This was Roy Lilley's view after battering the Gestapo tactics applied to NHS communications all week.
"I will...
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We’ve spent the week talking about people who don’t know how to communicate. Let’s end it, talking about someone who does.
Dr Phil Hammond. If he were a creature, he’d be fluffy, with a sting. If he was a motor car he’d be an off-road, Bentley. If he was something to eat, he’d be chilli-chocolate. He is a rare combination of humorist and hatchet-man. He writes with a pen in one hand and a stiletto in the other. NHS enthusiast but not so mesmerised by its effort and successes that he is not able to give it a good kick when needs-be.
He is the author of the 'MD' column in Private Eye and won awards for exposing the shocking treatment of whistleblowers and was one of those who broke the Bristol, baby-heart scandal. He gave evidence at the subsequent inquiry. During lockdown as well as poking a swab up his nose, he’s been busy poking a stick at HMG, through his Private Eye column. Each one of his fortnightly columns is a beautifully crafted, stand alone, piece of writing, based on the facts of the day, events, contradictions and stupidity that came together, disguised as policy.
In August, last year, writing about the troubled T&T strategy, he invited us, instead, to think FETTISH;
Find
Explain
Test
Trace
Isolate
Support
Home (visit if necessary)
… I bet DiDo wished she'd thought of that!
Hancock, mean while, as Hammond writes;…' [is] building a parallel universe of outsourced mass Covid testing, with &*$$-poor contact tracing.’
… ouch.
‘Fettish’ is from one of his columns in Private Eye and Hammond has collected all his Covid columns and rolled them into a book; Dr Hammond’s Covid CaseBook.
As Ian Hislop says;
‘The book is better than the Public Inquiry - and quicker and cheaper.’
In March, Hammond wrote about ventilation and how it was a priority for the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, urging schools to use portable air cleaners and ventilation. Meantime, in the UK; ‘…filtered flowing air is not seen as a priority. The typical state-school classroom contains 31 people, has poor ventilation, and teaching periods of up to two hours before teachers and children leave for a break…’ In a direct challenge he lists eight statements that go to the heart of HMG’s press blah, blah…
We were well prepared for the pandemic
Herd immunity was never the plan
We put a protective ring around care homes
There were no PPE shortages
We protected the NHS
Our T&T system is world class
Our border controls are world class
Our road map our of the pandemic is irreversible
He says; anyone who makes any of these statements is a fool or a liar. That’s communications for you.
No one is safe from Hammond’s insight. Roche made antibody tests for HMG, which they claimed were 100% accurate. It turns out the tests were tested on a subgroup of eight people (!), who, 40 days after they were known to be infected from a PCR swab test, all tested positive for antibodies. The subgroup were cherry-picked from a sample of 93 people, known to have had Covid, of which 15 (that's 16%), tested negative for antibodies… how do you make 100% from that? Dunno…
Do you have a bucket list? Hammond’s bucket list;
stay indoors,
do nothing and
don’t kick the bucket.
Nightingale hosptials? Covid admissions were often obese patients, had micro blood clots everywhere and multi-organ problems. The criteria for a Nightingale admission was less than 35 BMI and single organ failure. Now you know why they were empty. This book is a fact-checker, a cornucopia of interesting facts, an entertaining and indispensable collection of 30 of Hammond’s fortnightly updates, which are broad and balanced, cutting, comforting, insightful, full of facts, uncomfortable, funny, incisive, opinionated and includes the ‘Trouser-Leg of Death’ and Tweet of the Fortnight (page 75, must read for NHSE comms).
The final pages are a time-line of events that’s worth the price of the book, alone. Finally, Hammond challenges us, when we make a decision, ask;
‘is it intelligent and is it kind…’
That’s not a bad note to end the week on. So I will.
Click here, buy the book, it’s terrific and have the best weekend you can.
Want to contact Roy Lilley? Please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Post edited at 10:29