Coronavirus

[Fulmar]

From BBC Scotland website:
Claims that manufacturers of personal protective equipment (PPE) have been prioritising workers in England have been dismissed by the Scottish government's clinical director.
Prof Jason Leitch said suggestions that PPE supplies were being given to NHS and social care staff in England ahead of those in Scotland were "rubbish".

[Corky Smeek]

@ Goodfellers & Fulmar. OK, I shall wait and see how the story develops and If I have to back down I will.

@ Goodfellers. If I have "taught" you anything then I am deeply touched and, therefore, hopeful that you are not a lost cause, after all. Maybe one day you will even come and join us over here. You will be made very welcome.

[Fulmar]

I think it is to do with private suppliers and the Scottish govt are investigating further.

[Corky Smeek]

The Gompels website still has the "England only" message on it. You can find it here.

Just in case it "disappears" here is a screen grab of the relevant section of the page in question.

[Goodfellers]

If any company has been told by the UK government to prioritise England, why not just put the letter on your website? You think the newspapers/Scottish government would have demanded proof before publishing. Sounds reasonable to me.

[Fulmar]

It didn't come from the UK government anyway and the Scottish government are now satisfied over that but want the rules to be made clear to those firms and quite right too.

[Goodfellers]

Public Health England were blamed in the earlier post. PHE are a UK govt body https://www.gov.uk/government/organi...health-england

[Fulmar]

But they say they did not ever issue such an order so I don't know. The 4 governments have been working together over this and that has been a good thing so hope nothing puts that in jeopardy.

[Shabbychic]

This was issued on 10th April by the Department of Health and Social care.

This was a 25 page document, the extract below is para 1.38 on page 17.

"We recognise that the social care sector operates differently to the NHS, and we
need to take different steps to ensure that providers can continue to access PPE.
23 million items of PPE have been released to designated wholesalers for onward
sale to social care providers. We have made arrangements with seven
wholesalers to supply PPE to the social care sector. Careshop, Blueleaf,
Delivernet, Countrywide Healthcare, Nexon Group, Wightman and Parrish and
Gompels will all provide supplies to care providers registered with the Care Quality
Commission"

Care Quality Commission....... The Independent regulator of health and social care in England.health and social care in England

[Fulmar]

Ok, that looks like an oversight to me and one that wil, I would imagine, be rectified asap. There have been so many mistakes (polite word for it) already, that's for sure.

[Corky Smeek]

Well, this story is not going away. The National from earlier this morning.

Also, Donald Macaskill the Head of Scottish Care has reaffirmed his original claim.

That charade of a news briefing yesterday did nothing to quell my fears. In fact, the question on PPE looked so stage managed I became even more convinced they were trying to hide something.

Oh, and Gompels website message has changed but not by much.

[Goodfellers]

Reading all of the above, it seems PHE and CQC only act on behalf of England, so their statements are reasonable in the context of England.

Jeanne Freeman made it clear yesterday that she makes her own arrangements for PPE, not through the UK government (words to that effect).

My question is who have the Scottish govt contracted to supply PPE? If it is any of the companies mentioned, Surely Scotland would be treated as completely separate from England, therefore the CQC registration would not matter as Scotland has Health Protection Scotland and Care Inspectorate to decide how PPE is managed. Could this story be that the supplying companies did not understand that both countries have different systems and that maybe the Scottish government failed to mention it too?

[Corky Smeek]

Reading all of the above, it seems PHE and CQC only act on behalf of England, so their statements are reasonable in the context of England.

Jeanne Freeman made it clear yesterday that she makes her own arrangements for PPE, not through the UK government (words to that effect).

My question is who have the Scottish govt contracted to supply PPE? If it is any of the companies mentioned, Surely Scotland would be treated as completely separate from England, therefore the CQC registration would not matter as Scotland has Health Protection Scotland and Care Inspectorate to decide how PPE is managed. Could this story be that the supplying companies did not understand that both countries have different systems and that maybe the Scottish government failed to mention it too?

I agree with some of this but have to take issue with other bits.

Gompels still say that to be able to order from them you must be CQC registered. That instantly knocks out all non-English care homes. If you are not in England and CQC registered you cannot buy from Gompels.

Also, I just don't find it credible that PPE suppliers did not know how that the NHS and Care Sectors are devolved and therefore have different systems. It's their business after all. The notion that they did not know something so fundamental isn't really credible in my view.

Clearly the implications of these allegations are profound on many levels. HMG know this and will be doing their utmost to minimise the damage.

[Goodfellers]

My view is that it is a misunderstanding somewhere , rather than an attemp to thwart Scoland getting PPE.

If Gompels supply care homes in France, they may have been instructed by the French govt to only supply registered care homes. I think this is probably what's happened. The CQC are only telling Gompels to supply registered care homes (in England), NOT to exclude every other country from obtaining supplies.

Or maybe I'm just naive ….

[Fulmar]

I have to say, I agree with Goodfellers on this. I think it is incompetence. Thankfully it seems that Scotland does have the PPE but needs to ensure ongoing supply, evidently, so the sooner it is sorted the better.

[Corky Smeek]

I have always believed that when faced with a choice between cock-up or conspiracy in 99.9% of cases you should go with cock-up. For the moment, at least, I am prepared not to get too hot under the collar about this as there are many other issues demanding the attention of our politicians. I will be interested to see how the story develops. However,

@ Goodfellers. Even after all the fuss about this the Gompels website is still saying that:-

"...As such this product has a number of restrictions on who can purchase it:

You must be CQC registered and operating in England..."

That seems very clear and unequivocal to me.The issue that still concerns me greatly is why would a business willingly abandon a substantial proportion of its customer base? I cannot think of any reason for this unless it was instructed to do so by government. If you can think of a plausible explanation I'd love to hear it.

[Corky Smeek]

The latest statement from Gompels:-

Each day we distribute millions of items of PPE to care settings in Scotland, Wales and England. Our committed team have been working incredibly hard to make sure that everyone who has been a regular customer of Gompels can continue to access the stocks that we can buy in these difficult times.

Stocks of PPE are at a record low in the UK and coronavirus has created massive demand for products that would not normally be widely used in a care setting. This has meant that the usual supply channels are unable to fulfil the requirements. Pandemic flu stocks have been released under the Department of Health & Social Care Covid-19: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Plan.

These pandemic English pandemic flu stocks are mandated for supply to CQC registered settings operating in England. Currently there are only 3 products from over 2000 that this relates to. We continue to supply on a daily basis our full range (less these 3 products from Public Health England) to Care providers in Wales and Scotland.

The 3 products referred to are:- coronavirus protective masks, gloves and aprons. These are three vital PPE products and Gompels admits that "stocks of PPE are at a record low". Despite this Gompels states it cannot sell these items to customers in Wales and Scotland.

The stench from this is getting stronger. I cannot begin to imagine the outcry if this were happening in reverse. The MSM would be all over it like a rash. I'm becoming to think this may be the 0.1% where conspiracy is the answer.

[Corky Smeek]

And so it goes on:- https://twitter.com/BlueleafCare/sta...88508423180289

Better Together. All in this together. Pooling and Sharing. Except when it's a matter of life and death in which case all you Celts can get to the back of the queue.

[Fulmar]

Yes, but Scotland is getting the PPE from elsewhere and the Scottish Government don't seem to be that concerned now?

[Fulmar]

Also, (and in the context that we all need some better news), I think it is brilliant that the drugs that may help are even now being trialled in Edinburgh. I hope and pray that some of these really will be found to help and to save lives.
It is stated this morning that 9 out of 10 of those who succumb have underlying health conditions, some more than one thing and also, men are twice as likely to die. There are so many aspects of this that need researching- why are men more likely to die?