Evidence today from the National Audit office about just how badly the NHS is managed. Basic care, basic staff not in the right place at right time. Facilities provided but not staffed. Massive increased funds into NHS…but they go on other things such as management consultancy, PFI and NPunFIT.
Sadly the report in today’s Guardian is not entirely surprising to Dr Rant. We’ve commented on dropping the baby before here.
In the same paper Simon Jenkins gets another diagnosis right- That British administration in NHS and other government departments has become, “Over-centralised, over-sized and overbearing, public administration in Britain is rendered exhausted and incapable”
It’s getting depressing. I’m off to read Nick Sedddon’s new book from Civitas. I wonder if those continentals know something we don’t. After all we have got such good results from our NHS investment haven’t we? Almost as good as we’ll get for our £1800 each into Northern Crock.
Meanwhile, it would appear that a young actress, who quit the dizzy heights of Hollyoaks to train as a midwife, is one of 22 from her class of 25 to be unemployed. However, in a not too distantly related field, it it would appear that despite an increasing proportion of newborn babies requiring special care, the NHS is having increasing trouble finding trained staff to look after them. Don't you just love joined-up, centralised, reconfigured, top-down fuckwittery?
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19 comments:
I'm sure a management consultant would be just the sort of person to sort it out with a nice calming flow chart.
Bring back Patsy! Send for Liam Byrne!
My largactil's worn off today.
My sister, a trained actress (appeared in both Casualty and Holby, now a student nurse) once turned down a part in Hollyoaks. She plans on fleeing abroad once she's qualified.
Chickens are coming home to roost - thick and fast. As for the management con.sultants - what I'd give for some zip-ties and half an hour in the sluice, no question asked.
no questions asked, even.
I read the Guardian piece earlier. It says
the Department of Health did not issue instructions for the units to be adequately staffed. As a result the service was overstretched. Its specialist nursing workforce was nearly 10% below strength. There were not enough cots to respond to every emergency and there was a lack of specialist 24-hour transport to move babies and mothers to other hospitals.
Jacqui Smith, when health minister in 2003, said she agreed with recommendations from the British Association for Perinatal Medicine for minimum staffing ratios. But the government did not order NHS trusts to implement them.
The NAO says there was "confusion" over whether staffing ratios were mandatory, making it difficult for unit managers to convince NHS trusts they needed more staff.
sounds to me like a case of, more 'Stalinism' needed...
I'm reminded of the Trusts who were going to have to sack doctors and nurses because they lacked money. Everyone, of course, blamed 'the government'/'NuLabour'. But the reason the Trusts didn't have the money to pay the staff is this: they had a budget that allowed for the employment of a specific number of staff and they over-hired. Far be it from them to say in the first place that the budget wasn't adequate (if it wasn't...).
(Management consultants: agreed.)
see sky news is running a story about how 50 odd thousand brits a year are having operations in brussels alone and then getting the money back from the nhs cos the nhs waits are too long dirt is too much and the service is so shit
apparently the EC is making into rules the verdict that made the nhs refund that ladys operation fee who had her hip done in france
but of course those cunts in the labour government are trying to get a clause in that says the nhs will only fund things it can be arsed about that fucking week
like fuck, were all fucking paying for treatment, we should all get the fucking money to take to whoever will treat us best!
no one
jayann,
You have beautifully summed it up.
I come in to work in the morning, I have a consultation with a patient with a problem I can't resolve - I need help. I ask for help - this is where the shit starts. The patient (and I) get pissed about. The ultimate result is somehow "my" fault.
The "management consultants" work within the parameters set by No.10 If they get it wrong, it is not their fault but the fault of the front-line workers. This is how the NHS works. If you whistle-blow, you get shafted.
I hated the Tories and what they did, but nothing like I hate the current mendacious cunts in power.
no one,
Fuck Off!
merry christmas matt!
if murdoch telly is running this story you can be sure murdoch tabloids will follow
with any luck the new murdoch son in charge will fuck the labour party and all its bollocks
no one
I gave birth eleven weeks ago. During the course of the twelve hours I spent in hospital in labour, I had five different midwives attending me. All but one of them ran out and left the room at some point to attend crises occurring on the ward elsewhere (nothing relaxes you during labour like hearing midwives audibly panicking in the corridor).
The one who didn't have to run out and leave me alone? Spent those two hours filling out paperwork. I checked with my husband afterwards to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating it, but no, apparently she was steadily filling out forms for the remaining two hours of her shift. I guess that crises on understaffed wards make for a lot of paperwork...
Should add that I was actually in transition while she was filling out paperwork, and could've done with some advice as to how to get my (stuck) baby turned around before things all went pearshaped shortly afterwards...
The ultimate result is somehow "my" fault.
Yes. It's understandable that (some) people take it out on front line workers (it doesn't only happen in medicine and of course it happens in the private sector too) but of course that isn't much comfort to you!
I hated the Tories and what they did, but nothing like I hate the current mendacious cunts in power
that's a growing MPS (Medical Profession Syndrome) :) -- I just hope it doesn't lead you all to vote for that nice Dave man...
I think there are 40,000 GPs out there, and their spouses who will be voting for that nice Dave man next time to be honest.
The Government thinks constant change is a good thing judging by the last 10 years in the NHS - we think constant change of governments must therefore be as well.
It seem to be the 2nd and 3rd terms that do all the damage, so we shouldn't let a government get that far.
Quite
Politicians are like nappies- should be changed frequently and for the same reason
Why aren't you ranting about this?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/dec/21/nhs.publicservices
(after Christmas, maybe)
Happy Holidays to everybody here
"He will today impose longer hours by unilaterally rewriting the family doctors' contract"
Tell you what - first thing on Monday, give your mortgage company a call and tell them that you are unilaterally re-writing your contract with them. See if you still have a house on Tuesday.
What an arrogant twat the PM is.
I'm glad someone has mentioned this already. I am looking forward to a Dr Rant Spleen-venting of truly spectacular proportions!
Meanwhile, I'm fucking furious, but why should the DOH give a shit about GPs who aren't gonna vote for him when his rigged focus groups tell him that this is what "everyone" wants (how odd, then, that 84% of those in his own governments spectacularly expsenive survey were happy with GP hours). In their parallel universe, a "contract" between Government and Professionals is in fact a competely unilateral arrnagment whereby they can impose whatever the fuck they like by way of terms, pay and conditions after 13 weeks of "consultation". And we are going to have to suck it up or work for Mr Tesco in the near future, I suspect. It's unfortunate that the GPC has finally just about managed to stop playing dead on this one, and we'll get a vote as a Profession (well, hooray!), but we all know the outcome anyway. It's interesting that the PM seems mildly alaarmed about the outcry when he ignored the Police independent review body recommendations, but I am afraid they've screwed us in advance on the public sympathy front, so they must be pretty confident they can ignore any bleating on this one.
I'm acutely aware that GP's bleating about money or workload is not liekly to garner popular support, thanks to the long-term spin against us, but the real crime here, which much of the press has missed, is that the money that is apparently being alloctaed to this misguided bollocks (apart from not being "new" money, but merely "re-announced" - how often have we seen this trick before) will actually be diverted AWAY from the clinical bit of QOF which the BMA was suggesting it should be spent on! Osteoporosis care? No, sayeth Broon: spend the money on letting neurotic middle-class wankers berate their GP's for not prescribing homeopathy and cranial osteopathy, and demanding antibiotics for flu whatever hour of the day they fucking like instead!
Genius!
Looking forward to Rant's view on this. I'm going to finish my surgery now I've got that out of my system a bit...
"He will today impose longer hours by unilaterally rewriting the family doctors' contract"
I doubt he has the balls! Alan Johnson has been invisible since becoming Secretary for Health. Is he suddenly going to reappear with an aggressive proposal like this?
Any unilateral change to our contract will be tested in court.
Thanks for the comments. we haven't got a rant together yet on the OOH/ contract changes yet.
Unusually for us it's an issue we don't have an immediate easy answer on.
Rahere has done a good immediate summary for now.
out of hours? stop giving GPs money from the public purse, stop taxing the patients for this service, and let commercial reality take hold, let the GPs need the patients money and lets see them fucking surgerys open when the customer wants
and prize of the year for being the biggest CUNTS on the planet goes to Coventry PCT may they all die long and painful deaths
Dear Dr Rant,
What happened to the dropped baby?
Prof Scrub
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