• We'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas from all at Golf Monthly. Thank you for sharing your 2025 with us!

Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

SocketRocket said:
It needs changing, surely people working in the service are capable of looking at it and making improvements. If not then are we saying the NHS employs people of such a poor standard they can't see inefficient processes and change them. If a process like that would have existed in my company some heads would have rolled.
Click to expand...

It all started with the NHS and Community Care Act in 1990, when the market system started to creep in to the NHS. It has mostly been only going in one direction since, although one or two mis-steps along the way. I was a junior hospital doctor at the time and I remember walking into the hospital one day through a corridor of offices and noticed some new titles on doors - Director of Quality, or something and wondering what the hell that was. Soon after I developed my first rule of NHS management - if someone's job title doesn't tell you what they really do, they are not to be trusted and severe no useful purpose.
 
SocketRocket said:
Mine...
Click to expand...
I agree!
SocketRocket said:
...In that particular case where it can affect people's health or even lives there's no question on it needing to be changed...
Click to expand...
Ban sale of cigarettes/tobacco NOW then! Alcohol too?
SocketRocket said:
...How much would such a change actually cost and more importantly, how much would it cost not to change it.
Click to expand...
That (cost/benefit analysis) is surely one of the very early tasks in/before any project!
 
Last edited:
Ethan said:
...I remember walking into the hospital one day through a corridor of offices and noticed some new titles on doors - Director of Quality, or something and wondering what the hell that was. Soon after I developed my first rule of NHS management - if someone's job title doesn't tell you what they really do, they are not to be trusted...
Click to expand...
This part I strongly agree with
Ethan said:
...and [often] served no useful purpose.
Click to expand...
Inserted my inclination.
 
Foxholer said:
I agree!

Ban sale of cigarettes/tobacco NOW then! Alcohol too?

That (cost/benefit analysis) is surely one of the very early tasks in/before any project!
Click to expand...
Twaddle!

Are you suggesting I could ban the sale of cigarettes and alcohol, really! Also selling cigs and booze isn't a Nation health procedure.
?

Are you suggesting projects shouldn't get reviewed after implementation, really! ?

Were talking of people's health and lives being affected by poorly designed systems. If you were the project manager that allowed a procedure like that then your head would deserve to roll, and if you did then it would need rectifying without delay whatever the cost.
 
Last edited:
It's not just the NHS. I would suggest that high level administrators in any publicly funded body aren't considered to be earning their 6 figure salaries unless they're constantly reinventing perfectly good wheels to realign, outsource, upskill or deappropriate something or other.
 
Ethan said:
Right with you on cigarettes.

But the relationship between alcohol and health is more complicated and there may be a small health benefit to a small amount of alcohol, which then disappears as you increase the dose and turns negative further along.
Click to expand...
That was the reason for the '?'! Though it also concided with reaching for my glass of San Miguel!
 
Lord Tyrion said:
I think you have pretty much proved the point being suggested with this example, unless I lost the point in translation. This is an appalling waste of time and money, adding unnecessary delays and layers of beauracracy into the system. Why does this continue when it is so obviously flawed?
Click to expand...
Perhaps the internal market framework in which (many/most?) NHS services are now delivered has helped generate this grim beauracracy…the patient’s GP has to order all or many of the services and treatments a patient might need, and of course these very often are not all known up front (Oops - just spotted that @Ethan has already covered this)
 
I am sure that this has been covered elsewhere here…but if I am +VE LFT I do not know if it is the omicron variant. Must I take a PCR test if I so test positive. And does the PCR test identify omicron or not. I only ask as I have a feeling that what I must, can and cannot do may be different for omicron than for previous (delta) variant. If so how do I know.

i note that I am not…just heard it come up asked earlier but didn’t hear the answer.
 
road2ruin said:
Agree and this is the point that I was trying to make, it's not panic buying it's just people reacting and if you have households ordering 3-4 packs they should have been prepared for this before making the big announcement.
Click to expand...
I am afraid that there can be no comment or answer to your question/assertion ‘…they should…’ - as even some supporters of this action wonder at the precise timing of its triggering. For another day.

Anyway, irrespective of timing, I believe all Plan B now this evening approved by HoC. We are fine with what’s required of us…but obviously we are once more concerned about the impact on the performing arts sector of the entry and attendance requirements on theatre goers, giggers and clubbers. Hopefully things will go OK.
 
Last edited:
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
I am sure that this has been covered elsewhere here…but if I am +VE LFT I do not know if it is the omicron variant. Must I take a PCR test if I so test positive. And does the PCR test identify omicron or not. I only ask as I have a feeling that what I must, can and cannot do may be different for omicron than for previous (delta) variant. If so how do I know.

i note that I am not…just heard it come up asked earlier but didn’t hear the answer.
Click to expand...

From what I gather you will only find out if it is Omicron if you are contacted by contact tracers. They’ll know as they’ll have been told by the lab. That said not all labs are able to test for the new variant so you may just get a positive PCR back and never know either way!!

I don’t think there are any differences anyway, if your positive on a PCR it’s 10 days in isolation either from first symptoms or from positive test if asymptomatic.
 
PNWokingham said:
This is very heartening if true and goes completely against the panic being advocated in some circles and the extra measures brought in. Hopefully it is a sign that the disease in turning from pandemic to endemic

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...-give/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
Click to expand...

There is no panic occurring. If there were, there would be much more stringent measures being implemented, and perhaps there should be.

I do not give money to the Barclay brothers, so I did not see who the 'expert' was or the basis for their breezy optimism.
 
There seems to be a suggestion that Boris my call another briefing this evening off the back of today's COBRA meeting. Sure that's going to be full off Christmas glad tidings!
 
Ethan said:
There is no panic occurring. If there were, there would be much more stringent measures being implemented, and perhaps there should be.

I do not give money to the Barclay brothers, so I did not see who the 'expert' was or the basis for their breezy optimism.
Click to expand...

Obviously there are 'experts' and experts, but feel free to have a look if you want to comment. And there has been plenty of panic stories of 70k deaths predicted from the Tropical something institute in London.
 
Think this sums up current position :

"There is huge uncertainty over how many admissions there will be. Modelling has suggested the peak could be around half what was seen last winter or approaching double."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top