I wonder how much of this PPE issue is distribution related.
Just been told the local hospital is fine for most PPE now but they were running short on gloves.
So the local Iceland store donated a number of boxes to them.
So Iceland can get them?
There's no national shortage of gloves. If the hospital is running short on gloves there's probably been human error somehow in their ordering or distribution would be my guess.
Also I would add that my father has dementia and is in a home (zero cases so far thank god)
The last message I had from them said "ignore what the press says, we have plenty of PPE"
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
As we discussed last night, it wouldn't be unclear if one of the leading broadsheet weren't making these kind of silly mistakes. All over 70s are advised to minimise contact. Those in the most vulnerable category have been instructed by letter to shelter for twelve weeks.
And the Health Secretary getting it wrong while correcting the paper? Is that the media's fault as well?
Well, he wouldn't have had to do anything if they hadn't published a story that was simply untrue.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
You have access to his medical records, I assume?
you only need a pair of eyes and a few brain cells, someone close to death does not walk out of ICU 2 days later, mugs are easily taken in.
Of course you can. My grandfather (then late-80s) was in ICU a few years ago and needed multiple blood transfusions. I was petrified every time the phone rang thinking we were going to lose him but he pulled through and walked out after a few days in ICU.
If an octogenarian can walk out of ICU after being on deaths door I think a middle aged man can.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Yes, I was worried it might apply to everyone who gets a flu jab on medical grounds, but for that group it became "follow social distancing especially stringently"
And the ridiculousness of basing it on influenza when we have seen how utterly different it is in its effect is still not being addressed. The lists have become a joke, bearing no real connection to the reality of this virus.
Research is being done, for example the growing realisation that pre-diabetics and the overweight (even people with a BMI as low as 30) can be at risk. A BMI of 40 and you're brown bread. In my case I'm hoping a cardiology appointment can give me an all-clear although how long it will take to organise one I don't know. I could probably afford to pay for a private consultation, but not for an angiogram if one is called for.
A BMI of 30 is the threshold at which "normal" folk (i.e. most people, except for muscular athletes for whom BMI is a very poor measure) transition from being merely overweight to obese. So 30 is not a low value; it's simply that the average person in the UK is now overweight, so it may not seem as excessive as it actually is. 40 is very obese and, based on my limited layman's knowledge, I would've thought there would be a good argument for getting anyone in that category to shield.
On topic a colleague said last week a Covid-19 tax will be introduced as a temporary measure in the same way income tax was a temporary measure to fight the Napoleonic wars.
We'll be paying this for centuries.
(He doesn't expect a vaccine and but expects lots of new mutations of Covid-19.)
On what basis and with what expertise does he predict no vaccine and lots of mutations? Or is this just more uninformed fearmongering?
There is plenty of justified fear without adding baseless stuff to it.
Late Corbyn-Early Starmer, leader ratings wise, is very similar to late Brown-early Miliband I think? I could only find Browns to end of 2009 when he was -40. Starmer and Ed both seem to be high teens positive, Starmer a bit higher on average
I wonder how much of this PPE issue is distribution related.
Just been told the local hospital is fine for most PPE now but they were running short on gloves.
So the local Iceland store donated a number of boxes to them.
So Iceland can get them?
There's no national shortage of gloves. If the hospital is running short on gloves there's probably been human error somehow in their ordering or distribution would be my guess.
Also I would add that my father has dementia and is in a home (zero cases so far thank god)
The last message I had from them said "ignore what the press says, we have plenty of PPE"
The home my wife works in had a shortage of PPE at the start of this (but then they rarely had a need for it on anything like the scale of now) but quite quickly got all the PPE they needed and haven't ran out since the start.
It seems to me like there were teething issues at the start when every simultaneously needed much more than they were stockpiling before this, but its been resolved.
Late Corbyn-Early Starmer, leader ratings wise, is very similar to late Brown-early Miliband I think? I could only find Browns to end of 2009 when he was -40. Starmer and Ed both seem to be high teens positive, Starmer a bit higher on average
I wouldn't waste much time comparing any time with now - Starmer needs to avoid making mistakes and look professional till all this is over. Just a case of hanging on till decisions aren't so life and death, and then we'll see if he's got what it takes to close that gap (and if Boris has what it takes to keep the lead).
There was an interesting article from Paul Mason (I suspect not your favourite, but I doubt this will upset you) suggesting Labour are working on the premise that the very people they need to win back are those most likely to support the govt in a crisis.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
Precaution or not he was in ICU, and I'll trust the medical professionals who thought it serious enough to warrant that over you malc, who essentially thought it was nothing but a PR hoax, even if you are more cirumspect now and merely talk about exploiting his stay there. You obviously thought at the time he was basically fine and it was mostly made up, so that puts your 'concerns' about him exploiting it now in a proper context.
He is a bellend and a chancer who will exploit anything, but you seemed awfully keen to exploit his stay in ICU by suggesting it was nothing. Is one exploitation ok and another not?
At the time they said he was not on oxygen to start with , when he went into ICU it was the same , they then said he was getting some oxygen but was sitting up talking , that is not someone near death or else the hospital spokespeople and his people were lying then. When you are close to death you will not be talking and on lots of oxygen, you do not need to be a doctor to know that. He was ill but has been well exaggerated for PR use, I am not convinced he was near death at all.
On tech: I’ve just switched to a Pixel 4. I am really liking it so far - it feels streets ahead of my old iPhone. I suppose part of that is simply that it is more up to date.
I object to paying too much for a phone and mainly avoid iPhones. However reviewers are saying nice things about the iPhone SE (2020) . Apparently the processor beats the Android equivalents. My Sony Xperia Z5 is good for some more years, so I'm not buying at the moment. https://www.techradar.com/uk/reviews/iphone-se
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
Precaution or not he was in ICU, and I'll trust the medical professionals who thought it serious enough to warrant that over you malc, who essentially thought it was nothing but a PR hoax, even if you are more cirumspect now and merely talk about exploiting his stay there. You obviously thought at the time he was basically fine and it was mostly made up, so that puts your 'concerns' about him exploiting it now in a proper context.
He is a bellend and a chancer who will exploit anything, but you seemed awfully keen to exploit his stay in ICU by suggesting it was nothing. Is one exploitation ok and another not?
At the time they said he was not on oxygen to start with , when he went into ICU it was the same , they then said he was getting some oxygen but was sitting up talking , that is not someone near death or else the hospital spokespeople and his people were lying then. When you are close to death you will not be talking and on lots of oxygen, you do not need to be a doctor to know that. He was ill but has been well exaggerated for PR use, I am not convinced he was near death at all.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
You have access to his medical records, I assume?
you only need a pair of eyes and a few brain cells, someone close to death does not walk out of ICU 2 days later, mugs are easily taken in.
Late Corbyn-Early Starmer, leader ratings wise, is very similar to late Brown-early Miliband I think? I could only find Browns to end of 2009 when he was -40. Starmer and Ed both seem to be high teens positive, Starmer a bit higher on average
The difference is that: 1. Starmer's positive +18 rating comes in spite of Labour being -18 behind in the polls. so a net difference of +36. 2. Miliband's personal ratings imploded after his first month. Just 2 months into his leadership, Miliband was polling -9 on YouGov's "well/badly" question, at a point when Labour and the Conservatives were tied in the polls.
Starmer is in my view a much more solid performer than Miliband, both in the HoC and in the media, and it is hard to see his ratings collapsing to anything like the same extent as Miliband's.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
You have access to his medical records, I assume?
you only need a pair of eyes and a few brain cells, someone close to death does not walk out of ICU 2 days later, mugs are easily taken in.
As I suspected, you are just speculating.
Just as Boris is speculating , good PR.
That doesn't even make sense. Philip gave a nice counter-example to your claim that you don't just walk out of ICU. And I'll remind you that he didn't just walk out, he went to Chequers where he wasn't seen for two weeks.
I was actually thinking of going to the press with it, and getting them to independtly verify it so they can run a huge story and shame the company.
I think they'd be interested. Public opinion at the moment is pretty relaxed about aiding people and paying for it in due course, but I think they'd really draw the line at cheating.
I wouldn't be bothered about the kind of enquiry that you might get if you'd left the organisation ("Do you remember where you left that report?"), but active participation, no.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Yes, I was worried it might apply to everyone who gets a flu jab on medical grounds, but for that group it became "follow social distancing especially stringently"
And the ridiculousness of basing it on influenza when we have seen how utterly different it is in its effect is still not being addressed. The lists have become a joke, bearing no real connection to the reality of this virus.
Research is being done, for example the growing realisation that pre-diabetics and the overweight (even people with a BMI as low as 30) can be at risk. A BMI of 40 and you're brown bread. In my case I'm hoping a cardiology appointment can give me an all-clear although how long it will take to organise one I don't know. I could probably afford to pay for a private consultation, but not for an angiogram if one is called for.
Just had private appointments with cardioligist for my wife as NHS was 3 month minimum wait, initial consultation and ecg test etc was about £300, second one with echogram ultrasound test etc was £660. Angiogram is circa £2K PS: she does not need angiogram , just a rough estimate above. Wife will need cardioversion which will be similar cost I expect.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
You have access to his medical records, I assume?
you only need a pair of eyes and a few brain cells, someone close to death does not walk out of ICU 2 days later, mugs are easily taken in.
Of course you can. My grandfather (then late-80s) was in ICU a few years ago and needed multiple blood transfusions. I was petrified every time the phone rang thinking we were going to lose him but he pulled through and walked out after a few days in ICU.
If an octogenarian can walk out of ICU after being on deaths door I think a middle aged man can.
Philip, I cannot be convinced , he is an out and out chancer.
I have a Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iPad, iPhone, Apple watch, and Apple TV.
The best features of Apple is the handoff feature, makes my life so much easier.
Also my long history of Macbook ownership not one has ever suffered the blue screen of death that Windows users suffer.
Apple's aftercare service is amazing, if anything develops a fault/stops working in the first year, or even after, I go to the Meadowhall or Arndale centres and they fix it or give me a new device.
I had a 27" iMac out of warranty have its graphics card die - even though it was out of warranty Apple fixed it, free, rightly working out that the (to them) trivial cost of a repair would be more than repaid by continued consumer loyalty....
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
You have access to his medical records, I assume?
you only need a pair of eyes and a few brain cells, someone close to death does not walk out of ICU 2 days later, mugs are easily taken in.
As I suspected, you are just speculating.
Just as Boris is speculating , good PR.
That doesn't even make sense. Philip gave a nice counter-example to your claim that you don't just walk out of ICU. And I'll remind you that he didn't just walk out, he went to Chequers where he wasn't seen for two weeks.
So hiding for a few weeks makes it right. I missed him getting taken out on a stretcher.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
You have access to his medical records, I assume?
you only need a pair of eyes and a few brain cells, someone close to death does not walk out of ICU 2 days later, mugs are easily taken in.
As I suspected, you are just speculating.
Just as Boris is speculating , good PR.
That doesn't even make sense. Philip gave a nice counter-example to your claim that you don't just walk out of ICU. And I'll remind you that he didn't just walk out, he went to Chequers where he wasn't seen for two weeks.
So hiding for a few weeks makes it right. I missed him getting taken out on a stretcher.
So far thanks to the furlough scheme jobs haven't been badly affected. Yet all the signs are there of the coming storm - a few enterprising businesses have used this as an opportunity to shut down unwanted high street operations, and then we have the BA announcement, but other than that people are slightly bemused at getting most of their pay for none of the work. Can't last.
when the money runs out, thats when we will see tough arguments being made. So far the government is doing its hardest to claim its had a good war, and its chanters are happy to sing along. But when the government is ordering people back to work - "some of you will die and we're sorry that we can do nothing about it" - thats when this gets interesting.
My business spent a full working day across a few days having hideous virtual SMT discussions about how to manage the factory staff and how to manage production shifts in one/more people fell ill/died. It was genuinely hard and a couple of members clearly couldn't cope with the implications of what we were taking about. Take that same argument, this time its the government telling people there is no cure, they might die, but go back to your slave lives because we need to profit from you. It won't go down well. Many will yearn for the old life and comply. Others will have no choice. Many will do so grudgingly, glaringly, warily..
.
Indeed - to use examples Boris is comfortable with, we’re past the Phoney War, look like we’ve survived the Blitz but now have to hunker down for three years of privation and restriction before final victory, Then we can work out how to rebuild society - I look forward to the equivalent of the Beveridge Report
OT update. Am now - finally - "enjoying" Apple TV via a Firefox browser on my work laptop. Hasn't stopped playing. Yet...
Seriously Apple users, why would you tie yourselves to *this*? Can only use their overpriced tat. Devices built where you have to buy an overpriced adaptor to keep using all your peripherals. Where they keep changing the connector so you have to buy them again. Where the battery is built to fail and if it doesn't the software turns the device into a snail so you WILL buy again. Buy again. Again. Again.
If China turns into an international pariah, how will Apple get around it? I know that a company as Short of Cash as they are won't be able to make their devices outside of semi-slave labour factories in China, might be a problem...
Hard to think of a company more cynical towards its users than Apple.
Amazon?
Booking on a far more personal level did give me the benefit of full and immediate refunds for a planned trip to the remote island of Eigg. I will certainly rebook as soon as I can, as individuals/co-ops and SMEs are at the top of my list for personal support.
Comments
The last message I had from them said "ignore what the press says, we have plenty of PPE"
If an octogenarian can walk out of ICU after being on deaths door I think a middle aged man can.
There is plenty of justified fear without adding baseless stuff to it.
NEW THREAD
It seems to me like there were teething issues at the start when every simultaneously needed much more than they were stockpiling before this, but its been resolved.
There was an interesting article from Paul Mason (I suspect not your favourite, but I doubt this will upset you) suggesting Labour are working on the premise that the very people they need to win back are those most likely to support the govt in a crisis.
Skybet apparently have the best odds.
https://www.techradar.com/uk/reviews/iphone-se
1. Starmer's positive +18 rating comes in spite of Labour being -18 behind in the polls. so a net difference of +36.
2. Miliband's personal ratings imploded after his first month. Just 2 months into his leadership, Miliband was polling -9 on YouGov's "well/badly" question, at a point when Labour and the Conservatives were tied in the polls.
Starmer is in my view a much more solid performer than Miliband, both in the HoC and in the media, and it is hard to see his ratings collapsing to anything like the same extent as Miliband's.
I wouldn't be bothered about the kind of enquiry that you might get if you'd left the organisation ("Do you remember where you left that report?"), but active participation, no.
Angiogram is circa £2K
PS: she does not need angiogram , just a rough estimate above. Wife will need cardioversion which will be similar cost I expect.