Never mind 4%, the entire NHS deserves the George Cross...

MANY stories of the horrors of this second wave of the coronavirus pandemic have come to us all and to me as well. But until this week they had been mostly second hand. Not now. Not at all.

This week I met my first survivor, or what remains of her for only she can really know what is left after months of sheer terror and horror. Nothing in this senior and highly qualified nurse's experience had prepared her for this. Her words.

Some years ago after many years on wards in major hospitals she elected to become a community nurse. Not by any means a sinecure but with normal, family friendly hours (for the most part) and more variety and less organisationally generated stress.

The first wave and lockdown passed. The regular work was made more difficult by “hands, face, space” but most of it could be done.

Cometh the second wave and everything changed. This was, as hospitals term it, a major emergency. And that means all hands on deck. The community work was put on hold and our hero was immediately recruited to the Covid-19 wards of a major Essex hospital. As an experienced respiratory nurse she was invaluable.

But that was only the beginning. While she opened up to me I did not (much as I wanted hack-wise to do so) press her. But it seems the hospitals had to call in every reserve they could – from the long since retired to the not at all qualified.

And so, instead of working with a hugely experienced and capable team at her back our hero had to be trainer, mentor, and mental support worker alongside the trauma of critically sick patients heading to, but not often out of, ICU.

None of this she actually enunciated – just the basic concept – but her eyes told the rest of the story.

I have had, over the years, much experience of the medical professions. For very good reason my esteem of the nurses and hospital doctors has always been higher than for any other branch of the clinicians world.

It has been my experience too that the difference between nursing and doctoring professions is actually very clear: nurses are trained to care while doctors are trained to diagnose. Both of course 'treat' but the difference in approach lies right there in the training.

And as a result I have never really doubted that, when push comes to shove, the NHS can become unbelievably skilled, capable and warm.

But I have never before been in such awe at the sheer bloody guts and determination that a major emergency can demand of its troops.

The entire NHS has earned the George Cross – the highest civilian medal and known as the civilians' Victoria Cross. And none less than my brave hero; her eye tell the whole story.

Make no mistake, the George Cross is awarded for: “acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger.”

Given they had no vaccination and poor PPE this was indeed their finest hour.

I don't want Boris Johnson to win any election ever but if he does the decent thing for the NHS on this then May 6 will be his even if politically he does not deserve it.

Go left! Not so smart motorways and silly adverts...

 Today we start with a video... but you may wish to read a bit first: https://youtu.be/zDfdQlSBc6Q

And a screenshot from same:

And a picture. Of a crash. On the M3. Where there used to be a hard shoulder.... It's at the end of this piece - brace yourself.

SOMETIMES one does want to hear from Government. Especially when they are seeking response to major changes, such as the provision and rules of motorways.

But here's the problem - various government sites are deemed spam by BT's mail servers! Yes that's right, government messages are treated as unsolicited commercial mail - spam!

Now I use a mail client of course so rarely visit my webmail site. In fact I try to visit roughly once a month and check the very heavily over filled spam folder. Which does not reach me of course in most cases. BT's spam protection is ridiculous frankly and seems out of or beyond my control. Anyway...

There it was, from Highways England on March 1. A consultation on changes to the Highway Code regarding what they laughingly call 'Smart Motorways' but which in reality are just a new way of killing people. No, fact - although to be fair so far only a couple of coroners have said so.

Anyway I would have had much to say - but thanks to BT it ended up in spam and I was late on the prowl and the expiration date was March 29!

So I will say it here - this is insane!

HighwaysEngland and the rest of the buffoons in this pantomime, having ended up on a couple of legal actions regarding the killing of innocent people being forced the stop during a breakdown in the former hard shoulder now inside lane of an expanded motorway, are now seeking to 'normalise' their cock up.

They are providing new must/must not and should/should not rules in a vain attempt to make the stupid idea either safer (!!!) or palatable 9!).

Now for those who have had their attention from real life utterly diverted by the woes and worries of Covid-19 the issue is this:

Motorways have so added to the attraction of car ownership that they are now overcrowded by people wanting to actually drive their cars from place to place.

Expanding motorways is one of the most expensive ways of increasing traffic capacity. It need not have been if a bit of extra width had been purchased decades ago 'just in case' but it wasn't.

The banks and financial houses having robbed Britain blind a decades ago, successive governments have compounded the felony through 'austerity' - the process by which the poor have to pay for the excesses of the rich, especially bankers who thought our money was chips in a casino.

A lot of these poor people are actually in work. This used to be a profitable endeavour by which people earned enough to have a roof over their head, three square meals a day, decent clothing, and enough money for some travel and even means of travelling. In exchange for one job, 40 or so hours a week and sick and holiday pay.

Thus they had the nerve to venture onto the very roads which had been advocated by two heavily embroiled men - one a builder of roads and bridges; the other a representative of road hauliers.

(I refer to Messrs Marples and Beeching, the twin demons of the 1950s and 60xs)

Now this influx of extra traffic meant that everything slowed down. A dreadful state of affairs if you are a major employer (people stuck in traffic don't work) or carrier of goods (customers get irritated by delays).

Desperate to avoid any further expense on public works, the Highways people turned to the obvious source of wisdom - a youthful brat/ bratess who was not around when the theory of the highspeed road, its inherent dangers, and the 'safety refuge' of the 'hard shoulder' was dreamed up.

Thus this genius observed that every motorway seemed to have an empty inside lane.

"Let us fill it" he opined.

And they all nodded. "This will save billions! Give the man (it may well have been a woman of course) a peerage" they all cooed.

And so they began. At first it seemed to work, especially near junctions. But then the reports started to come in. Vehicles were breaking down! They were sitting there like lame ducks in the former safety refuge (that's the real name of the hard shoulder by the way) and being hit by speeding vehicles - usually HGVs with horrendous consequences. Some of course managed to avoid the obstruction but the results were even more horrific.

Obviously something had to be done! And then they had the solution - "We shall re-write the Highway Code and while we are about we shall make it all seem really silly by running a series of utterly banal advertisements on television showing two insects (the last two after the motorway cull of all insect life) urging a driver to sweep across three lanes of traffic to make use of one of their sparsely provided and totally inadequate 'refuge zones'.

Bloody hell, you could not make this up and get it broadcast!