Excess Deaths... Links required for any Covid references.

[fillyboy]

Covid lockdown BOMBSHELL: Devastating cost of UK shutdown laid bare - new report

Ten million patients - one in six of the population - missed out on NHS treatment, including hundreds of thousands suffering life threatening conditions such as heart disease, strokes, asthma and diabetes.
It shows hospital waits, emergency ambulance delays, and "persistent" mental health problems at "record" levels since pandemic measures were introduced. But despite government "catch up efforts", it finds tens of thousands of deadly conditions are still being missed.
The groundbreaking analysis has been described by one senior scientist as "worse than we imagined", while a scientific advisor to the cabinet said the figures were "predictable" blaming the government's inability to "look to the future by prioritising deaths from covid above all others."

Another cancer specialist said the collateral damage of measures "is far greater in terms of life years lost," as it is "hitting younger patients compared to those severely affected by covid."

The wide ranging report comes as official statistics suggest the effects of lockdowns may now be killing more people than are dying from Covid, with as many as 1,000 more people than usual dying from non-Covid-related causes every week.

The analysis, published by the Department of Health and Social Care and Office of National Statistics, also found a dramatic drop in vital social care provision during lockdown restrictions and noted increased smoking and alcohol use since measures were imposed.

It states: "Ten million patients have not come forward for treatment over the pandemic who otherwise may have."

 

[carmanmemoranda]

while a scientific advisor to the cabinet said the figures were "predictable" blaming the government's inability to "look to the future by prioritising deaths from covid above all others."

Interesting sentence in there.

Remind me who that government was and led by ? Thought they handled covid brilliantly? One of Boris' major success' ?

 

[fillyboy]

Interesting sentence in there.

Remind me who that government was and led by ? Thought they handled covid brilliantly? One of Boris' major success' ?

Overall it was handled well. Lets face it most of the criticism about the Govt, and particularly on here, was that lockdowns started too late and finished too early. A 'scientific advisor' now proclaiming that the Govt 'over prioritised' covid is a little bit rich to say the least.

 

[ajohn]

Earlier this month, Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, told MPs that changes to pension rules

Rhubarb. People reach an age where they are likely to want to retire if they can. That age may not match the gov's ever increasing set ages. In some areas people are taking steps to avoid having to work to that age. Do you blame them? Some find avoiding working to that age easier than others, Some have no choice.

My brother retired at 60 a couple of years ago - done by arranging things to make that possible. He and others could choose some other age. In my brothers case the company may have thought he was getting a bit old for the job. As it turned out they asked him to delay for a while to help a replacement run in. In some areas the company would be thinking he was way too old for the job.

Company pension schemes were set up to near ensure people worked to what ever the retirement age for them was. Earlier meant penalties, often severe. This still seems to apply to some state provided jobs. Not all that long ago there have been early retirement periods in these areas with reduced penalties. I feel it has become a bit of an expectation with many people.

Doc's pensions - have a read

https://www.wesleyan.co.uk/pensions-and-retirement/nhs-pension/practitioners-guide

Doesn't really tie in with what you have posted does it. As far as I know all state jobs are handled the same way. I see it as being a plus for them in some ways.

£1,000,000 pot. more to read

How much income will a £1m pension generate?

How far will a £1m pension pot go in retirement? How to maximise the amount of income you receive in retirement and not run short of money.

frazerjames.co.uk

Pension Lifetime Allowance - how to pay less tax

How the pension lifetime allowance works, how to increase your pension lifetime allowance and what you can do to reduce the LTA tax charge.

frazerjames.co.uk

Similar changes in numbers related to pension funds resulted in the end of company pensions. These funds could be advantageous to the company that ran them - over subscription that a company could decide to take out at some point.

In practice people can pack money away in several ways. The pension aspect is tax not paid until it's drawn. Against that tax paid on interest earned other than with ISA'a. Some lucky people can take their full allowance every year.

TBH I think this is one of a number of areas that could cause the UK's bubble to burst. There are a number of them at the moment.

 

[carmanmemoranda]

Overall it was handled well. Lets face it most of the criticism about the Govt, and particularly on here, was that lockdowns started too late and finished too early. A 'scientific advisor' now proclaiming that the Govt 'over prioritised' covid is a little bit rich to say the least.

So you only liked some parts of that link. Only the bits that suited you of course.

Any idea what advisors do ?

 

[ajohn]

were "predictable" blaming the government's inability to "look to the future by prioritising deaths from covid above all others."

Typical. They didn't. They prioritised the ability to treat. Nobody has the remotest idea what would have happened if treatment was unavailable due to numbers. More deaths is certain. Deaths in various covid periods make good headline figures and give an indication of how things are going. Recoveries following treatment isn't much mentioned but it's a fact that getting in needed people to be in a pretty bad condition and there have been loads of them.

Mention of heart attacks and strokes. People generally know they have that problem when they have them. Not many will have had checks showing that these may happen due to how the health service works. Certain things are looked for at particular ages but those 2 aren't one of them. In many respects my health checks provided at work were more useful as they indicated some factors even though I was fine. I don't get those now. I did get a battery of blood tests at one point via a GP.. A while ago now > 10years.

It seems that people drank enough and smoked enough during lock downs to give themselves serious problems quickly. Really.

It is true that some people may have ignored some symptoms. It is also true that they may have had problems seeing a doctor - no video link etc and also thinking about the problems the NHS were having and not wanting to add to them. Some may have thought go for checks or whatever and they may catch covid. Well if you remember some did. Doc's complaining that they had passed covid onto patients. Fact is cancer doesn't have to produce instant symptoms. It shows up when it causes problems. Wouldn't it be nice to spot it earlier - give everybody a whole body scan maybe. It wont happen.

I do think the covid enquiry will show that several things could have been handled more effectively, if it's an honest one. Hindsight is fine though but in some areas I don't think that will apply.

It sounds like a bit of a blame game report to me and reality will be more complex. I'm also having problems seeing how it fits in with ambulances having problems getting their patients into hospital. People are unlikely to find themselves in one unless they need to be. That's even true of covid.

Mental problems. Brief BBC announcement that interested me. A health tzar thinking that encouraging people to avoid saturated fats completely will result in more people with mental type issues. The beeb mentioned the rather large increase in the costs in that area. Is the man right? Pass but a period on statins did make me wonder. Other problems with them as well. As a medic said to me as they dole out more and more different problems crop up. I have low blood pressure - should I take more salt? Why is it low - probably due to being extremely fit rather a long time ago now but who knows.

 

[carmanmemoranda]

Overall it was handled well. Lets face it most of the criticism about the Govt, and particularly on here, was that lockdowns started too late and finished too early. A 'scientific advisor' now proclaiming that the Govt 'over prioritised' covid is a little bit rich to say the least.

Disaster planning expert Professor Lucy Easthope, who advised the Cabinet office during the pandemic, said: "This is no shock to me. As planners, we knew this would come, and during our pandemic planning before covid-19 it was a given that as the virus raged you had to find ways to protect the health care of Britain - maintaining cancer, maternity and cardiac services, GP care.

"We never thought the government would close health care services and surveillance for non-covid patients because we knew that if you did that we wouldn't be able to cope with the fallout."


From the report you posted !

 

[ajohn]

"We never thought the government would close health care services and surveillance for non-covid patients because we knew that if you did that we wouldn't be able to cope with the fallout."

It's a bit of a crackpot comment really. Who would perform these services when lots of staff were tied up handling covid. Doc's even had concerns about physically seeing patients in case they passed on covid. Some knew they had and the patient died. The people they see may be ill in all sorts of ways.

I do believe covid did mess up seeing a gp but other factors have also been slowly changing that area largely down to there not being enough of them. They too were not keen on catching covid.

Extended times to treatment aren't really new. They started a while ago

10 crucial trends: Quality in the NHS 2009 to 2017

We look at key quality performance measures during an unprecedented period of financial squeeze.

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk

Actually if you look enough I think you will find those target times had been extended before this period started. If specific reasons for being in hospital were looked at I am pretty sure some would be worse than others - I'm partly thinking joint replacements, possibly cataracts too going on how long that took with my father.

The covid questions really relate to lock downs - what is the best way to go. It's a fact that the higher the peak the longer they take to drop. The other one is business. Why is it it took some ages to realise that they could run. Food shops did things to make that more feasible why didn't others. My vets, my post on our dog. A few weeks ago the vets had a sign up saying no mask go away. I went to get the dog's pills. Now they have a screen up. Many places have.

The other one - the gov's initial attitude to masks. Crazy really. While they are not 100% they help a lot and were available for people pretty early on. Maybe they didn't want to tell us because of availability.

 

[Justin Passing]

"Maybe they didn't want to tell us because of availability."

That was a widespread comment at the time with masks. It was a flu-like thing and you don't wash your hands to protect yourself against flu.
Oh yes, we didn't have enough masks... and worldwide it was recognised as anairborne disease

That was about the first of the bollóx.

It wrankled heavily at the time that visors, being produced in significant numbers by odd little workspaces around the country, were declarred unusable because they hadn't been approved to the standards. So even medicos who had nothing, couldn't use them.
And so on and so on.

So what?

It was a huge task, and of course we can rip holes in it now. We don't know the reasons for doing everything that was done. Of course the trolls come out saying the whole thing was an entire cock-up.

It wasn't, and we have no way of knowing what-if this, or what-if that.

 

[ajohn]

The masks relate to the need to wash hands. The gov understandably didn't mandated some things as they would be expected to pay for them - as they did with some aspects. Ended as soon as they could. More use of advice maybe?

One of the woolly areas is herd immunity. Mentioned and I think used in an indirect way. Going on population natural immunity levels it didn't appear achieve much. Not that these people can't still catch it. As things have turned out it looks like there is no such thing. They wouldn't have known that for a significant period of time but did find 2nd and more infections as soon as they looked. There is little info about on what that means for the people concerned. I have seen a report that suggests it's not predictable. It was not a thorough report. Very few people.

The shields I mentioned at the vets are across their counter. Some places have decided to fit / kept them in place. Probably sick of staff catching it. However me, dog, vet and an assistant, small room no masks. They do get a proportion that just call in for medications etc.

 

[fillyboy]

Rhubarb. People reach an age where they are likely to want to retire if they can. That age may not match the gov's ever increasing set ages. In some areas people are taking steps to avoid having to work to that age. Do you blame them? Some find avoiding working to that age easier than others, Some have no choice.

It's not rhubard John, it's been well documented for several years now.

Doctors revolt over pension tax rules: What sparked the row?

Doctors are being hit by limits on pension tax relief that affect all high earners. This is having damaging unintended consequences for the NHS and everyone relying on it.

www.thisismoney.co.uk

 

[Justin Passing]

The masks relate to the need to wash hands.

You misremember, John.

 

[gant]

You misremember, John.

Wasn't it ever thus.