necessity the saying goes as the mother
of inventions and this is according to
some GPS necessary face masks to protect
against coronavirus 3d printers are used
to make the bans and in this case water
bottles but it could be something
similar to make the shield
there was concern from both practice
staff and staff across the whole of the
primary care network that actually they
would quite like something like sand
face protection eye protection which is
an issued as standard so rather than
trying to deplete hospital supply chains
this cottage industry has led to 10,000
orders so far despite photo calls with
boxes of gloves and the army calden to
deliver supplies NHS leaders remain
deeply concerned about the lack of
protective equipment the Royal College
of Nursing told us that in a meeting
with the Health Minister this afternoon
they were assured that it is being
distributed that the college warned they
would be holding the government to
account I'm hearing from my members that
certain hospitals are bending the rules
in terms of what they were asking them
to wear when they're dealing with
October 19 patients I want to make it
very very clear that nurses should be
able to have fluent repellent masks
fluid repellent masks on
they should have aprons and gloves if
they are working within one meter of a
patient and most nurses will be working
within one meter because they are
delivering personal care they also need
to have eye protection if there is a
danger of splashing if nurses aren't
safe then they won't be delivering the
care that is needed by this the patients
and people of this country the
government says that 50 million masks
have been delivered across England in
the past two days along with more than
24 million gloves and 1.4 million eye
protectors which sounds a lot but there
are 1.3 million staff in England's NHS
covered 19 is virulent and every day the
numbers infected a growing 570 people
were as of last night in intensive care
units and London alone and there are
growing staff shortages a cardiologist
showed us masks he has now bought before
returning
to work he has spent a week recovering
from covered possibly caught from a
patient who he believes caught it in the
hospital that patient didn't make it and
she goes down as one of these people
described as elderly with underlying
health conditions but she should have
lived 90 if if we want to keep our
people safe and keep their patients safe
from them we need to be doing the most
intense protection that is feasible in
the course of a working day this isn't
just a story about protection though it
is also about testing and today the
British Medical Association described
the government's approach as illogical
we had situations where many GP
practices and hospitals were
understaffed the staff themselves who
were self isolating were telling us they
felt able to work many of them felt able
to work that were following the guidance
if they were able to be tested they
would come back to work now we we made
that point right at the outset and it
seems counterintuitive that we are
reducing our workforce at a time when we
need it the most the drug company Roche
Diagnostics has confirmed to Channel 4
News that it has struck a deal with the
government to increase coronavirus
testing automatic machines are now being
used in to NHS trusts public health
England has said it will provide an
extra five thousand tests a day by
mid-april and the government has
promised at least in the short term to
reach 25,000 a day Victoria is with me
now now we've seen a large rise in the
number of reported deaths but it's not
quite as straightforward as that is
because there's been some confusion
about what was being reported so
yesterday we saw 43 deaths such as 43
too many but we were quite surprised how
low that figure was because it didn't
fit the trajectory what they have done
is they have changed the reporting
system for what seemed eminently
sensible reasons it's because they need
to take into account having to tell the
families they need to take into account
the time it takes to tell coroner's they
need to do more testing mostly as well
they want
to reduce the staff time spent filling
in the form so what they've done is
they've changed the testing that changed
the reporting so that it went from 9:00
a.m. to 5:00 p.m. yesterday which was
essentially a half-day figure now it
will go from 5:00 p.m. for 24 hours so
we'll get a fuller figure now the fact
is that in China we saw a whole lot of
changes in reporting as systems adapt
and that is what the NHS is doing now
thanks Victoria now they may be better
known for making vacuum cleaners but
James Dyson's company is now being asked
to make ventilators of the NHS the UK
currently has 8,000 ventilators but
needs 30,000 to cope with the corona
virus pandemic the government says it's
doing everything it can to procure more
like asking Dyson to make as
as the virus spreads and growing numbers
fall seriously ill there's an urgent
push to get life-saving ventilators
ministers have acknowledged the UK needs
tens of thousands more to prepare for
the peak of the pandemic a recent report
from Imperial College showed that at
least 30% of coronavirus cases will
require mechanical ventilators we want
anybody who has the manufacturing
capability to turn to to manufacture of
ventilators - to do that but after the
Health Minister Matt Hancock recently
put out a call for help from British
manufacturers there has been confusion
over ventilator numbers in the NHS and
government plans to procure more it's
estimated a minimum of thirty thousand
ventilators will be needed to cope with
an upsurge in kovat 19 patients there
are officially just over eight thousand
currently available in the UK 8,000 more
have been ordered from existing UK and
international manufacturers the problem
is ordered
doesn't mean received although some may
be available within weeks others may
still be months away allow me to present
the ox tears the system takes in
standard four bar air among those
responding to the government's call a
team of scientists at Oxford University
who've come up with this ox vent a
simple ventilator prototype using
off-the-shelf parts but they aren't the
only ones to have stepped up industry
Titan James Dyson moving from vacuums to
ventilators said he had received an
order of 10,000 units from the UK
government an announcement slightly
tempered when the government said today
they were still in the testing phase and
DICE's design
like any others still needed to pass
safety tests Dyson are confident they
can deliver such a large order and meet
all the safety requirements but there
are some concerns about the ability of
companies like Dyson to suddenly switch
their production and make complex
ventilators on a mass scale while
large-scale production of ventilators in
the UK still appears some way off the
government claimed today that because of
a mix-up it missed an email from the EU
about ventilator procurement but said it
would consider joining future rounds
opposition MPs accuse the government of
putting ideology over people's lives
we need ventilators to save lives and it
would be extraordinary unacceptable and
quite wrong if the government were
putting ideology before saving those
lives that ideology may bring that
because we are leaving the European
Union we're not taking part in a scheme
that the European Union have invited us
to take part in we need those
ventilators the government insisted it
was an honest mistake nothing to do with
the ideology but it will struggle to
justify any decisions that may cause
delays in getting vital ventilators to
those who'll desperately need them in
the coming weeks well joining me now via
the internet is saffron Corddry who's
deputy chief executive of NHS providers
the association for health trusts in
England and your colleague the chief
executive this morning would have set a
lot of alarms going when he used the
phrase tsunami of cases with regard to
London hospitals can you explain what
that means what he was talking about was
the fact that we've heard from
Hospital chief executives in London that
they are seeing wave upon wave of of
seriously ill patients and I think that
that is what he was referring to so
people coming in with stickers needing
very high levels of care seeing it on a
level that appeared to be unimaginable
and in terms of equipment and personal
protective equipment what's the current
situation so what what trust chief execs
are telling us is that they really need
some clarity on on the tests on the
equipment arrangements what what we are
seeing is a change in the guidelines
from public health England we need them
to explain those changes they know what
may well be the right ones but staff on
the front line need to see those
explained they need to see the evidence
behind it so that they can feel safe in
terms of the supply of equipment we
think that that's got better that
certainly the reports that we're hearing
the the logistical distribution has
improved it's being pushed out to the
frontline there are still problems there
are still frustrations but more of that
is coming through but I think it's this
clarity around the safety standards that
are being prescribed on the equipment
where are you up to in terms of the
capacity of the ventilators that we have
which we now know is 8,000 not the
12,000 that the health secretary spoke
about at one time and also whether those
ventilators can be used for more than
one patient at a time as some people
have suggested I don't know the full
details on the ventilator capacity I
think overall what we know is that we
really need immediately and then over
time because we're in this this is a
marathon not a sprint as so many people
have said we need that capacity and we
need it on an ongoing basis so we know
that the Nightingale hospital is due to
be up and running I think next week with
500 beds but we're not clear yet how the
ventilator capacity is going to be
filled for that so we know that that's
being nationally procured that doesn't
come locally and that all of those
supplies will go into into that hospital
but I think the important thing here is
what's being done by trust
up and down the country to create as
much capacity as possible they have done
in such a short period of time what what
we wouldn't ever have expected them to
be able to do discharging patients
getting getting bed occupancy levels
down to below 80% some some really
amazing work being done in order to
manage this wave of patients that is
that is coming so so much is being done
but we can't predict how this is gonna
pan out and I think in terms of the
ventilators it's just as many as we can
get as quickly as possible but I think
the picture there isn't clear but what
we do need clarity on is is when when
the protective equipment will come and
also when testing will be widespread as
the earlier earliest speakers in your
piece said yeah I mean you you raise
testing I mean this is the thing that
NHS staff have been saying all the time
is it any clearer today when they are
going to get access to testing it's not
clear yet we are asking for clarity by
by the end of tomorrow because it's it's
absolutely critical because we've got
staff who are off sick with symptoms
they may not be coronavirus symptoms and
maybe have to come back to work earlier
we have staff who are self isolating and
meet that means on some occasions they
can't come back for two weeks they are
incredibly frustrated oh we need to see
about testing both for patients it's
important we continue to test patients
we need to know what they're sick with
and how they should be treated but it's
also critical but we we understand that
staff need testing too because we've got
upwards of twenty to thirty percent
sickness rates or absence rates across
the NHS and we were already down a
hundred thousand staff with staff very
tired
before this began so you know it's a
really urgent situation and we would
just urge the government and the the
national organisations to come forward
with clarity on that testing as soon as
possible I mean yesterday the scientists
was saying that the next two weeks are
the period over which this is going to
grow if we are already at twenty to
thirty percent staff absence in
hospitals now and we don't have access
to testing for several days
that's gonna get two really alarming
levels quite quickly isn't it we're
already concerned about staffing levels
in it yes it is a concerning picture I
think we have to remember we're doing
everything we can trust chief executives
are doing everything they can in order
to source staff from elsewhere you know
we've had this big national call for
retired staff to come back in often they
won't be going to frontline roles but
there be freeing others who can be
redeployed that's really really
important 15,000 people have responded
to that call that's that's really
encouraging and we also know that the
independent sector capacity is going to
be used in order to help this so lots is
being done but yes those staff
absence rates are what we need to tackle
with the testing and that's why the
testing can't come soon enough
saffron Corddry thank you very much
indeed