Tag Archives: testing

Truss would divert NHS funds to social care as hospitals stop routine Covid tests. Foolhardy?

Truss: open mouth, insert foot.

Tory leader candidate Liz Truss would divert £13 billion earmarked for the NHS to social care, to catch up on delayed Covid treatment there.

Is that a good idea? It’s certainly populist. But isn’t diverting funds away from the NHS when routine asymptomatic Covid testing is about to end – and the disease has this summer caused almost twice as many deaths as last summer – extremely foolhardy?

Nobody expects the ending of tests to last because a surge of new Covid cases is expected in the autumn. But the decision to end asymptomatic testing has alarmed health experts who have cautioned against dismantling the surveillance of Covid while cases remain high.

As it is, the chief executive of health think tank the King’s Fund has said handing the money to social care is “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

Richard Murray said it was “not a sustainable solution to the health and care crisis”.

In any case, it is unlikely that the money will actually materialise.

It is supposed to come from increased National Insurance contributions announced under Boris Johnson last year – but Truss wants to scrap the rise and find the cash from the general tax take (which is a contradiction in terms; public funding and taxation doesn’t work like that).

So as the NHS faces its worst winter crisis yet, the front-runner to be the new prime minister wants to take the imaginary money that was going to help it, and let it do its nonexistent good in social care. LUNACY!

Source: Liz Truss plan to divert NHS funds to social care is ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’

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Dementia patient deported by Patel; Labour councillor wants ‘anti-migrant militia’ [Also in the news]

Border Force: while a Labour councillor calls for the creation of migrant vigilante groups, Priti Patel has deported a dementia patient.

Lots to get through tonight and no time for commentary:

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Johnson and Sunak shamed into self-isolation in U-turn over ‘Covid Javid’

How humiliating for Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak that they have to follow the rules for the plebs and self-isolate after being in contact with Health Secretary and Covid case Sajid Javid.

It says everything about the UK’s pitiful protections that Javid hasn’t been in post for more than a month yet, and already he has contracted the virus. He’s out of the picture for the moment because he’s getting treatment.

But both Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson are also having to take action, because they have been in contact with Javid during the incubation period.

Johnson has already had the virus. What does it say about the body’s natural immunity, let alone the various vaccines that we’re all having pumped into us, when the prime minister is still having to isolate himself – despite having developed the former and received the latter – for fear of spreading the infection?

Worse still is the fact that both Johnson and Sunak wanted to take the Michael Gove route and opt into a privileged scheme whereby they could keep working but would be tested for the virus on a daily basis.

Nobody had ever heard of this scheme before Gove went to Portugal to watch the Champions League final and mixed with people who had Covid-19.

On being told about the contact, he promptly announced that he wouldn’t be self-isolating like a member of the common crowd – and that is how we learned about the daily test regime for the elite.

He was given hell for it and rightly so.

It can hardly be surprising, then, that after Downing Street announced that they would be on the same scheme – and the same criticisms started – Johnson and Sunak gave up and accepted the inevitable.

They only did it because they were caught.

Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth [said] it was unfair politicians appeared to have access to “VIP testing” to avoid self-isolation, while Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey asked if it was only available to the “privileged few”.

The u-turn means that Michael Gove should now have to answer some uncomfortable questions, especially after Johnson said it was “far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules”.

Gove didn’t!

And neither Johnson nor Sunak were going to.

So it seems Johnson didn’t make the change because of any principles, but because of shame.

Source: Covid-19: PM and chancellor self-isolate after rapid U-turn – BBC News

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With all the cocaine washing around Parliament, why AREN’T ministers subject to random drug tests?

The Palace of Westminster, home to both Houses of Parliament. Who knows how many drugs are holding up the elected and unelected representatives inside? Well… we won’t, because Downing Street is refusing to allow random testing.

This is almost poetic, although there’s no justice involved.

Iain Duncan Smith tweeted a link to a Sun story claiming that drug tests should be carried out randomly at people’s places of work, to catch users.

This Writer only discovered he had done so because a twitter friend then added her own spin to the story, thus:

It’s a good point. This Site has covered the prevalence of cocaine washing around Parliamentary… washrooms in the past.

The situation had become so bad that even the Daily Mail had dubbed the Palace of Westminster “corridors of powder”.

And yet what should be the next item to catch my eye on Twitter?

The Independent had picked up on the original story – Tory London Mayoral candidate (and himself a disgrace to politics) Shaun Bailey saying he’d demand random drug tests on all firms with more than 250 employees if elected mayor – and asked the same question as MaiaB, above.

The response from a Downing Street spokesperson does no credit to the Conservative government at all and can only boost fears that they not only consider themselves to be, but have actually put themselves, above the law:

“We expect the highest levels of professionalism from everybody in government. That remains the case, but there are no plans for that.”

What a crock!

If the last six months of Covid-19 cock-ups have demonstrated anything, it’s that there isn’t an ounce of professionalism in Boris Johnson’s rabble. It is, quite simply, the worst excuse for a government the United Kingdom has ever had to suffer. And that’s amid stiff competition!

The latest evasion shows that the Tories can’t even be trusted not to be dosing themselves full of recreational substances when they’re supposed to be – and bear these words in mind – serving the nation.

Because if they weren’t, they’d have no objection to the tests, would they?

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