Unable to lay a glove on NHS Scotland nor directly on the Scottish Government, BBC Scotland’s feckless Disclosure team wanders the streets and care home offices, morbidly gorging themselves on individual tales of personal tragedies and cliched soundbites that suggest a wider reality they provide no evidence for:
‘THIS is Scotland’s largest city in 2020!’
More accurately of course, it is just one of a thousand stories that night.
‘Tonight 101 people will be fed and clothed. THIS is the pandemic you don’t see!
No one would excuse street poverty but 101 out of around 1 million in Greater Glasgow needing to be fed by charity, is that really the city defined?
Like their report on obesity last year, they linger morbidly on and prompt individual’s to cry for the camera as if that will prove their case.
Then they make another of their typically revealing errors. Not as bad as the time when they followed the wrong lorry-load of calves all the way to Spain, but letting slip that their report, unlike that of Panorama is based on events that have been overtaken by time.
Evidence-free, the presenter says:
‘Demand for PPE in this pandemic has vastly outstripped supply. The Scottish Government said it would supply millions more items of PPE but ten days into lock-down, Jean and Carol’s boss, Morris has had to track down his own. He’s taking delivery of masks from a company which normally imports souvenirs from China.’
The lock-down was announced on March 23rd more than a month ago. Ten days into the lock-down, on the 2nd of April, the MD of Bluebird Care realises that he’s running out of PPE? Isn’t HE responsible? Judging by the twin exhaust BMW, it’s a reasonable earner for him and, BBC Disclosure, this film is clearly more than three weeks old in a period of fast-moving change. It’s not even vaguely relevant now, is it?
Morris goes on to say:
‘We’re obviously on the receiving end of a lack of planning, of foresight, I don’t know where the buck stops. All I do know is that we need PPE,’
I won’t swear but really? He doesn’t know that as the MD of a private company, Bluebird Care Lanarkshire, that cares for the vulnerable, he should have been planning months ago, as Covid-19 arrived in Scotland? He doesn’t know that bucks stop at MDs?
BBC Disclosure have nothing to say about his responsibilities because they’re thinking of the Scottish Government all the time.
There’s more empathetic stuff with Bluebird Care managers, with no sense of irony or self awareness, apparently amazed that PPE was not already there ready for them in case of a crisis. There’s no mention of their status as a giant corporation, based in Florida, with 21 regional groups across the UK and 300 in the USA. There’s no mention of their failure to pay even the minimum wage: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/minimum-wage-list-employers-failed-to-pay-staff-businesses-a7185356.html
Bluebird Care’s turnover in the UK alone is typically around £200 million: https://www.homecareinsight.co.uk/the-big-interview-bluebird-care-managing-director-yvonne-hignell/.
Does BBC Disclosure have a researcher? Too busy phoning up possible greeters?
Prof Jason Leitch does get a chance, and does well, to defend the Scottish Government’s performance with reference to ‘tens of millions of items sent out to care homes’ but the presenter interrupts to insist that she has ‘one care home buying PPE off Ebay!’
We don’t see when this interview took place but it seems more than likely that she is trying to use a single case from more than three weeks ago to counter his up-to-date information about the other 300 plus homes.
They finish with a Unison rep to deny Leitch’s assessment and a reprise of all the earlier individual cases to try to drown him in tales of individual suffering.
Regardless of any underlying Unionist agenda, they’re just not very good.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000htky/disclosure-series-2-9-pandemic-frontline
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
What dross they put out.Kill BBC
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“There are ten million stories in Vacant Blighty. This has been nearly one of them”!
“Repressing Scotlund”. You KNOW it’s mugs sense!
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Let their tongues wag away.As little do they realise that such is merely a rope around their neck and that one day they shall discover that and belatedly their now exists a gap between their swaying feet and the ground
Then their tongues shall wag no more
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Your dismay at the inadequate conclusion of an (irr)-responsible care home manager made me laugh but really it isn’t one bit funny.
I shall recommend to any elderly looking for a cosy carehome that that one isn’t!!
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I suggest said MD reviews his roles and responsibilities, and any subsequent short comings with an eye on UK H&S Legislation and maybe even The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (if he has staff who have succumbed to Covid—19).
I suspect BBC Shortbreids Discloses Teams ‘documentary’ could be ‘Exhibit A’ in any future Criminal and/or Civil Court case if said MD is admitting that his Health and Safety obligations around employees weren’t in line with Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Regulation 4 of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.
What a shame if it turns out that he was a BritNat trying to sling mud at the SNHS only for it to blowback so spectacularly!
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If I was to level any criticism at all at the the Scot Gov it is they should have seen this coming at the outset the ‘Care Home ‘ issue becoming a political football. They were always going to be the most vulnerable and whilst the SG clearly cannot ignore their core responsibility to every Scot young and old and did lay out ‘Guidelines’ for the Care sector in my opinion they should have made it clear PUBLICLY AND FORCIBLY in the early days where ultimate responsibility lies in all this to avoid any backlash.
As has already said many of these Homes are part of a national chain and should be financially capable of making adequate preparations for safeguarding residents and staff and not having to rely, as many have, on Gov. I totally concur with the view that under current legislation these people should face prosecution for neglect.
It is not the first time I have felt the Scot Gov is rather naive in giving their opponents too much respect. The BBC and MSM were just waiting for the proverbial brown stuff to hit the fan so we should not be surprised.
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What you say is stupid.
You say care homes are private businesses and therefore responsible as such
And then you say the Scottish government should have been ready for the criticism of Scottish government ?
Eh ? What ?
Let me just tell you that Scottish government were indeed ready for the criticism even though they are not responsible for running these private care homes
But being ready for idiotic criticism for something you are not responsible for and have no control of
Does not prevent the idiotic criticism
You have allowed yourself to be swayed by the BBC poison pen
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Don’t have the original source for this but ….
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damn that was the wrong link but good anyway.
This is what i meant to post
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And this
‘In Scotland, the government is requiring people returning to care homes from hospital to be tested twice to reduce the chance of false negatives. “If the scientific evidence tells us they need to do that in Scotland, we need to know why the guidance is different in England,” Mr Green said.
from FT article Coronavirus deaths more than twice hospital toll, data indicate
https://www.ft.com/content/0ed8ea34-ebc5-4425-b86a-7a29447de57b
‘
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