UK health agency to cut 800 jobs and halt routine Covid testing

[Northerner]

The flagship public health body set up by Boris Johnson to combat the pandemic is in turmoil, with plans looming to cut jobs by up to 40% and suspend routine Covid testing in hospitals and care homes to save money.

Whitehall sources have told the Guardian that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), led by Dr Jenny Harries, is in a state of disarray, with morale at rock bottom and concerns it is not funded to cope with any resurgence in the pandemic. Public health experts warned that the “alarming” cuts could cost lives.

More than 800 staff are due to be lost from vital health protection teams across the country in the coming months, a reduction of 40% from the current 2,000 members of staff. One insider said people were being given two weeks’ notice that their contracts were being ended early, and the way it was being dealt with was similar to the “recent situation at P&O”.

Some other teams throughout the organisation have also been told they need to cut full-time equivalent staff by 40%.

UK health agency to cut 800 jobs and halt routine Covid testing

Exclusive: ‘Alarming’ cuts by UK Health Security Agency could cost lives, public health experts warn

www.theguardian.com

But it's OK because the pandemic is over and there's no chance of a new variant arriving in the autumn - is there? 😱

 

[nonethewiser]

Govn don't do forward thinking do they.

Shame for workers involved but surely they would know that work wasn't guaranteed longterm.

 

[mikeyB]

With record numbers of infections with Covid now is not the time to abandon routine testing. The more infections rapidly increases the chance of a new variant to appear, which will either be more virulent or less. If you don’t test for Covid, you will never know until it is too late to recognise that there is a new variant around.

The whole of England is just a Petre dish of seething infections. On political reasons, not medical or public health reasons. And against the advice of epidemiologists. I for one will be wearing a mask in shops and crowded public areas, like football matches. And hospitals, who still insist on wearing masks. At least round here, at any rate.

 

[Northerner]

The whole of England is just a Petre dish of seething infections. On political reasons, not medical or public health reasons. And against the advice of epidemiologists. I for one will be wearing a mask in shops and crowded public areas, like football matches. And hospitals, who still insist on wearing masks. At least round here, at any rate.

Every member of the Westminster government is completely third-rate and only thinking about how they might hang on to power. The fact that they are delaying a leadership contest because there is no-one in their entire party who they think could do better than a lying, law-breaking narcissist tells the full story of just how incompetent they are Just recently Matt Hancock claimed to be exonerated by the court ruling that the government acted unlawfully - his claim that 'no-one told me that there was asymptomatic transmission' is about as convincing a lie as Johnson's 'no-one told me I was breaking the rules' I recently listened to the R4 Inside Science podcasts from the start of the pandemic and through that first year - everything was absolute chaos, with the government constantly acting either too early or too late, depending on whatever the worst decision was that they could make They keep trying to suggest that they 'made all the right calls' - this is a rewriting of history Rant over (for now!) 😱

 

[trophywench]

No moral compass.

No idea which party he's supposed to be, whoever it was accused of watching porn on his phone - but the thought of anyone anywhere doing that whilst supposedly AT WORK utterly gobsmacks me. (It could be watching anything whatever on your phone even the flippin teletubbies - NOT AT WORK)

So I conclude it's rife in the general population of this country to have no moral compass, as MPs are sposed to be a cross section of the general populace. I'm sad about that knowing that so very many parents and their school teachers etc have been totally unable to instil a sense of right and wrong into such a lot of people in all walks of life.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

MPs are sposed to be a cross section of the general populace

They might be intended to be but they obviously aren't representative (and never have been). There's no way they could be, realistically, unless we had some radical change away from democracy (so be run by representatives chosen by lottery, as an example).

This lot seem particularly bad. Chosen for their loyalty to the PM and to his daft version of Brexit, they're not that good at much else.

 

[Northerner]

So I conclude it's rife in the general population of this country to have no moral compass, as MPs are sposed to be a cross section of the general populace. I'm sad about that knowing that so very many parents and their school teachers etc have been totally unable to instil a sense of right and wrong into such a lot of people in all walks of life.

I still have some faith that a lot of them are there for the right reasons, although that's very difficult to believe when so many of the Tories either defend Johnson or are too feared to depose him It's surely got a lot to do with Eton exceptionalism and entitlement, and all-male public schoolboys who never grew up and thought it jolly good fun to join the Bullingdon club, burning %50 notes in front of homeless people and performing unnatural acts with dead pigs

I did find this quite funny 😱

 

[trophywench]

Have to say I don't necessarily agree with what comes out of Nicola Sturgeon's mouth, but when she said that men were responsible for misogyny so by now it was beyond time they changed, I did.