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From what I understand the GTech ones didn't pass the longer term testing procedures or have the advanced features.
However, they used a simple new design using existing parts that was manually controlled and could be mass produced quickly, easily and cheaply.
Call me fussy, but I'd rather have a bit of GTech shed engineering keeping my lungs going than, well, nothing...
Why not give them a million quid and say make 10,000 pronto?
Call me fussy, but I’d rather have a bit of GTech shed engineering keeping my lungs going than, well, nothing…
Why not give them a million quid and say make 10,000 pronto?
Like the 3.5 million testing kits the government bought which they now admit don't work?
It doesn't make sense to spend money on equipment that isn't fit for purpose. Has anyone confirmed that the GTech breathing aid would actually support Covid patients?
The whole ventilator story has gone very quiet. I’m not sure whether the dreadful uk journalists have just moved on to a new favourite story, we actually have enough, or if any are getting delivered?
I haven’t seen a sensible question asked at the presser in weeks. Purely digging for dirt they know they will never get.
Good video on why a lot of the shed ones (I think this includes the gtech) are actually no good...
That is a very well presented and informative video by someone who clearly knows what he is talking about.
Would you still want to be hooked up to a shed breather if it was damaging what was left of the working parts of your lungs?
Sounds like those McLaren/UCH CPAPs are good then?
Like the 3.5 million testing kits the government bought which they now admit don’t work?
You mean the ones where the order was conditional on proof that they work, and because they didn't work it cost us nothing?
That ventillator vid was good, cheers for that.
I was intrigued with the Tesla ventilator which uses their car parts and there’s an interesting take on it from a nurse.
Sounds like those McLaren/UCH CPAPs are good then?
@dantsw13 They’ll be fine, if they are as rumoured reverse engineered Whisperflows. Only concern is oxygen consumption; not just about what the VIE can provide but how fast it can flow through the hospital manifold…
grumpysculler
MemberLike the 3.5 million testing kits the government bought which they now admit don’t work?
You mean the ones where the order was conditional on proof that they work, and because they didn’t work it cost us nothing?
Source? The reporting has stated exactly the opposite
^^ Yeah, everything I have read has said that the money was paid whether the kits worked or not @grumpysculler ?
You mean the ones where the order was conditional on proof that they work, and because they didn’t work it cost us nothing?
Unfortunately it looks like we already paid & can't get a refund
Problem was that because we left it a month too late before ordering the antigen kits, once we realised that we shouldn't be ignoring WHO advice there were none left to buy, Hancock didn't want to make the same mistake again, so he rushed to get in on these quick, hence this costly mistake.
The UK government is failing to procure sufficient PPE, spent an undisclosed amount on millions of testing kits that don't work, and is delivering unconvincing spin about producing thousands of ventilators using novel designs.
So we already have the Maclaren CPAPs operational, approved & built, the ParaPacs are hitting the NHS, now the Penlon is approved with production up & running.
At the very least we will now have ventilator capacity at the Nightingale’s for a subsequent second wave of infections.
I would hope some of the cheaper offerings like the GTech, we didn’t end up approving, are still useful for the undeveloped world, especially as they were designed to run off-grid.
CPAPs operational, approved & built, the ParaPacs are hitting the NHS, now the Penlon is approved with production up & running.
At the very least we will now have ventilator capacity at the Nightingale’s for a subsequent second wave of infections.
I would hope some of the cheaper offerings like the GTech, we didn’t end up approving, are still useful for the undeveloped world, especially as they were designed to run off-grid.
So I've just pointed a contact at this thread, your reply in particular dants, to someone closely involved with the challenge ventilator project, his reply was initially unprintable!
He then went into diplomatic mode and suggested that they had a limited use and may, just may have very limited use as a stopgap.none of them have any way of seriously preventing barotrauma to already seriously damaged diseased lungs. 'it feels like a PR stunt' their words not mine...
The refusal to join the consortium sounds more and more like negligence. Idiology over doing the best for the public good
Re PPE, this morning Hancock appeared before a virtual select committee and claimed that while the supply of gowns was "tight" he expected to be able to provide adequate supplies for the weekend. About 4 hours later they announced the change in recommendations to include going without gowns and reusing single use gowns. Why does anyone believe a word he says?
Meanwhile that change in recommendations has been spun by the department of health as ""New clinical advice has been issued today to make sure that if there are shortages in one area, front-line staff know what PPE to wear instead to minimise risk."
And the company I work for has mobilised anyone with 3d printers at home to print face shield frames and we are delivering them to the local hospitals and doctors surgeries along with hole-punched clear shields.
The flag ship NHS is being supplied by hobby engineers yet a huge percentage of the population believe Boris and his mates are doing a great job (and are now proudly wearing NHS lapel badges during their press conferences even though they have screwed the NHS for a decade).
On my wife's ward 16 nurses are currently off, 6 have tested positive and the other 10 are awaiting results. In the meantime my wife and all of the other nurses/staff are going untested and are visiting other wards.
My partner works in a lab in a South Eastern hospital.
Ironically their over staffed staffed and quiet at the moment. A couple of people from there were asked to go down and help move some bodies in the make shift mortuaries today.
By makeshift,I mean they are the units you see in the back of lorries delivering frozen goods.
They are having problems keeping the units cold enough and the bodies are starting to smell.
The very vivid description she just told me makes me very inclined to stay the f*** indoors and do as told.
I would hope some of the cheaper offerings like the GTech, we didn’t end up approving, are still useful for the undeveloped world, especially as they were designed to run off-grid.
Why do you think the "undeveloped world" should use these devices?
It's worth watching the video above, if you haven't already. The bag squeezing devices don't do the job of a ventilator, and are likely to cause further damage to the lungs of Covid patients. It's not a case of "anything is better than nothing". Using these devices could actually leave patients in a worse condition.
How are the McLaren CPAPs viewed?
How are the McLaren CPAPs viewed?
I think (someone with more knowledge can correct this) they work effectively, but they do a different job from a ventilator, and are used to treat less severe cases that have not progressed to the stage of requiring ventilation.
The CPAP is a type of device that is already used in hospitals, and Maclaren's version was reverse engineered from an existing design and improved for mass production.
Paywalled article, but the Twitter thread is still pretty good.
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1251434219139665920
KCR - having watched coverage of previous epidemics in Africa, charity run field hospitals run off grid with very little in the way of facilities, I’d have thought anything that helps would be a plus?
It wasn’t meant in a disparaging way at all, just a dose of reality.
Wow, the reporting in that Twitter thread is utterly damning
ITU experts explained why the "Hackathon" ventilators wouldn't work:
Initially when those concerns were pushed up the chain, the reply came back "that's what the customer wants".
Which begs a question. WHO was the customer?
Not the docs. Not the regulator. Not the patients.
The only answer that fits, is the Government. The politicians.
Essentially, the work by the Bluesky consortium and other Hackathon ventilator manufacturers was a waste of time because the original spec was not fit for purpose, and the government was told it wasn't fit for purpose.
What this speaks to is the deeply worrying tendency of this crop of politicians to think they know best.
The 'cut-the-crap' 'how-hard-can-it-be?' attitudes that leads to headless decision making. It's embarrassing.
Over the last week I've had SO many conversations with docs and experts that remind of the conversations I had with logisticians, port operators, customs clearers over #Brexit.
Expert people TEARING their hair out at the willful numbskullery of the people at the top.
KCR – having watched coverage of previous epidemics in Africa, charity run field hospitals run off grid with very little in the way of facilities, I’d have thought anything that helps would be a plus?
Watch the video that Ewan posted the link to, which is made by someone who knows what they are taking about.
Short answer, the hacked "ventilators" will probably help people to die more quickly. I don't see that as a plus if you're trying to keep people alive.
Fair enough - I’m no charity field medic. I’m just hoping there is something short of a full blown ITU set up that may be of use for the billions with no access to western style health care.
Government fails to order 16 million real face masks offered by existing suppliers, but announces collaboration with retailers including Barbour and Burberry to provide more PPE...
That strategy sounds strangely familiar.
At what point do we say forget national unity, time for a vote of no confidence to get people in to actually do the job?
We should get some Germans to run the UK. They seem pretty good at running economies, pandemic responses, even certain football teams I hear etc.
We could do worse you know.
We should get some Germans to run the UK. They seem pretty good at running economies, pandemic responses, even certain football teams I hear etc.
We could do worse you know.
To be fair, they did offer a few years back, but were turned down, US and Soviet meddling in European politics as usual.
So, number of Dyson built ventilators actually delivered is… ?
We should get some Germans to run the UK.
Already do - House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
I work in R&D for a large manufacturing company (actually worked for Dyson for a few years) and I struggle to see how he has spent 20 million on this in such a short space of time.
I struggle to see how he has spent 20 million on this in such a short space of time.
Perhaps there were ‘hidden costs’
As eskay says. I work for Airbus in RnD an run large projects with multi-million € budgets and struggle to understand how £20m has been spent in, at most, 2 months.
Just getting the paperwork sorted for Orders of that magnitude would take weeks, never mind getting POs issued and goods/services delivered and paid for. Only if that money is labour and he’s had 10000 staff working on it could so much have been spent so quickly.
Why is all the insightful stuff from journalists posted on Twitter? Why does it never seem to make the papers?
editors?