nordics, you better be willing to pay for them.

 

..or you elect a Government which doesn't need to have nuclear weapons to boost their self-esteem, doesn't piss public money away on a white elephant of a train line, and - pay attention, because this is a biggie - doesn't give the equivalent of the entire Channel Tunnel budget to a crony to run a test & trace system which doesn't deliver, and many hundreds of millions more to cronies and donors in the form of unscrutinised PPE contracts.

[scottsdad]

 A magic Covid variant that "evades" tests.