My relative is quite high up in a business where supplying PPE was around 5/10% of his business.
You'll be unsurprised to learn that its far greater than that currently.
I had a conversation with him late last week.
He is receiving dozens of calls and emails daily direct from Hospitals and council chiefs, nurses, doctors, care workers private and public asking him to source varying PPE.
His supply line is limited and the manufacturers are rationing PPE delivery to each supplier and spreading it about as best they can.
Only last Thursday a head of a department in the local council enquired about obtaining Body Bags, and if he couldnt could he try and look for alternate equipment that will do the job (meeting certain standards to avoid contamination issues).

Some may be alright, some aren't

The government’s sudden interest in looking after care workers is as a result of the bad press they are receiving. They are once again being reactive and even then they are only offering tests if needed not to all. They I believe have like all sectors closest to the virus tested 1000 care workers out of roughly 300,000.
The longer this goes on the government’s failures will continue to be highlighted be it testing or lack of PPE.

The Government have done the right thing i.e. prioritise the NHS - they would have been slaughtered if they hadn't - care homes are private businesses that charge £20-30k a patient a year - surely it is their responsibility to provide their staff with the appropriate PPE?

What is the average annual charge for a resident £20-30k - so how you can even consider looking at deflecting blame for your employees not having the correct PPE is typical of you and your politics.

Testing has been a major issue that the government has failed miserably to implement.

What the f**k are you talking about?



Correct - and it remains so - and will look even worse when they utterly fail to get anywhere near Boris Johnson's solemn promise of 100k tests per day, the deadline for which was in 2 weeks time.

For accuracy Johnson failed promise was 25,000 tests by now it was Hancock who said 100,000 by the end of April. What proves the government failure on testing is that currently they have a capacity to perform 19,000 a day but are only utilising 14,500 they can’t even do enough to fill the woeful limit they have.

It's all ok now - my 1800 front line workers are getting a badge!

Will that be inside their wage packet, including tangible bonus ?

You could of been protecting your staff so much sooner because the badge was first made available last year. This is clearly a dereliction of the duty of care on your part.

We've put all our front line staff pay rates up by 20% for the duration of the pandemic - but I'm sure the badge will overshadow that.

If you think Boris and The Tories are doing a great job of running the country, a 99 year old man shouldn’t have to be raising funds for the NHS.

He isn't.

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you know that, I know that, but it doesn't suit the narrative for a number of posters. I doubt many of them actually know who Cpt. Tom is raising funds for, or why. £18m and rising.

His "just giving" page, suggests that the funds are for the NHS ??

Even the lefties/Boris bashers on here can't suggest that the government isn't prepared to put whatever money is needed right now into the NHS - are you?

They are throwing plenty of money and resource at the problem, absolutely no doubt about it.
Does that mean they are getting everything right, does it hell AND they are systematically twisting the truth to try and cover their own backsides and this is the gripe that I have with them.

Our ruling government were happy to tell lies before taking office and seem happy to do the same now - there is a huge trust issue.
There is also an issue with competence, although, for me, this stems from not trusting them.

NOT ONE OF THE GOVERNMENT MINISTERS HAS ACCEPTED ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR HOW THIS IS UNFOLDING and instead, blame those that are risking their lives.
The rest of the country are taking pay cuts, being furloughed etc but, these clowns say that they are working hard, once again, being "in this together", is sounding very, very hollow.

Not to mention my favourite subject of freezing the pay for the very people that we have all now come to rely on

Nope, theyve done very well for the last 4 weeks.
Just for not doing it for the last 10 years (as well as making cuts in other areas such as social care/sure start etc. etc. etc. etc. that directly affected the NHS).

Perhaps if they hadn't inherited the mess they did then this situation would have been unnecessary?

A bit unoriginal for a Captain of Industry like yourself.
Your an innovator mate, come on, you can do better than that.

I wondered how long it would be until 2008 got a mention. It's been over a decade. Change the record.

A VERY wise man once wrote, "The thing to remember about Socialists is, they are only half as intereated in the plight of those they deem to be treated unfairly, as they are in vilifying the rich"

As opposed to IR80 who seems unable to respond to any of tne real issues except by deflection, and misinformation. Unfortunately right wingers all over the worl are doing exactly the same thing

Bolsonaro in Brazil, Trump in America, Johnson ( or th epuppet of the day) in the UK.

If criticised just ignore the issue and talk about something else.

not at all, just no point conversing with agenda driven individuals, especially those who make threats via PM hiding behind a moderators badge. Crack on, it is fun, listen to Khan, he knows better than the experts, like you!

Who was the very wise man, out of interest?

I wouldn't expect you to share my opinion of who is wise and who isn't, on the whole you seem a more moderate member of the left.

This is not "The Sin Bin", it is, increasingly, a hate filled mob of a few posters of a certain age with personal axes to grind, who believe in a defunct ideaology, and we wonder why RL has never developed beyond the limitations of its mass appeal.