Coronavirus

[Flying Torquewrench]

These lockdowns should have been enforced by the police and the military from the beginning. No point in telling people that they should stay at home as nobody listens anyway.

Same with pubs/clubs and restaurants. Break the law once and you get a large fine, break the law a second time and you lose your license. That will make them sit up and pay attention. It is bloody frustrating to see our local pub spending a lot of money on keeping its clientele safe and the pub a mile away just opens as if nothing is going on.

Since 23rd March 2020 I have worked 12!! days with another 3 rostered at the end of this month. With current restrictions in place I will most likely not work another day till April. Which means a grand total of 15 days worked in a year! And the chances of redundancy are ever growing.

 

[Gunners]

Someone quoted this to me today:
The NHS employs 1.47 million people and has 147,000 beds. That is 1,000 employees for every bed.
A bit of googling and it appears approximately correct and that only includes directly employed, not all the agency workers, GPs, home helps, nursing home staff etc.
Yes I know some specialities don't need a lot of beds, but even then I wonder how we need that sort of backup per bed.

When I did the work at Reading Hospital, the office staff vastly outnumbered the "on the ground" staff.
Huge back office there with all manor of departments. They had their own architect on site and engineer, plus project manager etc! These aren't just temp guys, they are solely for that hospitals projects!
We were in filling the courtyard gardens to make more ward space for beds. I did suggest f****ng off the office staff to a pre made unit off site and turning the office into wards! Much more efficient! All falls on deaf ears of course. The office staff took 3 weeks to organise to disconnect some bollard lights in the courtyard I was digging out. Even though they have their own sparkies on site.... Worked around aircon units in the way and this bloody cable until I caught it by accident and pulled it out the wall!
The poor lady in the room the cable was fed from was a bit shocked when a cable was pulled out the ceiling! That was that room out of action for a few days. All because of lazy admin. The guys and girls on the ground were sound as you would expect and do a great job with what they have. What's frustrating is how much better it could be with just a few simple changes.
Maybe put one of these top flying CEO's in charge and see if they can get to the bottom of it. Its a business at the end of the day - of sorts.

 

[Lancs Lad]

Apart from school traffic not being around the roads seem as busy as ever
And there is no way that all these cars are doing something essential

But don't worry I feel very safe as 2 covid marshals cam passed today
I know they must be doing a serious job by the assault boots cargo trousers and tactical vests they where wearing

Just thinking the same traffic about normal here not noticeably quieter but then I think folk round here have just got used to lockdown and just crack on..school I passed today had a full carpark?

 

[Lancs Lad]

Someone quoted this to me today:
The NHS employs 1.47 million people and has 147,000 beds. That is 1,000 employees for every bed.
A bit of googling and it appears approximately correct and that only includes directly employed, not all the agency workers, GPs, home helps, nursing home staff etc.
Yes I know some specialities don't need a lot of beds, but even then I wonder how we need that sort of backup per bed.

Utter joke...one wonders how many millions are been thrown at "covid" related projects and other bullshit...must be folk taking it in.
Nothing but praise for the lasses and lads on the "wards" but it's the rest of the circus that does my head in.

 

[Bob]

I done a barn conversion for a client whos job was in charge of fitting and programing ct and msi scanners he fitted a scanner which was hung off the ceiling .When it was fitted he found it was not as solid as it should have been ,so he got a ladder to find the problem and found that a bolt had been missed by main contractor .So he told the man in charge for the hospital to get the contractor to fit it. Within 2 weeks 3 different consultants came round to check, he then got a full report what was wrong with frame 1 bolt out which the main contractor fitted that day

 

[Jimoz]

These lockdowns should have been enforced by the police and the military from the beginning. No point in telling people that they should stay at home as nobody listens anyway.

Same with pubs/clubs and restaurants. Break the law once and you get a large fine, break the law a second time and you lose your license. That will make them sit up and pay attention. It is bloody frustrating to see our local pub spending a lot of money on keeping its clientele safe and the pub a mile away just opens as if nothing is going on.

Since 23rd March 2020 I have worked 12!! days with another 3 rostered at the end of this month. With current restrictions in place I will most likely not work another day till April. Which means a grand total of 15 days worked in a year! And the chances of redundancy are ever growing.

Who do you class as essential worker then?
Total lockdown is ok if you want no emergency services, no supply chains, no gas, water or electric, no repairs or maintenance or construction, no food.

 

[V8Druid]

I done a barn conversion for a client whos job was in charge of fitting and programing ct and msi scanners he fitted a scanner which was hung off the ceiling .When it was fitted he found it was not as solid as it should have been ,so he got a ladder to find the problem and found that a bolt had been missed by main contractor .So he told the man in charge for the hospital to get the contractor to fit it. Within 2 weeks 3 different consultants came round to check, he then got a full report what was wrong with frame 1 bolt out which the main contractor fitted that day

I used to do quite a lot of work in the local hospital .... all sorts .... the guys on the ground were fine ... those in 'control' of them were a bloody nightmare

new MRI scanner going into the suite we built the steelwork for on the roof of the A & E / Radiology wing, there

6t @ 57+m - Liebherr 500 tonner ... full ballast and superlift rigged ... max cap

deflection

more pix here for the interested Photobucket

 

[Lynchy]

Fifth largest in world,largest employer in Europe

 

[Lancs Lad]

That...is staggering. So China have 1.5bn population...but there health service is less than ours

 

[Jimoz]

How long that take to set up @V8Druid ? See your pics on that link looks a pretty serious job to kit it up. What kind of cost?

 

[Jimoz]

That...is staggering. So China have 1.5bn population...but there health service is less than ours

I wonder if other countries privatise their services and have many smaller organisations rather than 1. It's sacrilege to say it here but would probably result in better service/outcomes/cost

 

[GazCro]

I wonder if other countries privatise their services and have many smaller organisations rather than 1. It's sacrilege to say it here but would probably result in better service/outcomes/cost

Some of the biggest costs the nhs will have will be the private companies they deal with taking the pi**. The biggest issue we have is nobody has any responsibility any more so we have to have 10 people to every job so nobody has to feel like the focus is on one person.

 

[Lancs Lad]

The news is grimmer and grimmer every day... Really seeing a impact around the place now especially if you follow stocks and money.

Anybody been affected?

Think it's fair to say we've been affected seems a long time ago that post!

 

[Lynchy]

I wonder if other countries privatise their services and have many smaller organisations rather than 1. It's sacrilege to say it here but would probably result in better service/outcomes/cost

That numbers directly employed,not including agency/consultancy

 

[V8Druid]

How long that take to set up @V8Druid ? See your pics on that link looks a pretty serious job to kit it up. What kind of cost?

arrived about 5 pm the previous evening Jim with 8 trucks and 2 other cranes ..... had had to strip out the inner boom sections of the 500 to allow it to cross a weak culvert en route and so had to be re-assembled on site (in the pix) .... was up, rigged and ready to tele out for 8 a.m., on the Saturday morning, by midnight .. was a bitterly cold evening !...
ordinarily it'd arrive in one piece with just its entourage of support crane and ballast weight trailers, etc.
pleased to say I wasn't footing the bill, so unable to give you a cost, but'd've been a contract lift ...
control cab. went in first

after the purpose built roof hatch'd been removed for access

then the scanner went in .... little did I know in Jan '09, that i'd be in the damned thing a couple of times the following year

arrived in a purpose built truck from Siemens in Germany, fully active and plumbed/gas-ed up, on its own 'life support' on board. IIRC had about an hour or so to get it in and reconnected to its systems .. or huge costs involved in re-commissioning the thing on site

 

[Bob]

Vic who I done job for worked for Siemens but he just done east anglia and north London

 

[Flying Torquewrench]

Who do you class as essential worker then?
Total lockdown is ok if you want no emergency services, no supply chains, no gas, water or electric, no repairs or maintenance or construction, no food.

@Jimoz , please read again what I have written. Nowhere have I talked about a total lockdown! Unless you can see something that I can’t?

The lockdows and subsequent tier system is/was badly policed. In other countries key workers could still go out and do their job but needed to be prepared to be stopped. As a key worker myself, I have been in various other countries and have been stopped on several occasions. Here in the UK I have never been questioned why I have been out.

 

[Lancs Lad]

@Jimoz , please read again what I have written. Nowhere have I talked about a total lockdown! Unless you can see something that I can’t?

The lockdows and subsequent tier system is/was badly policed. In other countries key workers could still go out and do their job but needed to be prepared to be stopped. As a key worker myself, I have been in various other countries and have been stopped on several occasions. Here in the UK I have never been questioned why I have been out.

Depends on your viewpoint. UK is a democracy I know it doesn't feel like it at times!..remember that most of the lock downs and travel restrictions since the 1st lockdown have only been "advice" rather than law. Plenty about it online.
UK is a democracy and the idea is folk work to their own convictions within the extent of the law.
Hence we left the EU....read into that how you will.

 

[Grahams]

@Jimoz , please read again what I have written. Nowhere have I talked about a total lockdown! Unless you can see something that I can’t?

The lockdows and subsequent tier system is/was badly policed. In other countries key workers could still go out and do their job but needed to be prepared to be stopped. As a key worker myself, I have been in various other countries and have been stopped on several occasions. Here in the UK I have never been questioned why I have been out.

In general our law is you can do what you like unless it is forbidden as opposed to you can only do what you are allowed to do - different mindset than a lot of places. Also we have been against Identity Cards - "Show me your papers" strikes a lot of Brits as totalitarianism.

 

[TiltyShaun]

Someone quoted this to me today:
The NHS employs 1.47 million people and has 147,000 beds. That is 1,000 employees for every bed.
A bit of googling and it appears approximately correct and that only includes directly employed, not all the agency workers, GPs, home helps, nursing home staff etc.
Yes I know some specialities don't need a lot of beds, but even then I wonder how we need that sort of backup per bed.

Mentioned these numbers to the clever one in the house last night and she pointed out that there are many many areas of the NHS that don’t use beds. The number of beds is a measure of capacity. It doesn’t cover speciality.
On the flip side she does thing the NHS needs a major review as it doesn’t encourage best practice throughout!!