Dr Rant is glowing with pride following a restful night's sleep after official confirmation that NHS Targets have been responsible for cutting the cancer rate in the UK.
During Prime Minister's Questions in parliament yesterday, the following was said according to Hansard:
Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North and Sefton, East) (Lab): I wonder whether my right hon. Friend could help me with a little problem that I have been wrestling with. [Interruption.] If the Government were to abolish public service targets, how would we know how well they are doing?
The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a result of the targets that we have set, cancer is down 17 per cent in this country....
There you have it! It must be true, and we look forward to Gordon Brown producing the evidence that the targets his party foisted on the NHS have reduced cancer by 17%.
Targets have apparently meant that 1 in 6 people who would have otherwise developed a malignant tumour through the inactivation of tumour supressor genes coupled with gene mutations, within a cell line have been miraculously spared.
We also expect the imminent announcement that management consultants within the NHS have been responsible for the recent reduction in deaths due to extreme weather conditions.
Dr Rant would like to thank the indomitable Dr Barry Monk for pointing him in the direction of this marvelous news.
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40 comments:
Come on now Rant, you know the Dear Leader is referring to a drop in the number of deaths caused by cancer.
I wonder how much of that 17% 'improvement' is due to patients whose immune system is damaged by chemo dying of infections before they succumb to cancer.
Even if there has been a 17% reduction in cancer mortality, would you attribute this to advances in medical practice or targets?
I'd certainly want evidence before making such a claim.
Given that everyone will die of something, and that the statistics we collect on such matters are not fool proof either, what are people dying from instead?
I used to think increased cancer rates we're actually not all that bad - because cancer is predominantly a disease of the older person, it meant that people like me were keeping everyone alive long enough for them to actually get cancer.
Statistics are all about interpretation - never trust a politician, especially if the have 'statistics'.
Maybe the targets can cure HIV/AIDS too?!
cancer mortality is only getting better because more people give up on the nhs and go private and get half decent treatment?
in Wales, dr rant, you'd be tempted to attribute it to the targets (that we in Wales don't have)(bed-blocking is not the reason for the long delays before diagnosis that are not even mentioned here)
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2007/10/25/cancer-patients-in-op-delay-agony-91466-20006640/
the last time there was some kind of NHS Day of Action, the Welsh Medical Unions had drinkies with our Health Minister, a GP, instead; to acknowledge his sterling work in fending off nasty English policies. (In fact, I read, PFI is rife in Wales.) And we, the patients, waited, and suffered.
(I do though agree the statistics can't be taken at face value.)
It is in fact true that cancer mortality has decreased in the UK since Nulabour has been in power. Even more amazing is that it has decreased in almost every population group in Europe and the USA too, so, give credit where credit is due. Even more amazing is that the downward trend started before Nulabour were elected so that even the anticipation of a Nulabour victory reduces cancer mortality.
The only groups it hasn't shown a decrease for are women in Spain and Greece.
The actual reason, of course, is the dramatic reduction in smoking in the traditional smoking population of working class men over the last 30 years or so. Conversely liberation of women in Spain and Greece over the last 30 years has resulted in increased smoking in young women which is now feeding through into the cancer statistics.
It has to be acknowledged that nulabour has, rather begrudgingly, continued the restriction of cigarette advertising started by it predecessors and this would go some way to reducing cancer mortality if so much tabacoo was not now brought across from Europe.
My hair has gone gray in the last 10 years- I blame Nulabour
The supreme leader has a PhD (subject - history of the Labour party I believe) so he must know what he is talking about. He is probably referring to prevalence of people living with cancer rather than incidence of new cases or deaths. One way of reducing prevalence is to "cure" the disease the other, of course, is to let the patient die.
Of course, as Dr Ray has pointed out, the other way that cancer prevailence reduces is by people not get cancer in the first place.
It's clever how they achieved this by setting targets.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7061890.stm
according to Darzi its crap leadership
that guys real clever eh?
no one
"according to Darzi its crap leadership"
That is what we all think but it's a brave move for Darzi to critisise Hewitt and Blair too (they were in charge at the time of the outbreaks). I have a lot more respect for him now.
hes not
hes seems to be mainly critical of trust leadership
That can't be right. We know that C. difficile infections is a national (well England anyway)problem. It can't be all the Trust leaders at fault; logic tells us the leadership failure must have occurred higher up. I think he is being quite clever and blaming Nulabour without them realising.
Its about time a high ranking politician was willing to pin the blame on their predecessors.
Lets hear a Labour minister come clean about the Education, Crime, and Miliatry disasters Nulabour has dumped on us.
I don't think Darzi is doing that, dr ray, he said 'within the NHS' and also
"There has been poor leadership in some of the organisations that have had significant outbreaks of the type we have seen in the last week.
"I work in organisations that deliver health care and I know exactly the ones that have the right leadership."
let's hope 'the ones' doesn't mean Kaiser Permanente and co.
(Wales. The c. diff surveillance data I've found aren't comparable with the English surveillance data -- they'e calculated differently.)
Lets hear a Labour minister come clean about the Education, Crime, and Miliatry disasters Nulabour has dumped on us.
fine by me, so long as people don't forget the official Tory (as opposed to New Labour Tory) part in all this.
I was joking. I thought "Its about time a high ranking politician was willing to pin the blame on their predecessors." would be a bit of a giveaway since they do this all the time. No, seriously, it looks like Darzi will have no alternative but to recommend the closure of DGHs when he finishes his review. Its the only way leadership in these organisations can be improved. Its just a co-incidence the alternatives will be run by the private sector. I think that what we are being softened up for
I was joking.
oh sorry (I've re-read your comment; the very beginning should have tipped me off).
since they do this all the time
except they don't always do it -- when their predecessor's from the same party (and I assumed you meant he was blaming Blair, which would be 'brave' perhaps but also rash); but OK, yes I was sleepy.
No, seriously, it looks like Darzi will have no alternative but to recommend the closure of DGHs
I've been reading today (again, yet again...) about the privatization of the 'NHS' (about Boots and Tesco moving in, and so on). All this curdles my blood. More relevantly, it makes defending 'the NHS' really rather difficult as one anyway has to defend a hybrid. Oh sod it. (That's all I can say at the moment. Sod it.)
I honestly don't know what is the right way for the NHS Jayann. I do see that some privately run industries are more responsive to their customers than the state run predecessors but then we had the scandals like folk having their electricity suppliers changed without their knowledge and the Famous Four who used MG Rover as a means of transferring funds into their own accounts until the company was bankrupted. I'm not keen to see the same happening in health care because the consequences of the government washing its hands of health-care provision and leaving patients and staff at the mercy of businessmen and get-rich-quick merchants fills me with gloom.
Health-care isn't just another commodity. If I am unhappy with my car (as I am) I will buy a different make next time. If I get hit by a car I don't get to choose where my limbs are repaired so I need to know the standard is uniformly high and the particular hospital I go to isn't employing untrained staff to increase profit margins. If we impose regulation to ensure standards are met I firstly have doubts that regulation will be adequate (it hasn't been in the financial sector) and secondly it will be so onerous and complicated that it will cost the taxpayer more than the NHS is costing now, and the money will not benefit patients or staff-it will be just another drain on resources.
I work in Wales as well as England and they do seem more supportive of the principle of an NHS. I also find patients are much less demanding and also have a sense of ownership of the local hospitals which has been lost in England. If the reforms go as I anticipate in England I will pack it in and work in Wales full-time. At least I still have a choice.
Some private companies/systems are responsive, some aren't. I've seen from your comments you've had problems with private companies, I am almost fighting four at the moment (two of them working for a third, the fourth's a bank that refuses even to talk to me about the account I want to close; there is almost zero accountability on these cases). Equally, some public sector institutions are responsive....
I'm not keen to see the same happening in health care because the consequences of the government washing its hands of health-care provision and leaving patients and staff at the mercy of businessmen and get-rich-quick merchants fills me with gloom.
Yes. I agree. But
I work in Wales as well as England and they do seem more supportive of the principle of an NHS
I think that really is true -- to be fair -- but there remain serious problems in Wales that lead one to sympathise with the English target setters. (I waited 4.5 years to see a spinal surgeon; I only saw one then because the Welsh newspapers and angry patients almost rioted -- and some patients went to the Tories... -- so, magically, I got a cancelled appointment: different clinic, different surgeon, who hadn't been told he was seeing me, and had to try to cope without adequate notes... -- and see below)
I also find patients are much less demanding
not bloody surprising; some of us are pathetically grateful that now, after that pre-Election kick in the teeth for the Labour Welsh Assembly Government (Blair told Peter Hain to put the fear of God into them -- they lost my seat anyway), we only have to wait say fifteen months to see a spinal surgeon... (I had to be referred again.)
I was talking the other day to someone I know slightly about the Welsh NHS, and he said tartly, "*what* Welsh NHS?", so he must be on a waiting list...
In England, I never used my medical insurance (which I took out only because my bank 'offered' me it while I was asking for a loan...) and I thought I never would. Here, needing to see an orthopaedic surgeon and facing a three-year wait and a struggle to care for my mother, with a damaged knee, during that time, I slammed in a claim. In a couple of months, I should have the money to pay for consultant appointments for pre-existing conditions, like the spinal ones; thank God. (So, I may not need to try to go back to England.) (BTW the waiting list books here are cooked now, if I'm referred to a spinal surgeon, that counts as a 'follow-up' to the first appointment. I'm not the only one, of course.)
So. Yes I do think patients here are generally less 'entitled' than some of the English ones. And some of that is pleasant. But I do wonder how healthy that is, how healthy my and others' fatalism (because since moving here, I have become fatalist) is. "We're all in the same boat" is OK if the boat isn't sinking. if there's enough water and food, if we have a reasonable chance of living till a ship comes along.
If the reforms go as I anticipate in England I will pack it in and work in Wales full-time.
I take it you're pretty sure you could do that? The fact is, Wales spends less per head on the NHS than England already. It still hasn't paid the doctors' pay rise in full. There's going to be a serious shortage of GPs here, money will I take it have to be found to try to remedy that. And hospital closures are happening here... So, regardless of your qualifications -- and there are certainly some very very good English doctors working here already -- the jobs might not be there.
Anyway. I support a non-privatised NHS, I want the kind of system we once had. But I want it run properly. And I greatly resent the smugness of some of the cheerleaders for a "Welsh Wales" who manage to ignore the suffering here.
(I forgot to say the waiting lists are particularly long in South-East Wales, where I live; the pre-Election orthopaedic ones were the highest in the world, I believe. I don't know what the official ones are now as they're no longer posted on the web.)
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