BBC Scotland’s Disclosure team urged to take leading academic’s advice before they make a bottom of themselves again

We may have caught them in time as there is no sign of this planned broadcast in the schedules for tonight.

Readers will know that the Disclosure team has a bit of a record of gaffs like the time they followed the wrong lorry full of calves all the way to Spain.

Anyhow, ‘The Care Home Scandal’ sounds a bit risky for them. I can see them listening to Jackson Carlaw and that private care home owner then blaming Jeane Freeman for all the deaths.

So, out of the kindness of my heart, Mark, here are the facts:

  • There is no evidence that the discharges from hospitals caused the care home outbreaks.
  • Public Health England and Jean Freeman confirmed that the main source of infection was the movement of agency staff.
  • The private care homes relied heavily on agency staff bused in from as far afield as Kent.
  • Judging by inspection reports, some care homes may not have implemented infection control procedures with new arrivals fully despite these being the same as for annual flu outbreaks.
  • Public Health England did try to deny PPE supplies to Scottish care homes but NHS Scotland filled the gap.
  • In the early stages of the pandemic, the SAGE group, advised by England’s best medics, including Dominic Cummings, told the care homes that their residents were not at risk.
  • The Scottish Government was pressurised by the opposition parties and the MSM into accepting this advice and following the 4 Nations approach of delaying lock-down until ‘the right time.’
  • Scotland only got devolved power to implement lock-down on 25th March by which time the infection was peaking.

I hope this helps.

15 thoughts on “BBC Scotland’s Disclosure team urged to take leading academic’s advice before they make a bottom of themselves again”

  1. Hope this helps.

    https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2020/07/09/covid-19-and-the-impact-on-social-care/

    “…we found that people working in patient-facing roles like NHS professionals and nursing home or care home workers had a higher positive COVID-19 test rate (1.58%) than those who work in non-patient facing roles (0.27% tested positive).

    The nature of these roles, where staff are in close contact with patients and other employees, may result in them being more likely to come into contact with someone who has COVID-19. To explore this we have reported on elevated death rates involving coronavirus for male and female social care workers.

    Additionally, the health and social work industry have, understandably, the highest levels of staff continuing to work at their normal place of work, rather than remotely. The Business Impact of COVID-19 survey (wave 5) revealed that people who worked in this industry also had the highest proportion of increased working hours when compared to other industries. Furthermore, it has been reported that more key workers (12%) than non-key workers (10%) have caring responsibilitie

    In a survey of more than 9,000 care homes providing support for dementia patients and older people in England, more than half (56%) of the care homes that responded had at least one confirmed case of coronavirus, as reported by care home managers. Across those care homes where managers reported at least one case of coronavirus, 7% of staff are estimated to have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Care homes using bank or agency nurses or carers regularly, are more likely to have cases in staff and residents compared to those care homes who never use bank or agency staff. Care homes where staff regularly work elsewhere are more likely to have more cases in staff than those who have staff who never work elsewhere. Finally, care homes in which staff receive sick pay are less likely to have cases of COVID-19 in residents compared to those care homes where staff do not receive sick pay.”

    That last sentence is a killer

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      1. “Finally, care homes….” is a quote..

        “That last sentence…” is my observation of the significance of what is said. Wages are so low that sick people, in a pandemic, feel forced to work.

        Like

        Reply

  2. Hope this helps Mark also.

    s://www.katebelgrave.com/2020/06/question-how-did-carework-end-up-in-such-dire-straits-answer-outsourcing/#more-11

    “Every carehome worker I met in the last decade was on a picket line in that first instance, fighting to protect already-meagre careworker wages from attacks and cutbacks. For as long as I’ve been writing, careworker wages and conditions have been targeted by a particularly witless brand of neoliberal: local councillors (of all political stripes), MPs (ditto) and the boards/trustees of private and third sector care companies who’ve been united by two of our era’s more perverted beliefs: 1) that care can be provided on the cheap and 2) if you achieve this cheapness by slashing careworker wages and standards, care can turn a profit.

    Spawned in this manure, the stories are always, always the same. It all starts when care services, in one form or another, are outsourced from councils, or the NHS, to private or third sector companies. In the following months and years, managers of these companies cut careworker wages and sick-and-annual leave allowances, and direct that money elsewhere. Careworker contracts that were based on public sector wages and conditions – wages and conditions that private care companies swear they will protect – are, needless to say, quickly trashed. New carework starters begin on much-reduced wages and leave provisions – the bar set so low that it more or less disappears.

    This model is so standard that you can cut and paste examples straight into it. Take the Fremantle careworkers in Barnet – a group of carerworkers who I first met on a picket line in 2007 and at plenty of strikes in the years after that. These long-time Barnet carehome workers (most were women) went home one day to find a letter from the Fremantle Trust, the company to which Barnet council had outsourced carehomes and the careworkers’ jobs.

    That letter did not bring good news. The Trust told the the careworkers that their pay would be frozen and their all-important weekend enhancement pay rates removed. Many of the careworkers relied on that after-hours enhancement pay to meet their bills and mortgages. They hardly earned a fortune even with that money. Losing it was a catastrophe. The sums were simple enough – careworkers’ jobs no longer paid the bills:”

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  3. Peter Kyle Labour MP.
    John,If it is possible for you to listen to this *rick on the Peston program last night saying how bad the SNP was on care homes and quoting Murray.
    I doubt if he knows much about Scotland if he has to rely on Murray.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. Today “Russia” has hogged the headlines on the BEEB today.
    The new Security Committee , without the Boris stooge, is to release the Russia report next week. Linked?

    One issue is Russian “interference” in the last election.
    Oddly, David Cameron asked governments round the world,including Russia, to “interfere” in Scotland’s 2014 referendum. You will have seen how interested the BEEB were with that.
    When this issue is raised in the Commons, every SNP MP should raise Cameron’s attempt at foreign interference, and the utter Brit Nat hypocrisy it represents.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  5. I think that things are beginning to develop with regard to care homes in England, and, it is possible that the BBC have decided to ‘pause’ the Disclosure programme, because of things becoming clearer in England and this might put the situation in Scotland in a different perspective.

    It should also be noted that groups on the ‘left’ in Scotland have been as eager as the the Scottish media and the British Nationalist parties to blame the SG. Indeed, as I pointed out at the time, The Morning Star published Mr Kilgour’s condemnatory statement about Scottish care homes without mentioning that he was an active Tory and a bid donor to right wing causes.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Aye the Morning Star is a red Tory rag as well…they bloody hate the SNP. ‘Socialist’ is a huge CON when it comes to the UK media. the Star has limited appeal makes you wonder how they do keep going actually…who funds ’em?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. ArtyHetty, it is mainly the pieces by the Scotland editor that concern me. They seem different in tone to those reporting from other parts of the UK. He tends to put out Labour statements, underplaying the role of SNP politicians. Neil Finlay MSP, is a regular writer. The Star still has some good pieces of writing which have a genuine internationalist and socialist perspective. And the sports pages are quite good, too!

        Like

        Reply

  6. I don’t know if it has been done, or if it is even possible, but it would be very interesting to see a breakdown by type of care home management of the Infection/death rates in UK-wide care premises. By type of management, I mean privately-run, non-profit charity-run, NHS-run, Local Authority-run etc.
    Might be an eye opener.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.