Up to now all that has been said by speakers at the Conservative Party Conference has been said before. Osborne, in particular had nothing worth saying, other than "no-change".
But Andrew Lansley talking about the NHS said that "The NHS will introduce mandatory language tests for doctors moving to Britain after training elsewhere in the European Union.".
An interesting statement, but will the EU allow it? Up to now the line has been "We're terribly sorry, but the EU insists on qualified doctors being allowed to work anywhere within the EU". Obviously we will need to wait and see. It is perhaps also worth noting that nothing was said about nurses, with whom the average patient probably has more contact.
He also said “And all that is why, since the election, we now have 1,500 more doctors and 5,000 fewer managers in the NHS.”
This may be true in terms of numbers, but as has been pointed out to me by a female consultant that I know, the medical schools are now turning out more female doctors than ever before, but many of these, once fully qualified, only work part time, and in her view the "full-time equivalent" of doctors in the NHS has actually fallen . This has been confirmed as far as I am concerned by what has happened following the retirement of my full-time (male) GP. I have been allocated to a new female doctor, but informed that she will only be working three days a week. "You are of course free to see any of the other doctors on days when she is not available should you wish". Assuming, of course that I am able to get an appointment from the reduced "doctor-hours" now available at the surgery.
If this is typical, I suspect that the 1500 extra doctors are needed merely because more doctors are working part time.
PS Does anyone know how many hospitals there are in the UK? The loss of 5000 administrators doesn't seem to be many when averaged over all our hospitals, one or two per hospital maybe; not much of an achievement!
Showing posts with label Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Show all posts
Monday, 3 October 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Joined-up Thinking
Governments just love to talk of joined-up thinking, but I have yet to see any. Government Departments are solely concerned with their own activities and spending their budget on their own pet projects. They have no interest whatsoever in how their actions might affect another Department, or indeed anyone else, as long as they can do what they want.
The Daily Telegraph reports today that doctors are warning that "Bed-Blocking" in NHS hospitals has reached the state that if the trend continues over 100,000 of the available 170.000 NHS bed will be filled with people who are well enough to go into residential care. Last month alone, there were 4,600 "delayed discharges", meaning that a similar number of patients awaiting treatment had to wait that much longer. The reason seems quite clear; Local councils, who have the responsibility for providing residential nursing care have cut back their budgets. The coalition has in fact pledged extra funds to local authorities for such care to the extent of £2 billion over the next four years, but it is not "protected" and the councils are free to use it for any purpose within their remit and are doing so.
The result is that the councils are getting the budget (and no doubt using it to employ more diversity officers, racial/female equality enforcers and the like) whilst leaving the NHS with the cost of coping with these elderly patients. These councils simply don't care how their actions affect other arms of government, it's the old trade union "I'm all right, Jack" in a new disguise.
The local councils are clearly misusing funds provided for a specific purpose and this is effectively fraud against the government and hence the taxpayers, and should be of concern to all, young as well as old, as none of us can foresee what might happen in our sunset years.
Although there is no direct evidence, it seems that the delay in getting British Citizens out of Libya was probably the result of similar budgetary squabbles, no doubt with the Foreign Office arguing that it was MoD's responsibility and vice versa. Probably the failed aircraft on the runway at Gatwick was as a result of them going to the cheapest tenderer (It wouldn't be MoD, they go to the dearest!). After all, the Foreign Office needs to guard its budget so that it can continue to fly officials, first class, to essential conferences in exotic locations.
Joined-up Thinking - You are joking!
The Daily Telegraph reports today that doctors are warning that "Bed-Blocking" in NHS hospitals has reached the state that if the trend continues over 100,000 of the available 170.000 NHS bed will be filled with people who are well enough to go into residential care. Last month alone, there were 4,600 "delayed discharges", meaning that a similar number of patients awaiting treatment had to wait that much longer. The reason seems quite clear; Local councils, who have the responsibility for providing residential nursing care have cut back their budgets. The coalition has in fact pledged extra funds to local authorities for such care to the extent of £2 billion over the next four years, but it is not "protected" and the councils are free to use it for any purpose within their remit and are doing so.
The result is that the councils are getting the budget (and no doubt using it to employ more diversity officers, racial/female equality enforcers and the like) whilst leaving the NHS with the cost of coping with these elderly patients. These councils simply don't care how their actions affect other arms of government, it's the old trade union "I'm all right, Jack" in a new disguise.
The local councils are clearly misusing funds provided for a specific purpose and this is effectively fraud against the government and hence the taxpayers, and should be of concern to all, young as well as old, as none of us can foresee what might happen in our sunset years.
Although there is no direct evidence, it seems that the delay in getting British Citizens out of Libya was probably the result of similar budgetary squabbles, no doubt with the Foreign Office arguing that it was MoD's responsibility and vice versa. Probably the failed aircraft on the runway at Gatwick was as a result of them going to the cheapest tenderer (It wouldn't be MoD, they go to the dearest!). After all, the Foreign Office needs to guard its budget so that it can continue to fly officials, first class, to essential conferences in exotic locations.
Joined-up Thinking - You are joking!
Friday, 26 February 2010
Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust; Why no prosecutions?
Today, the headlines in the Daily Telegraph read:
"It is beyond belief that in a modern city like Birmingham, a child of seven was withdrawn from school and kept in squalid conditions for five months before finally dying of starvation"
But equally well, virtually the same headlines could have been used yesterday about the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust:
"It is beyond belief, that in a modern country like England, patients were kept in squalid conditions and robbed of their dignity before finally dying of neglect".
When a child at home dies of neglect, quite rightly, the parents are prosecuted for murder, or as in in the above case, for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Yet something like 1200 patients in a major hospital died after being thoroughly neglected and being "abused by hostile staff and left in humiliating and undignified conditions". They were "robbed of their dignity" and left in soiled bedclothes, unwashed and in states of undress in full view of others until the eventually died. Even Dr Shipman didn't do that as he killed his victims quickly with drugs.
What is the difference between a single child and a major hospital? In both cases vulnerable people were neglected by the very people who were supposed to be caring for them; the only difference is that those in the NHS Trust could hardly claim "diminished responsibility"!
So why the difference? When a single child dies those responsible are prosecuted. When a single doctor or nurse kills someone, even by accident, they are prosecuted. When there is mass killing all those responsible seem to get off scot-free. Indeed, even worse, most of the senior management have resigned, received large pay-offs and gone on to similar jobs elsewhere.
When the Herald of Free Enterprise sank in 1987 killing 193 people, there were demands that the Company Directors should be prosecuted. Following the Paddington train crash in 1999 when 31 people were killed and 520 were injured, there were similar demands. But when a NHS Trust kills more people than were killed and injured in the previous two events, there is absolute silence and total inaction.
We need action from the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (or even the Health and Safety Executive); there is no reason why there should be one rule for the public service and another for private companies or individuals.
"It is beyond belief that in a modern city like Birmingham, a child of seven was withdrawn from school and kept in squalid conditions for five months before finally dying of starvation"
But equally well, virtually the same headlines could have been used yesterday about the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust:
"It is beyond belief, that in a modern country like England, patients were kept in squalid conditions and robbed of their dignity before finally dying of neglect".
When a child at home dies of neglect, quite rightly, the parents are prosecuted for murder, or as in in the above case, for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Yet something like 1200 patients in a major hospital died after being thoroughly neglected and being "abused by hostile staff and left in humiliating and undignified conditions". They were "robbed of their dignity" and left in soiled bedclothes, unwashed and in states of undress in full view of others until the eventually died. Even Dr Shipman didn't do that as he killed his victims quickly with drugs.
What is the difference between a single child and a major hospital? In both cases vulnerable people were neglected by the very people who were supposed to be caring for them; the only difference is that those in the NHS Trust could hardly claim "diminished responsibility"!
So why the difference? When a single child dies those responsible are prosecuted. When a single doctor or nurse kills someone, even by accident, they are prosecuted. When there is mass killing all those responsible seem to get off scot-free. Indeed, even worse, most of the senior management have resigned, received large pay-offs and gone on to similar jobs elsewhere.
When the Herald of Free Enterprise sank in 1987 killing 193 people, there were demands that the Company Directors should be prosecuted. Following the Paddington train crash in 1999 when 31 people were killed and 520 were injured, there were similar demands. But when a NHS Trust kills more people than were killed and injured in the previous two events, there is absolute silence and total inaction.
We need action from the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (or even the Health and Safety Executive); there is no reason why there should be one rule for the public service and another for private companies or individuals.
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