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It's certain all of that is important. But I would guess the NHS is aware of it as well. Perhaps it's a big reason they're pushing to get ex-nurses and doctors back, getting new doctors into work, and getting thousands of private nurses to join (20,000). No doubt the coming weeks will be brutal for the NHS, though.
graunch
This is perhaps a bit dated now, but the reason I asked what was new on the ventilator front was that last week on LBC there was a man who reportedly works in the industry saying that talk of thousands of extra ventilators without the extensive training, the extra (baseline qualified) staff to give that training to and extra facilities in which the ventilators would be placed was "a comfort blanket". He also indicated that production rates were too slow to catch the patient peak anyway. Not to mention the obvious fact that every country in the world is screaming for the same kit.
A retired NHS radiographer said in the comments:
"For every ventilator, you need monitoring equipment (ecg, arterial and venous pressures, blood gasses etc.). You will also need several syringe pumps or other infusion equipment simply to keep the patient alive, let alone treat them. As it has always been a case of when, not if, the next pandemic would strike, it has been irresponsible for government to not have all the necessary equipment in storage, so that it was available in a timely manner. Talking simply about ventilators is not only impractical, it displays an ignorance of monumental proportions which will kill people. This also utterly ignores the staffing requirements needed to manage ventilated patients. We were promised 30,000 new nurses only a few months ago. They will be needed in the next few weeks, not years."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBVgOY8YL60