Proportionality of NHS response

In the early stages of the pandemic, there was a fear that NHS services would be overwhelmed. Many normal NHS services were almost completely shut down in order to free up capacity to deal with anticipated covid cases. Could some services, eg cancer care, have continued as normal without significantly impacting on covid capacity? Could other services have been wound down slowly, with covid capacity being increased in a modular way as it was required? Had this approach been considered in disaster planning?

Why the contribution is important

When normal NHS services ate curtailed for a significant period, people will die. Excess deaths recently have been higher than can be accounted for from covid deaths alone, implying that people are dying as a result of not receiving necessary treatment. Backlogs in treatment, which could possibly have been mitigated, will take years to clear.

by GordonRaw on September 24, 2021 at 12:32PM

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Average rating: 4.9
Based on: 13 votes

Comments

  • Posted by Smith123 September 24, 2021 at 13:11

    This is very important. Lockdowns were put in place to save lives and not to burden the NHS with patients. The effectiveness of lockdowns in achieving these goals long term needs impartial evaluation.

  • Posted by meganldwis95 September 24, 2021 at 13:37

    I would also like to understand how many died of cancer, or on waiting lists for treatment or for diagnosis during this period?
    Why are gps allowed to refuse patients face to face appointments, it would help the NHS and get people diagnosed a lot quicker.

    We spent money from out taxes for a pop up hospital at the SECC, yet seen no covid cases. How does the government believe they can reimburse our money in the services in demand across Scotland when staff shortages are at the lowest in the health and social care services and the resources are not meeting to needs and requirement standards?

  • Posted by jmbrown September 26, 2021 at 09:45

    Other critical services within the NHS Healthboards should not have been closed or reduced. Cancer services, screening, etc Will be interesting to see how many have died or have been diagnosed much later. It was criminal to stop these services. Many people will have died or died much earlier than necessary.
    Also stopping face to face contact with GP contributed and is still contributing to slower diagnosis and death.
    Other arrangements could have been made to have COVID and other services continue.
    Problems within the NHS were there prior to COVID .
    I have every sympathy for all those who died of COVID but I also have sympathy for all of those people who died because they were denied services or who did not come forward as early as they would have because they were told to prevent pressure on thenNHS.

  • Posted by Mgtmail September 29, 2021 at 17:36

    Probably the most important topic in the whole debate. I acknowledge Covid was demanding and the NHS frontline staff were under pressure.
    However there are vast numbers of non clinical NHS staff who worked remotely at home and still doing so; some are not even cleared to attend external meetings in partner agencies- why ?
    We also have vast numbers of allied health professionals within NHS but the services provided by them seemed to come to a halt except in rare cases - why ? Many outpatient clinics were stopped and some have returned to normal working but not all - why?
    Sadly this great institution is receiving a great deal of criticism for the lack of services, or receiving letters stating your next outpatient appointment, which was supposed to be in June 2020 will now be in Jan 2023: these questions need to be answered to restore our confidence in our health care.
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