Watching Royal College of Nursing chief exec Pat Cullen addressing nurses in Brighton, I just found out that the Welsh NHS has a requirement for a full complement of nurses to be on duty at any time, with nurses also required to highlight if this does not happen.
Why isn’t this a necessity in the English NHS?
The answer should be clear: the required levels would not be reached.
Always, Health Secretary Steve Barclay tries to dodge his duties.
You can bet he won’t be following Wales’s shining example any time soon.
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Mark Drakeford: Wales’ First Minister has previously described the Tory government in Westminster as “utterly shambolic”.
This is a story about the daftness of the Tory press and the way they frame their questions to try to make Boris Johnson’s government look remotely reasonable when it is not.
That’s the reason Mark Drakeford, leader of Welsh Labour and First Minister of Wales, was challenged to defend his decision to continue with health protection measures – not restrictions – when England is not.
He deftly turned the question on its head:
He said – rightly – that England is not taking action to protect its population.
“The real question is, why is England such a global outlier,” he said.
“In England, we have a government that is politically paralysed with a prime minister [who] is unable to secure an agreement through his cabinet to take the actions that his advisors have been telling him ought to have been taken,” he said.
“Even if he could get his cabinet to agree them, he can’t get his MPs to agree them either.”
And today (January 8), even the official UK statistic for the number of Covid-19-related deaths (which many of us believe to be gerrymandered to appear lower than the actual amount) exceeded 150,000 deaths.
The UK is the seventh country in the world to pass 150,000 deaths, Of the other six – the USA, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru – only Peru has a smaller population, putting the lie once again to Boris Johnson’s claims that the UK’s measures to defeat Covid-19 are leading the world.
Worse, the number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test is accelerating – up 38.3 per cent on the previous week.
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EVEL: John Redwood – seen here speaking from his home planet of Vulcan (apparently), said the end of English Votes for English Laws was a “sad occasion”, even while his fellow right-wingers like Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted that the procedure had “undermined” Parliament.
The Conservative government tried to quietly scrap its unsuccessful attempt to placate Little Englanders – but couldn’t stop the hoots of derision from across the House of Commons.
They have scrapped their English Votes for English Laws system – otherwise known as EVEL – because it didn’t work.
And quite right, too – especially on the eve of a debate on yet another top-down restructuring of the NHS in England, that will affect patients in the other UK countries as well.
As a citizen of Wales, This Writer would still have to travel into England for treatment at English hospitals in certain citcumstances, and it would be utterly inappropriate for my MP – Tory though Fay Jones may be! – to have her vote on such a matter disregarded.
As it was, the Tories had to grin and bear it as ridicule was piled on humiliation by critics from other parties – most notably the Scottish Nationalists.
The SNP’s Pete Wishart called scrapping the procedure an “utter, utter humiliation” for the government and said it was a victory for his party.
Thangham Debbonaire, shadow Leader of the House of Commons, said the procedure “undermines democracy” and helped feed “the SNP’s indignation”.
And even Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory Leader of the House, admitted that the procedure had “added complexity and delay to the legislative process”.
He said EVEL had “undermined” Parliament and all MPs should be represented equally, rejected accusations the move was to appease nationalists and said the government was “trying to restore the beauty and the uniformity of our constitution so that it will work properly”.
You can see how bad EVEL was by the quality of its supporters: swivel-eyed John Redwood said “England deserved better”, that it was a “sad occasion”, and that EVEL was the “only modest devolution ever offered to England”.
Fine words from the Tory minister for the planet Vulcan
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Closed: but under what circumstances? Restrictions are now different across the UK and people are likely to catch Covid-19 due to confusion.
Boris Johnson’s ‘local lockdown’ plan is degenerating into incoherence as each tiny part of the UK adds new – and conflicting – Covid-19-related restrictions.
The latest addition to this babble is a restriction on pubs, bars, restaurants and other hospitality venues in England, forcing them to close at 10pm, starting on Thursday (September 24).
Why’s that? Does Covid-19 only come out for a drink after 10 o’clock?
It doesn’t make any sense at all – and in fact will only add to the confusion.
Look at Wales, where six local authority areas have local lockdown rules.
From 6pm on Tuesday (September 22), Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil, and Newport join Caerphilly in having these restrictions: business closures are in line with national restrictions in Wales (meaning they’re different from those in England); you cannot meet indoors with anyone outside your household; you can no longer form a social bubble with another household; you cannot leave the local area without a reasonable excuse; and everyone over the age of 11 must wear a face covering in indoor public spaces unless exempt. I wonder if everybody there knows which indoor public spaces are exempt.
But in Rhondda Cynon Taff, the first four of those restrictions are the same – but the face mask rule doesn’t count. Instead, all licensed premises have to close at 11pm.
In seven local authority areas in northeast England, hospitality venues can only provide table service and take away orders, you cannot meet people outside your household/social bubble in a home/garden; travel is advised only for essential reasons, and a curfew applies to certain businesses between 10pm and 5am.
In seven local authority areas in Scotland, you cannot meet people outside your household/social bubble in a home/garden.
All of the places listed above are next to areas where these restrictions don’t apply – but others (that apply to all areas in their country of the UK) do.
There’s an area of northwest England that is really confusing: restrictions in Bradford are different from Pendle, which in turn differs from Burnley. Nearby Bolton is different again.
Is your head spinning yet?
Schools will remain open in all these places, despite the fact that they are now well-established as the principle route of transmission.
Further restrictions will also be announced in Scotland on Tuesday, while restrictions on households mixing indoors will be will be extended to all of Northern Ireland.
Ye gods!
It’s a lot of effort to be seen to be doing something when in fact – let’s be honest – Boris Johnson and his government are doing nothing to stem the tide of Covid’s second wave.
On Monday, 4,368 daily cases were reported – up from 3,899 on Sunday – along with 11 deaths.
This Site has already reported that a televised briefing by chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific officer Patrick Vallance warned that, if unchecked, the number of infections could be as high as 50,000 per day by mid-October.
Well, I’ve got bad news for them. Confusing as the restrictions are, none of them are going to stop that disaster from happening.
What we need is a working test, track and trace system that isolates people who have been in contact with those who have been infected – and prevents them from infecting other people.
Sadly, Johnson and his government have put the responsibility for such a system in the hands of profit-grubbing corporates who simply aren’t responsible enough to do it properly.
Johnson has offered to lift his “rule of six” restriction on social gatherings for 24 hours on Christmas Day, if we manage to turn back the new Covid tide – but this seems an empty promise; he knows it won’t happen.
My advice: go back into behaving as if the national lockdown in March never ended – if you can. If you can’t, do everything possible to avoid contact with other people.
You cannot rely on government intervention to save you from the virus.
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