The government will try and blame the failure of Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust on the NHS. The public won't buy it.
Last week was a momentous one for the NHS. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s announcement on Lewisham Hospital occupied all corners of the press.
Added to this we had the action of Lord Owen, who joined the March to save Lewisham Hospital and launched his Amendment Bill to re-instate the core principles of the NHS and protect services from marketisation.
The Labour Party and the National Health Action Party have declared their support – and in the face of the current assault on the health service by the coalition it is a much needed move from within the parliamentary portals.
To return to the outside world, now that the reality of Hunt’s decision about the Lewisham hospital #Lewishambles has started to embed itself in the national reality it’s time to cast our eyes further afield.
Not only have we witnessed the government announcing their decision to dismantle a brand new, successful and solvent A&E and accompanying acute facilities in Lewisham, but we can now see that the whole A&E system is about to be dragged into it’s very own emergency situation.
To look at the specifics: The coalition has missed its own reduced waiting time targets for the last 17 consecutive weeks, with an extra million patients waiting more then four hours.
Even worse, the ambulance back-up situation is nearing breaking point, with patients waiting for up to 11 hours in ambulances before entering A&E (moreover, I have just heard of one elderly patient waiting in an ambulance for over 18 hours).
In some regions, fewer than seven in 10 ambulance calls are reaching the most serious cases within the eight minute target – and more than 11,138 ambulances are waiting over 30 minutes outside of A&E departments.
Far from protecting the NHS – 5,000 nursing jobs have been lost since David Cameron became PM and one in six hospitals now have inadequate staffing levels in A&E – the government is plowing on with a wholesale destabilisation of the NHS and lying about it.
Tomorrow we will see the release of the long awaited Francis Report, which is sure to reveal shocking levels of maladministration and malpractice in Mid-Staffordshire Trust – which was overseen by the current NHS CEO, Sir David Nicholson.
With the pressures which the current regime are placing on the system it’s likely there will be more rather than less terrible instances like that seen in Mid-Staffs.
However, if the government see fit to try to use this to smear the NHS, they may find the public aren’t so easily duped.
38 Responses to “The public won’t be fooled by the government on the NHS”
LB
Doesn’t work. Regulator is still the NHS, Supplier is the NHS. Insurer is the NHS. The need to be split.
The US is crap, hence the left loves using it as the bogey man to scare people. Even you did, what’s the scores on the doors between the US and the UK when it comes to killing people.
However, at least in the UK, if your bread winner is killed off, you stand a good chance of getting money from the people who killed them. Here is the victim’s family who pays the price. Have a couple of grand and run along now my dear boy.
Heaven help if you’re maimed.
Stafford is the norm. Expect lots more
And back to the cash front, there are the state debts. 7,000 bn plus when you use proper accounting, instead of fantasy, Bernie Maddoff accounting.
LB
The other problem, you’re deluded that its paperwork. If only we could cut the paper work. It’s not, its far more basic.
So why do you think paperworks the issue, but if we control and put more paperwork (regulation) on business it solves things?
blarg1987
I accept their needs to be a bare minimum amount of regulation, paperwork is something that has grown in many services, police is another example, where evrything must be quantified.
There is a difference between regulation i.e. a company must ensure all its staff is safe and papwer work, i.e. you must repeatedly log every minute task you have done several times on different databases.
Add to that the NHS is run along marketised lines of targets which you do not find in other health care systems and it is a recipe to go wrong.
LB
There is a difference between regulation i.e. a company must ensure all its staff is safe
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And the NHS that has to make sure its staff are safe, but when it comes to the patients, 20-80,000 a year killed according to their own statistics, where they contribute to the deaths.
Initially I thought that was a misprint, but on further consideration, the 20,000 low end is certainly going to be right. Here we have one hospital, whose killed off over a thousand. We then here 5 others of the ‘worst’ cases are under investigation. There are way more than 5. I’ve direct experience of 4 people killed, one of which I would convict the surgeon of murder. Deliberate killing.
It’s widespread. That’s with the huge increase in spending. It’s not a money issue, its back to the structure.
Gaz
Why haven’t you mentioned the 1200 deaths at Mid-Staffs, why don’t you direct your lefty outrage there ? I can’t think of a better reason for reform of the NHS. It’s currently run for the benefit of those employed in it (administrators, doctors – witness the all-powerful BMA and nurses), not for patients.