Ahh Flu Friends. the funniest thing to come out of the HPA for a long time. Here is a snippet of the briefing i received through the VAS.
Introduction
The NHS has asked the voluntary sector to help with their response to the flu pandemic. The purpose of this briefing note is to let you know what we have been asked to do and to ask you whether you would be willing to volunteer your help.
The current arrangements are that a person with flu symptoms may contact the Swine Flu Information line on 0800 1513513, the NHS Choices website on www.nhs.uk, NHS direct or their GP. If their GP confirms a swine flu diagnosis, s/he may authorise a course of antiviral medication. Normally the patient will ask a flu friend to collect that for them, but exceptionally the patient may have no flu friend, and will need a volunteer to collect the medication for them.
The medication will be collected from an antiviral assessment and collection point (ACP). These are new services, but staffed by people taken from other roles within the Primary Care Trust (PCT). Some PCTs may require volunteers to supplement the staffing of those centres.
While there is a considerable need for voluntary sector support across Lancashire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester, each PCT will be managing the process in its own way, and may have slightly different requirements. This paper therefore gives an area overview but specific requirements and arrangements will vary across PCTs.
The roles that may be required: (1) Emergency Flu friends
A flu friend is a person or persons who agree to support someone if they become ill. The expectation is that most patients will identify their own flu friend. Exceptionally a patient may be unable to do so. Such a patient will seek authorisation of the antiviral in the usual way, but will then contact the PCT to seek assistance. At that stage the PCT, if they cannot deal with the situation, will seek an emergency flu friend from the voluntary sector on behalf of the patient. The PCT will initially contact a central point through which the voluntary organisations in the locality can be contacted. The PCT will advise of the patient’s name and address, and will also advise the location of the ACP from which the medication will be issued. The voluntary organisation will then identify a volunteer from its list, and advise the PCT who that volunteer is. The volunteer will attend the ACP, present identification, collect the medication and take it to the patient’s address, normally posting it through the letterbox. The PCT may then check with the patient by telephone to validate the delivery.
This process will be active 24 hours a day 7 days each week, but it is expected that most or all of the work of volunteers will be requested during daytime hours. Requests may come on weekdays or at weekends. Nevertheless the option of asking the voluntary sector to support in this way is an option of last resort, and not the normal process for obtaining antiviral medications.
My sister in law has got it, thank god i haven't had any contact with her, i can't afford to be ill an off work at the moment lol An im glad i aint a bloke if its year of the cock next year
My sister in law, neice and bro in law has had over it last 2 weeks.
Also we have had at leat 4 peeps at work off the reception off with it too. I cant help but think that with the diagnosis over the phone, some of these illnesses could be ordinary flu. the in laws didnt have all the symptoms, they never had the sore throat and upset tums nor vomiting just aches and pains and sniffles but the neice was still prescribed Tamiflu. They still went to my ex mum in laws 75th party now my daughter came home from work with sore throat and feeling poorly so has she got it? Me finks for as many that have it there are more being misdiagnosed but what can one do??
The worcestershire PCT operates the antiviral pick up points from 12.00 till 8.00 p.m, and at the weekends. I must say, a few patients actually picked up the Tamiflu for themselves!!
I appreciate that it can be harmful to those with underlying medical conditions..but honestly it seems in my area if you just sneeze they are panicking and sending them home from work or school and that involves taking a swab....
I have hayfever and sneeze occasionally but it doesn't mean Ive got swine flu....I think its all been blown out of proportion!!!
Not being disrespectful to those who have died but FFS!! Why is it that if anyone gets a sniffle and feels a bit off (ie a cold) it's flu! And why is it always more dangerous if you give it a name like swine flu? Remember Asian flu back in the 70's?
I've never had the flu but I've been told that if you have it then you cant even get out of bed let alone struggle into work,a cold is totally different,you might feel lousy but you are not incapacitated.
In my opinion,these things are blown up out of all proportion by someone who has a vested interest in doing so like drug companies or face mask manufacturers.Look at the money wasted on the so called millenium bug,what a load of cobblers!
OK rant over
it may be in leicester ian but i was in harrogate the other day and there was a sign up in the town center say swine flu is here or words to that effect,,, but it is in harrogate
Agree with Pond, with a cold you dont feel like getting out of bed. With the flu you cant get out of bed.
For me it's no work no pay so I have to get out of bed. lol.
You have to understand epidemiology and how viruses work to understand the HPA methods on the treatment of Swine flu.
Asian flu and Spanish flu are human strains and move In a predictable way the contagious phase is well know and understood. When a virus jumps species such as Avian Flue and Swine flu the whole ball game changes ans while the research happens in the back ground you enter into a game of reactive epidemiology rather than predictive.
in a nutshell they still can't predict with any accuracy how the pandemic will spread as the predictions have changed dramatically as more and more people become positively diagnosed. So the HPA is working on a treat rather than contain as containment has not worked.
Part of epidemiology looks at the sociology of population. People are more than ever concerned with personal wealth and personal gain. so they won't take time off work if it means they loose money especially bonuses. Add to that the current economic climate people don't want to take time off work sick because it may put a black mark on there record and go against them. As a result the government are working prevention.
Regarding the millennium bug you have just shot your own argument down and proved the point of the government. Nothing happened because the money was spent. Me Matt and a few others on here could bore you for hours on the effects of the millennium bug on you the individual if the money was not spent on fixing it. Have you not noticed that most systems mainly financial systems now want for the year section of a date field to be 4 digits IE 2009 rather than 09. If it hadn't have been changed your credit card and even any children born the turn of the millennium would have been issued / born before you.
I have been very bored on a number of occasions by friends of mine who are IT professionals and the general concensus of opinion is that the whole concept was cobblers.OK so you might have to do some thing differently but the predicted worldwide crash did not happen.My washing machine still works,my watch didnt stop,my central heating system doesnt appear to have been effected and I can still watch the telly.
That was my whole point.There may well have been a problem with certain systems but it was escalated into something like armaggedon.I didnt go out and buy a new computer that was "y2k" compliant as I was advised to because my machine wouldnt work after the stroke of midnight 31st december 1999 but here I am typing happily away on a machine bought in 1997 before "y2k" was even dreamed of.
Just shows how difficult it is to prove a negative. We can argue ourselves round and round in circles as to whether the millennium bug really existed, and was intercepted successfully, or never really existed anyway, and we'd still be none the wiser. From talking to the IT people at work at the time, there was nothing catastrophic that would have brought the company crashing about our ears, but there were enough potential issues to have caused problems in the invoicing for a few days, resulting in quite a few unhappy customers. Multiply that by every company in the country (or even world) with a large customer base, and things start to look serious.
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