Thursday, April 2, 2020

Dounreay offered large supplies of PPE to health workers in Caithness - but the bureaucrats said "no"

I was kindly sent some information yesterday about community procurement of PPE in the Highlands (from businesses, police and the like), which is intended to help plug the gaps in the totally inadequate NHS supplies.  I gather that some of the details were featured on Channel 4 News recently, but the most striking revelation is that Dounreay offered a large supply of PPE to the NHS in Caithness, and it was turned down by management because it hadn't followed the normal procurement guidelines.  Frontline staff were understandably furious that bureaucratic absurdities had left them needlessly at risk.  It seems pretty likely that supplies that are good enough for decommissioning Scotland's most dangerous radioactive site would be of great use to NHS workers.  [UPDATE: I see from a news story posted in the last few hours that a donation from Dounreay appears to have been accepted, so it looks like the original decision was reversed either wholly or in part.  A 'better late than never' moment - we've had quite a few of those during this crisis.]

There are also suggestions that the PPE that has arrived from central procurement is much inferior to the supplies that have come from local businesses - for example, glasses that fall off and gowns that don't cover elbows or the whole of arms.  There's a plea for the Scottish Government to follow the example of other nations by urging industry to donate their PPE to the NHS.

It's well-known that the shortages of PPE (and the inadequacies of the supplies that do exist) are a massive problem because they put health workers at grave risk of infection and illness, and also because seriously ill patients are much less likely to receive optimum treatment if a significant percentage of health workers are self-isolating after showing symptoms.  But there's also a third issue: lack of PPE is a significant factor in fuelling the overall epidemic.  I believe I'm correct in saying that in Italy, no fewer than 8% of all confirmed cases are health workers.  Many of those people have gone home and infected family members.

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On a totally unrelated subject, I've been having a look at the datasets for the recent Scottish poll from Panelbase, and you might be interested to know just how close we came to a 50/50 split on the independence question.  After weighting, 415 respondents said they would vote Yes, and 424 said they would vote No.  That works out as Yes 49.46%, No 50.54%.  (Those figures are approximate, because I'm fairly sure that even weighted respondents are rounded to the nearest whole number.)  If the Yes figure had been 49.5% or above, it would have been reported as 50%.  So it looks as if just the tiniest smidgeon more would have kept Yes in the 50s - which is pretty incredible in the middle of the biggest international crisis since the Second World War.

18 comments:

  1. Would gear from Dounreay even be useful to NHS staff?
    Radiation and radioactive particles seem like very different threats to viral particles.

    My (limited) understand is that face masks are designed to stop particles from passing through by means of a dry barrier. Does the equipment used at Dounreay work by the same mechanism? I know in toher fields that sub-standard PPE is less safe than none at all since it creates a false sense of security and encourages unnecessary risks.

    Also, it would be irresponsible to use equipment which hasn't been designed for the job, or which can be demonstrated to be of similar quality and design. This would be a logical reason to insist that all equipment go through formal procurement channels. Whether this is the real reason, I cannot say.

    Since I've no specialist knowledge of this, or know the details of this case, any further comment from me would be speculation.

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    1. From what I've read, there seems to be a high degree of confidence that it would have been of use, and that it really was just bureaucracy that got in the way.

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    2. As for the irresponsibility of using equipment that wasn't designed for the job, I'd draw your attention to the observation about the NHS' own supplies often being markedly inferior to equipment acquired from unconventional sources.

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    3. My point on irresponsibility was that the 'conventionally sourced' goods are(on paper at least) of a known quality, whereas 'unconventionally sourced' are by their nature of an unknown quality.
      If there isn't a process in place for verifying that quality of unconventionally sourced goods, then it would be very difficult for a health board to authorise their use. Just imagine the shitstorm if they started distributing defective kit.

      I'm just saying there can be very legitimate reasons for decisions such as these being made which seem outwardly like bureaucratic obstructionism.

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    4. The picture that is painted by what I've been sent is of people with expertise who are tearing their hair out at the total unsuitability of what is being provided by the "proper procedure" and are gratefully receiving what they know to be superior equipment from unconventional sources.

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    5. Virtually all commercially available PPE has a set of standards. Taking masks/respirators for example, you have P1, P2 and P3 levels of protection. No matter what industry it comes from a P3 mask will provide protection. Everything should be clearly labelled what standards it meets so its a very simple process to check

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    6. Dounreay will have invoices and copy orders and so the provenance and quality of the PPE is easily found.

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  2. To have 49.5% or above would have needed just 1 more person to be Yes rather than No.

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    1. I took that poll and accidentally ticked no when I meant yes.

      ;-)

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  3. James,
    The Times Panel Base poll has a 2% increase against previous but the 49% is lower than your own poll earlier this year. Is the methodology the same i.e. is this apples with apples ?

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    1. YouGov polling for The Times:

      https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/sgj7p6jhwf/TheTimes_VI_200402_W.pdf

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    2. Scottish sample, Westminster:
      49% SNP
      27 Con
      12 Lab
      6 Grn
      5 Lib

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  4. Scottish testing rates have increased notably this week, and are now running at 42% higher than the UK. Scotland does 142 for every 100 in the rUK. The average is 38% greater, with 42% a new high.

    Unfortunately, the death rate here has also started to pick up markedly, although Scotland still remains notably behind the rUK on the curve. A further slight positive here, is that the number of positive cases identified per test undertaken in Scotland is increasing at a measurably lower rate than for the rUK. This is supportive of a lower infection rate.

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    1. Is there any tracing of contacts going on here in Scotland? I’m puzzled by what testing alone achieves. Clearly we are ‘all’ locked down at the minute but that’s neither targeted nor 100%, and a bit of each would bring huge rewards?

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    2. To be honest, I'm not sure of why the Scottish testing is so high compared to the rUK, and how that relates to strategy, which is clearly somewhat different. Others have mentioned some form tracing normally used for flu that's been applied here.

      I'm personally just a bit of a data geek, and so have been looking at the numbers reported at 2pm each day and seeing what I can see.

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  5. Johnson could fire a nuclear missile from the Clyde take out Edinburgh, blame the SNP and Britnats in Scotland are so conditioned they would still say it is so much better being in the UK.

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    1. Surely, he would want to take out Glasgow and Dundee as these are hotbeds of independence supporting bastards, whereas Embro voted strongly for NO.

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  6. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52158444

    "....It’s increasingly difficult to find the words to describe the devastation as every region in the world fights to save human life as the first priority,” said Duncan Brock, CIPS group director..."

    To be honest, while the economic situation is utterly shite, this sentence sums up while I feel hope.

    Economic depressions are driven by pessimism...by a feeling of abandonment. A loss of hope. That the world is dog eat dog, every man for himself.

    Yet what could create more hope than 'every region in the world fighting to save human life as the first priority'?

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