Silent Majority Speaks
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Spin, not
face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the Government's
chosen method of communication. Ordinary people are dangerous. Ordinary
people might ask a question which throws a politician 'off
message'; the Cabinet member might reveal himself or herself
to be a human being like us, and not a programmed android.
Worse still, he or she might tell the truth.
Ann Leslie
- Daily Mail, September 16, 2004
When
I retired as a full-time NHS consultant (with no private
practice) 12 years ago, my salary was £40,000. Now,
consultants earn an average of £110,000 for doing
less work. Patricia Hewitt must admit to another Government
blunder. From
Robert Wallworth, Llangattock, Powys - Letter to the Daily
Mail, April 23, 2007.
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A
healthier NHS
The
resignations from the NHS of doctors Mike Lavelle and
my former colleague David Grace made me relive the latter
years of my service. Like them, I began work in the NHS
when it functioned efficiently. Since the introduction
of managers and executive officers, we have experienced
malfunctions and a lack of beds and equipment.
We
had to meet unnecessary targets which prioritised money
over patients. And the appointment of managers and 'facilitators'
has spiralled out of control. The only way of sorting
out the mess is a return to letting senior nurses and
medical consultants run the hospitals. These are the people
who know what patients and hospitals need. From
S.G. Tak, retired orthopaedic surgeon, Edgware, Middlesex
- Letter to the Daily Mail, October 7, 2005.
When
I retired as a full-time NHS consultant (with no private
practice) 12 years ago, my salary was £40,000. Now,
consultants earn an average of £110,000 for doing
less work. Patricia Hewitt must admit to another Government
blunder. From
Robert Wallworth, Llangattock, Powys - Letter to the Daily
Mail, April 23, 2007.
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Scandal
of the great superbug cover-up
Shamed
hospital trust keeps boss's pay-off secret
Nurse
of the Year quits NHS in despair
A
crazy waste of 16,000 doctors
We're
worse off than ever, insist doctors
Matron
made the nurse
On
the critical list
Black
hole in NHS pensions swells to £61bn
Superbugs
kill 5,400 patients in ONE year
A
& E units 'fiddling figures to hit target'
MRSA
targets won't be met (so
Labour starts spinning)
Cutting
the A & Es will save lives, claims Blair
The
NHS is anything but national
NHS
is failing in its basic duty
I'm
quitting the NHS over the tyranny of targets and tick-boxes
A
plague on NHS managers
Hewitt's
reforms for GPs 'flawed' - MP's
damning verdict on Health Service overhaul
Patients
hopping mad -Three-tier
NHS
Surgeon
says 'I've had enough'
NHS
hospitals have become war zones
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Out
of touch with the real world
It
was perhaps the most telling image of the week: a sweating,
floundering Prime Minister reduced to open-mouthed confusion
when confronted with the problems of real people in a real
world.
On
BBC's Question Time special, Mr Blair was 'absolutely astonished'
to discover that GPs are refusing to make appointments more
than two days in advance, to comply with Whitehall's requirement
that patients must be seen within 48 hours. He thought it
'absurd'.
But
even then, he didn't grasp the point. He said he was sorry
for the experience of 'one person', only to provoke a storm
of complaints from the audience that they too had suffered
such bureaucratic, target-driven nonsense. A chastened Mr
blair promised to investigate.
Eight
years on, isn't it a little late to wake up to what is really
happening in the NHS? He makes much of the extra billions
for health and paints a glowing picture of new buildings,
more MRI scanners and faster treatments. And to be fair,
there have been some improvements.
But
the rose-tinted view from Downing Street is far from the
full story. The appointment fiasco is only one example.
Need to see your family doctor in the early evening or at
the weekend? Hope for a home visit late at night? Forget
it. Under their new contract, GPs no longer need to be available
out of hours.
Meanwhile,
the targets culture distorts clinical priorities. The BMA
warns that lives are jeopardised in A&E departments
because of Whitehall's demand for patients to be treated
within 4 hours. Doctors must cut corners to meet that target,
often by pushing patients into inappropriate wards just
to get them out of casualty by the deadline. That leads
to bed shortages and cancelled operations.
Lives
are put at risk in other ways too. The MRSA superbug rages
in hospitals, partly because managers are blocking requests
to close infected wards so they can be properly cleaned.
The reason? Performance targets again.
On
and on it goes. Mr Blair points proudly to new scanners,
while a third of them stand idle or under-used because of
a shortage of radiographers. But there is plenty of money
for the bloated army of bureaucrats appointed to enforce
New Labour's obsessive targetting.
His
failure to introduce genuine reforms in the NHS encourages
waste and mismanagement on a colossal scale. But, as on
Iraq - where he enthuses over democracy while closing his
eyes to the 60 terrorist attacks a day - this Prime Minister
sees only what he wants to see.
Rarely
has the chasm between rhetoric and reality yawned so wide.
Rarely has a politician seemed so woefully out of touch.
(Comment, Daily Mail, April 30, 2005)
"More
people are dying each year from infections they pick up
in dirty hospitals than the number who die on our roads.
..... During the first parliament we will increase the amount
spent on the NHS by £34 billion - from £1,450/
head to £2,000 / head. This will be investment for
reform, not the failed 'spend and waste' approach of the
last eight years", writes Michael Howard in the Conservative
Manifesto on Health. Download
the whole manifesto here.
Perhaps
hospitals should adopt the motto: TOUGH ON GRIME. TOUGH
ON THE CAUSES OF GRIME. Phil Musk,
Godalming, Surrey - Letter to the Daily Mail, February 28,
2005
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Patients
hopping mad (with the NHS) - Three-tier
NHS
- A
plague on NHS managers
Surgeon
says 'I've had enough' - NHS
hospitals have become war zones because of targets
Penpushers
infect NHS - Doctors
back surgeon who spoke out - 'Complacent'
NHS loses to superbugs
NHS
billions swallowed on salaries - Truth
about NHS by surgeon who can bear it no longer
MRSA
Deaths Double in 4 years - Experts fear toll is even worse
Just
say NO to sex, drugs & boozing, Tories tell teens - Matron
can't do it all on her own
Women
who shamed Blair - He
pinged his waxen smile at the cameras
The
Rise and Rise of the World Health Service Rampant
immigration has hit our hard-pressed NHS
Tories
put matrons in charge of war on MRSA -
Health
Managers' pay soars (pity about nurses)
It
os our NHS, not the World Health Service
- "Why
Howard is right to speak out"
When our nurses had time
to care - Read letters from talented people who know that they
write about
Bugged
by M R S A
There's
nothing new about MRSA infections on hospital wards. I
was a student nurse in the late Sixties when there was
an investigation into the number of 'staph aureus' infections
of surgical wounds and bedsores. This was in the days
when hospitals were scrubbed, washed and disinfected until
every inch was clean.
A
carrier was suspected, and all staff had nasal swabs taken.
Some results came back positive, including mine, which
was also resistant to all available antibiotics tested
- Multi-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.
I
was told I would probably be sent off duty until such
time as any swabs taken proved negative, but because of
staff shortages, I never was.
I
continued nursing till 1995. Nothing further was ever
done about the swab result. In fact, I forgot all abut
it until MRSA cropped up in the news.
How
many hospital staff are carriers these days? Is anything
being done to find out?
Letter from Susan Griffiths, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales
- Daily Mail, March 10, 2005
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Very
much alive
If
Health Secretary John Reid thinks it too costly to keep
seriously ill older patients alive, I have total disgust
for both him and his party. Two years ago, I had a bowel
operation and shortly afterwards had to undergo a further
procedure. In my five months of illness, when I was thought
to be unconscious and unable to respond to visitors, I
could hear quite clearly when my case was discussed at
my bedside by medical staff.
I
was not expected to live, but I wanted to survive and
recovered completely. though at 78 I am not as strong
as when I was younger, I hope to live a long while yet,
unless people such as Mr Reid have their way. I have always
thought a doctor's priority is to save a life, not destroy
one for cost.
Letter to the Daily Mail from R.
Johnson, Newcastle - February 9, 2005
Sickness
of the NHS
The NHS demands higher
targets of a demoralised, understaffed workforce, with inefficient
management constantly battling for limited resources, and an
ever-ageing and increasingly sick population. It's stressful,
frustrating and chaotic. Hospital cleaners are overworked, underpaid
and are never thanked. Cleaners, porters and security staff are
employed by subcontractors who pay them little and make excessive
demands on them.
The space between beds
is too small for comfort and infection control: wards are simply dirty.
The bedding is changed, but beds have only a rudimentary wash between
patients. No sooner does a patient die in intensive care than the bed
is taken over by another sick patient. Patients often fail to have
their operations on time because of the shortage of ICU beds.
The wards are at
over-capacity with no slack in the system. With increasing demands
passed from Government to management to doctors and nurses, the pace is
too fast to be safe.
I'm an operating theatre
technician, but I'm thinking of getting out of health care for the sake
of my own health and well-being. It is horrendous and unhealthy for
staff and patients. It simply isn't working. Letter to the Daily
Mail - December 8, 2004 (Name and address supplied)
I fear going
into hospital
I found it very painful
to read about Angels in Crisis (Mail): my heart breaks to hear what
nursing has become. I was a ward sister in the Sixties when we have a
very few problems with pressure sores, malnutrition, etc., because we
cared for our patients with consideration and - yes - love.
At that time, I started
to get student nurses on degree courses coming on to my ward for some
'practical experience' to supplement their all-important theoretical
training. I knew then that, as a profession, we were on a downward
spiral - but the nurse tutors went ahead with the scheme. Sadly, my
fears have become a nightmare reality. I fear me and mine having to be
admitted to hospital - a comment I once would have been ashamed to
make. Letter to the Daily Mail - February 3, 2005, from Mrs Dorothy
Oldfield, SRN DN/Cert PWT, from Hyde, Cheshire.
Top nursing
chiefs must admit they got it wrong
I trained as a nurse from 1954-57 at a highly respected
training school and have been arguing the case against Project 2000
(Mail) for the past 20 years. In 50 years of nursing, I never felt like
a 'doctor's handmaiden' or 'little helper'. I was a trained nurse doing
what a nurse does - care for patients to the best of my ability. I've
worked as a charge nurse, senior operating theatre nurse and health
visitor without ever feeling 'inferior' to doctors.
I've always, as a member, branch officer, board member and
activist in the Royal College of Nursing, been out of step with the
profession. The RCN was instrumental in driving forward Project 2000,
taking nurse training out of hospitals into universities. I argued this
would bring down the profession.
I have been vilified for this many times by nurse educators
implying I'm an old man living in the past - but modern nurse training
is failing the profession. It wasn't the membership who voted
unanimously for an 'all-graduate profession at the point of
registration', it was the RCN governing council, without consultation
with or mandate from its members.
The profession needs to have the courage to say it got nurse education
wrong and change it. Few nurses can or want to climb
the career ladder to the few highly-paid jobs. We must
strengthen the lower grades pay structure to keep more
nurses at the bedside, put the word 'ward' back in the
sister/charge nurse titles and - above all - make ward
cleaners answerable to the nurse in charge of the ward.
- Letter to the Daily Mail, February 3, 2005, from
Mr R. H. Jarrett, Cliftonville, Kent
Canada's
Healthcare
Michael
Howard is spot on with what he wants to do with the
NHS. I'm British and live in Canada, but I worked for
the NHS for 25 years and did notice that 'health tourists'
were starting to creep in. When we came here for my
husband's job, I was on a visitor's permit. After being
here for six months I needed to see a doctor for a minor
ailment and soon discovered that, unlike the UK, I couldn't
just sign on with a GP as a temporary patient.
The
procedure was to go to the nearest hospital emergency
room - despite the fact that this was not an emergency
- and there you would see a doctor, but not before paying
£150. When he gave me a prescription for six antibiotic
tablets, I had to pay a further £45 to get is
dispensed.
When
my husband's job was extended, I then had to become
a 'Landed Immigrant'. The procedure for Landed Immigrants
cost me £1,500 for lawyers, £400 of which
went on a comprehensive medical. It included a chest
X-ray to check for TB, a blood test to look for Hepatitis
B and C, and HIV.
I
was also given a full eye examination. All done to make
sure that I wouldn't be a drain on the Canadian Health
Service. Luckily, I am quite healthy. Once I obtained
Landed Immigrant status I was free to see a Canadian
doctor free of charge, but then I had to join a drug
plan as prescriptions are charged at full cost if one
is not a member.
One
more thing Mr Howard might like to implement if he becomes
Prime Minister; as a Landed Immigrant I had to go to
court with a sponsor who promised that he could support
me financially. This is because you cannot claim from
the Canadian welfare system for the first ten years
of your residency. Letter to the Daily Mail from
Tricia Cousins, Georgetown, Ontario - February 22, 2005.
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'Complacent'
NHS fails to beat superbugs
Penpushers
who infect our NHS
The
truth about the NHS . . . by a surgeon who can bear it no longer
NHS
billions swallowed on salaries
Blair
squirms over NHS targets on BBC's Question Time
It
is our NHS, not the World Health Service
- "Why
Howard is right to speak out"
Cancer
patients suffering in NHS
targets shambles
NHS is 'failing to deliver value'
under Labour
Our
NHS has petty targets and despots in suits
NHS
seeks Equality Tsar
It
has been reported (Daily Mail, May 2004) that the Health Service is
currently advertising for a "champion of equality and human rights",
earning five times as much as a newly qualified nurse.
New
Nightingale needed
Letter
to Daily Mail from Simon Prentis, London NW3 - March 9,
2005
Statistics
might show decreases in MRSA infections, but the crackdown
on hygiene has clearly not yet reached our local hospital.
I
recently accompanied my wife in an emergency admission
to the Royal Free Hospital in Nth London and was stunned
by the widespread evidence of poor hygiene control.
It
wasn't so much the grubby, uncleaned floors and grimy
walls as the dirty, blood-flecked curtains being used
to close off the cubicles, the blood left to dry on the
floor and nursing staff not bothering to wash hands between
patients.
Not
to mention medical records being mixed up, blood samples
lost, X-rays mislaid and, at one point, even a baby going
missing. The vast sums the Government claims to be investing
in the NHS obviously are not having an effect where they
are most needed. Bring back Matron? What we need is a
Florence Nightingale.
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According
to the Department of Health, the £95,000-a-year tsar will
spearhead a crusade to create a 'culturally diverse' NHS, ensuring
more staff from ethnic minorities reach the top of the career
ladder.
Conservative
health spokesman, Tim Yeo, however, dismissed the post as 'another
pen-pusher' and said the money would be better spent on front-line
workers.
The
breakdown of State employment, published by the Office for National
Statistics on May 26, 2004, showed that 162,000 new jobs were handed
out between June 2002 and June 2003 - the largest number yet under Tony
Blair's government. They included 88,000 posts connected to Education
and 63,000 in the Health Service. The expansion of the State sector
means that the number of public employees has reached 5,454,000. This
is an increase of 509,000 since 1998, when there were 4,945,000. More
than 18% of workers are now employed by one arm or another of
government. Read the full story here.
Department
of Health employment statistics show that the number of Administrative
staff in the NHS is currently rising about three times as fast as
front-line Medical Staff like doctors and nurses. Dr Maurice Sleven,
consultant cancer specialist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London,
makde a study which revealed that the NHS employs eight management and
support staff for every ten nurses. In comparison, the private sector
manages to operate with only 1.8 management and support staff for every
ten nurses.
"By
continuously throwing more money at the NHS," writes James Bartholomew
in Daily Mail, May 25, 2004, "the Government only ensures that ever
more of our taxes are wasted."
"The
Government douses bad publicity in one part of the NHS with some extra
money - money taken away from a less high profile area.," Mr
Bartholomew goes on, calling it:
"Healthcare by firefighting"
"The
Government douses bad publicity in one part of the NHS with extra money
- money taken from a less high profile area. For example, care for the
elderly never gets the attention it deserves mainly because there is
nothing as definite as a waiting list to focus on."
MRSA 'kills 10,000' - twice
official estimates, claim critics
Keep
wards small 'to stop the spread of MRSA'
Government Targets help
superbugs to kill
Professor Barry Cookson, director of Infection Control at the
Health Protection Agency, laid the blame firmly on the Government. He
said pressure on Trusts to reduce waiting lists (to meet targets) had
forced bed occupancy above 100%, with patients kept on trolleys until a
bed is available. Overworked staff cut corners on basic hygiene rules.
Full story here.
Compare NHS future plans
of Labour and Conservative here.
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Unhealthy wards
I'm
recovering from spending four weeks in a large, modern, fully-equipped,
state-of-the-art hospital in Oxfordshire, where I underwent major
surgery to remove a cancer from my colon. My stay in hospital was
original estimated to be about 14 days, but was continually lengthened
by my picking up infections. I even contracted an infection while
waiting a whole day to be discharged, meaning I have had a further
catheter and course of antibiotics at home.
Hospital patients were taken to and from operations by
un-gowned porters, in beds and sometimes wheel-chairs, along cold, open
corridors and into lifts, all the time mingling with visitors. The
cleaning appeared to be carried out solely by outside contractors, as
was the porterage. While the floor and bed spaces were regularly dusted
and swabbed, the cleaning of the toilet areas left a lot to be desired.
Nearly all patients seemed to pick up an infection of some
sort and regular antibiotic drips were par for the course. Several were
also being treated for MRSA bug during my stay, one of whom, I was
given to understand, caught the infection in intensive care after
serious bladder surgery.
All the surgeons, doctors and nursing staff do a great job
and are second to none in expertise and compassion. But the cause of
infection needs to be looked at.
Letter to Daily Mail from Leonard Williams, Benson,
Oxfordshire - October 27, 2004
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Superbug crisis is worse
than feared Government admits that up
to seven times as many patients than thought pick up hospital
infections.
Headline in the Daily
Mail, July 14, 2004
Some 700,000 patients
each year pick up infections on the wards - an astonishing figure seven
times as many as previously estimated - the Health Department said.
The admission followed a devastating report from the
Government spending watchdog, the National Audit Office(NAO), which
condemned the NHS for failing to protect patients from infection
despite receiving urgent warnings as long as four years ago. The report
said an estimated 20,000 cases each year involve MRSA, one of the most
lethal superbugs. This is three times the previous estimate. Hospital
infections cause at least 5,000 deaths a year, with MRSA feared to be
the biggest culprit. A further 15,000 casualties can be partly blamed
on bugs caught in hospital.
In this paper on the same day, an anonymous NHS staff
nurse wrote a letter which should be mandatory reading for every
working doctor and nurse, and all potential patients, which means the
rest of us. On the same day a letter by Jennifer Jordan of Reading,
BERKS, made strongly recommended Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kings Lynn
as an fine example for other hospitals to follow.
REGIME THAT SWEPT THE
BUGS AWAY
Rules for Staff:
Decontaminate hands with alcohol rub on entering and
leaving award and after each patient contact.
Wear a clean uniform
daily.
Doctors put on a clean
white coat on entering the ward. Aprons to be worn for direct patient
contact.
Minimal jewellery to be
worn - eg, a wedding ring or small ear-rings. No nail varnish,
wrist-watches, polish or false nails.
Antibiotics strictly
prescribed according to hospital guidelines.
Urinary catheter to be
kept on patient's non-operated side and off the floor.
Rules for Visitors:
Restricted hours for
visiting and two visitors per bed.
Visitors to use chairs
provided and must not sit on the bed.
Minimal
number of presents- such as flowers and food - to discourage clutter.
Rules for cleaning:
Bed frames to be washed three times a week.
Visitors chairs and foot
stools washed once a day.
Nurses' station to be
washed once a day.
General hospital cleaning
strictly enforced to ensure kitchen, doors, sinks, toilets and
bath-rooms are properly sanitised.
Change bed linen once a
day.
Before voting read this hospital's success in
beating MRSA
Also please
read this nurse's letter
and this sad tale
Matron
can't do it all on her own
I'll cleanse
our hospitals of MRSA, says Michael Howard
CLARE
RAYNER says "Labour's
ruining my beloved NHS. ... I won't vote for them."
Current
and prospective Parliamentary candidates of all Parties running for
election could share a platform at public forums in every constituency.
They would be presented with the results of polls on this issue
expressed by voters in their constituency.
The candidates could be asked if their own views and that of their
Party manifesto corresponded with the polls, and if not, how they
intended to represent the will of the majority of local voters.
Local and National Press, Radio and TV coverage would be arranged and
the results published on this web site.
Here is another powerful strategy for using your vote
effectively in the forthcoming General Election. Send your sitting and
prospective MPs a letter defining your requirements if they want your
vote. This example deals with the
proposed EU Constitutional Treaty.
Your letters would end: "If you do not
answer this letter, I shall take it that you intend to follow the
Government line. I shall act accordingly in the forthcoming General
Election. Here's one to force Tony Blair to resign:
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Dear
Despite
his absolute and unequivocal assurances over the past year of the
serious risk to our security of Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass
destruction', Prime Minister Blair has admitted, that the threat was
non-existent. For that critical error of judgement and for his gross
incompetence in handling this very important issue, I ask you to take
immediate steps to ensure that Tony Blair does the honourable thing and
resign without delay..
I
would therefore be much obliged if you would propose and help mobilise
a Parliamentary vote of 'No Confidence' in Mr Blair which, despite
Labour's huge majority, would leave the PM with no option but to
resign.
If
I get no reply to this letter, I shall assume you will continue to
support Mr Blair as our Prime Minister. In such circumstances I shall
not vote for you in the forthcoming General Election.
Signed:
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Or why not create a questionnaire that you send to all the
candidates in your constituency, getting them to give yes/no answers to
questions of your choice, and ending it with the same paragraph(above).
Download a printable example
of the questionnaire.
It
is high time for the people of this United Kingdom to stop allowing
themselves to be manipulated by politicians. We need our
representatives in Parliament to genuinely reflect the view of the
majority in their own constituency, even if this means going against
their personal and/or their party's policy. While they may argue their
case, hoping to change the minds of the majority in their constituency,
they should ultimately be obliged to reflect the majority view of those
who elect them.
It will be
argued by politicians of all parties that most voters don't have the
knowledge necessary to express an opinion on important subjects at
issue, and that our vote is a form of delegated democracy. We should
argue that it is their duty to ensure that we voters do have ready
access to such information as is necessary to form an intelligent
opinion. That, after all, is one main purpose of Opposition Parties in
our Parliamentary Democracy.
Most
important of all, such proceedings would rekindle in voters their
latent interest and obligation to cast their vote,, knowing that the
candidate of their choice would be more likely to act in accordance
with their wishes. A much higher turnout in elections would be the
result.
Contact
your local Party Chairman. Gain his support for setting up public
forums in your constituency on these, as well as any other relevant
topics, well before the next General Election expected in 2005. You
should then, depending on the integrity of the candidate of your
choice, feel fairly certain that your view on any subject being debated
in Parliament will more accurately be reflected by your representative
in that assembly.
If you have
suggestions for additional subjects, or material to include in the
pages linked to the subjects listed, please contact th webmastere.
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