Testing key to easing lockdown

Test, track and treat must be an essential ingredient coming out of COVID-19 lockdown. This was acknowledged by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in his statement to the House of Commons today spelling out a little more detail of the strategy moving forward.

With more testing, it will be possible to predict at a more localised level in the community where infections will spread and target both community testing and more social interventions on high-risk areas in the future. This might then prevents further national lockdown in response to any rebound of the virus.

The Prime Minister rightly refers to the R-value in informing strategy. It represents the rate of infection - or how many people can be infected by another. At the outset, this was above 3, and anything above one means a dramatic increase in infections and deaths.

The Prime Minister also, on that basis, is right that there might be a need for differences in approach in different regions of the country, and he acknowledges this in the differences in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Apart from the problems of creating unclear messaging, it is probably right that regional strategy should reflect local R values and not the value UK wide.

But there are also substantial variations in R (the reproductive ratio) between the English regions.

There are greater risks in some areas than in others. So far, this is not taken into account in the strategy Johnson has announced.

Thus, R is much higher in the North East of England than in the Midlands. The most disadvantaged communities have higher rates of infection than the more wealthy areas.

It would better to have a regional strategy in England, given that R is what is informing the strategy, and this is why testing is so critical in being able to react to R, else we only know what is happening in hospitals or care homes. We need a more sensitive measure of R, and we need to be able to track and trace to push infections back down.

The Prime Minister has set up a taskforce to ramp up testing, which currently lags well below the target level he set of 200,000 a day by the end of the month.

Prioritising people in nursing care.

There has been in recent years concern that care in the NHS has not been sufficiently 'patient centred', or responsive to the needs of the patient on a case basis. It has been felt in care that it as been the patient who has had to adapt to the regime of care, rather than the other way around. Putting patients at the centre of care means being responsive to their needs and supporting them through the process of health care delivery. Patients should not become identikit sausages in a production line. The nurses body, the Nursing and Midwifery Council has responded to this challenge with a revised code of practice reflection get changes in health and social care since the previous code was published in 2008. The Code describes the professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses and midwives. Four themes describe what nurses and midwives are expected to do: prioritise people practise effectively preserve safety, and promote professionalism and trust. The

Ian Duncan-Smith says he wants to make those on benefits 'better people'!

By any account, the government's austerity strategy is utilitarian. It justifies its approach by the presumed potential ends. It's objective is to cut the deficit, but it has also adopted another objective which is specifically targeted. It seeks to drive people off benefits and 'back to work'. The two together are toxic to the poorest in society. Those least able to cope are the most affected by the cuts in benefits and the loss of services. It is the coupling of these two strategic aims that make their policies ethically questionable. For, by combining the two, slashing the value of benefits to make budget savings while also changing the benefits system, the highest burden falls on a specific group, those dependent on benefits. For the greater good of the majority, a minority group, those on benefits, are being sacrificed; sacrificed on the altar of austerity. And they are being sacrificed in part so that others may be spared. Utilitarian ethics considers the ba

The Thin End

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