No the money was spent to get it prepared, then they spent loads dragging retired Drs and Nurses back whilst rushing through the graduations of new starters. The first wave plan seemed to work..ish for a little while.
The big issue that everyone is avoiding, or being distracted from is age old and simple. For years the NHS has been stripped and run on bare minimum, so much so we usually in normal conditions have a winter crisis. Not due to the huge numbers, but due to the lack of staff.
Staff have been forced to adapt to potentially dangerous rota gaps being the norm, or bed capacity being routinely breached. Expensive private agencies are now routinely relied upon to plug unsafe staffing gaps, and NHS staff at all levels feel both undervalued in their work, and endlessly put upon by a system in a state of perpetual emergency.
So the real issue is, where the fuck are all the Drs and Nursed Boris, you shit haired Nob !!! why havent we got the staff to deal with a crisis. This could be for a number of issues BTW not just a once in a life time Pandemic. we are at the point where a Terror attack or Natural disaster would also drop us into Crisis Levels.. Yet all anyone seems to want to debate is, How many heads will you grow after the vaccine ? im not having no tracking device in me !! Demanding to know where all the PPE money was spent (not how the fuck can a developed 1st world economy run out at the first sign of trouble) or How much fish the french can catch after the 1st of Jan.. All really nice and convenient distractions from the real issue. We have a health service that isnt fit for purpose.
