Apparently Gordon Brown is calling for a more personalized NHS.
No complaints about that,it's what we all want; but how is a personalized NHS compatible with downsizing district general hospitals (like Bedford) and centralizing services into giant superhositals? And why, if the service is to be more personalized is the NHS trying to prevent GPs referring to individual named consultants?
More spin, I suspect
Monday, 7 January 2008
Sunday, 6 January 2008
Written by a GP
...and reproduced with permission
"I will provide a Public Service not a Public Convenience"
I will not open all hours, happily available to be dumped or pissed on by any passing, pissant politician or patient with the inclination. I will not have pennies, or anything else, shoved in my mouth, smile cheerfully and open my doors or my legs to order. I will certainly not pretend that I like it. I will not be handily available to deal with any and all bodily fluids man or woman may be heir to. Friends, I will not swallow.
I will not provide hand-washing facilities. It is not my problem to supply solutions, soapy or otherwise, to every grubby member, be these Members of Parliament or MRSA-ridden nether regions. Pontius Pilate can find another scrubber.
I will not provide sanitary disposal devices. The elderly may well take up a lot of medical care but so they should. They are old. They are owed. They are people not bed-blocking tins of beans. I will not help dispose of them nor help them dispose of themselves. BMA Ethics committee take note.
I will not provide a mirror for morons. I will not reflect and reinforce their pathetic, self-pitying views of themselves in the bogus name of empathy. I will not provide medical validation of their assumed victim-status at the expense of the sick. I will not be society's sympathy-sump. I will monotonously remind anyone ducking under my radar who isn't patently ill, that they can choose to get a life. Maybe not the exact life that they feel their uniqueness deserves, but a life.
I will not provide or become a Speak-your-Weight machine. Fat people have generally noticed they are fat. Telling them the obvious, in the absence of any effective medical intervention short of bariatric surgery, is not my job. Lifestyle dictation and regulation are not my reasons for being. I will not weigh and turn away the overweight in need of surgery any more than I would deny them antibiotics. I am not God, or more secularly, the external locus of control for an entirely screwed-up Western world.
I will not allow Bill Posters to stick anything up, in or on my pristine surfaces. In particular, I will not allow him to advertise services that cannot be, should not be, or are not provided. Unless of course this is a strictly private arrangement between me and my conscience. French classes after dark, maybe. An inadequate replacement for yet another trashed Genitourinary Medicine clinic or supervising DIY abortions at home? No.
To summmarise and comprehensively flog an analogy to death; I will not provide, or be a shoe or soul-cleaning apparatus. Wipe your clay feet on me and I will wipe the floor with you.
I will not be dumped on.
I will not clear up your every mess.
I will not be used or abused.
I am a doctor. It takes the best part of twenty years to make a good one of me. And there's a New Year's message the MMC mafiosi might like to ponder as they competently grind Junior Doctors into the dust. I am the ONLY person qualified to define and delimit my remit. I am certainly the person best-placed to decide how this remit could be fulfilled in a resource-limited system.
The rest of you, peasants, politicians and pseudo-managers can piss off(somewhere else) and die.
Love and Kisses,
A Public Servant.
DISCLAIMER : The fact I have been on-call since December the 8th has not in any way coloured my world view. That was Comrade Brown, in the library, with broad sloppy brushstrokes and great big buckets of hogwash.
"I will provide a Public Service not a Public Convenience"
I will not open all hours, happily available to be dumped or pissed on by any passing, pissant politician or patient with the inclination. I will not have pennies, or anything else, shoved in my mouth, smile cheerfully and open my doors or my legs to order. I will certainly not pretend that I like it. I will not be handily available to deal with any and all bodily fluids man or woman may be heir to. Friends, I will not swallow.
I will not provide hand-washing facilities. It is not my problem to supply solutions, soapy or otherwise, to every grubby member, be these Members of Parliament or MRSA-ridden nether regions. Pontius Pilate can find another scrubber.
I will not provide sanitary disposal devices. The elderly may well take up a lot of medical care but so they should. They are old. They are owed. They are people not bed-blocking tins of beans. I will not help dispose of them nor help them dispose of themselves. BMA Ethics committee take note.
I will not provide a mirror for morons. I will not reflect and reinforce their pathetic, self-pitying views of themselves in the bogus name of empathy. I will not provide medical validation of their assumed victim-status at the expense of the sick. I will not be society's sympathy-sump. I will monotonously remind anyone ducking under my radar who isn't patently ill, that they can choose to get a life. Maybe not the exact life that they feel their uniqueness deserves, but a life.
I will not provide or become a Speak-your-Weight machine. Fat people have generally noticed they are fat. Telling them the obvious, in the absence of any effective medical intervention short of bariatric surgery, is not my job. Lifestyle dictation and regulation are not my reasons for being. I will not weigh and turn away the overweight in need of surgery any more than I would deny them antibiotics. I am not God, or more secularly, the external locus of control for an entirely screwed-up Western world.
I will not allow Bill Posters to stick anything up, in or on my pristine surfaces. In particular, I will not allow him to advertise services that cannot be, should not be, or are not provided. Unless of course this is a strictly private arrangement between me and my conscience. French classes after dark, maybe. An inadequate replacement for yet another trashed Genitourinary Medicine clinic or supervising DIY abortions at home? No.
To summmarise and comprehensively flog an analogy to death; I will not provide, or be a shoe or soul-cleaning apparatus. Wipe your clay feet on me and I will wipe the floor with you.
I will not be dumped on.
I will not clear up your every mess.
I will not be used or abused.
I am a doctor. It takes the best part of twenty years to make a good one of me. And there's a New Year's message the MMC mafiosi might like to ponder as they competently grind Junior Doctors into the dust. I am the ONLY person qualified to define and delimit my remit. I am certainly the person best-placed to decide how this remit could be fulfilled in a resource-limited system.
The rest of you, peasants, politicians and pseudo-managers can piss off(somewhere else) and die.
Love and Kisses,
A Public Servant.
DISCLAIMER : The fact I have been on-call since December the 8th has not in any way coloured my world view. That was Comrade Brown, in the library, with broad sloppy brushstrokes and great big buckets of hogwash.
Saturday, 5 January 2008
From Philip Smith
This piece has been written by Dr Philip Smith, a junior doctor in London:
I watched with admiration at the professionalism and dedication of the doctors, nurses and other health professionals at the Royal Marsden Hospital this week. The way they coped with the unbelievable chaos surrounding them, gives the public at large a more accurate portrayal of the work doctors and nurses do within the NHS rather than the one often relayed. The selfless and dedicated manner in which they ensured that some of the most vulnerable people in society where protected and guided to safety shows the real face of the heart of the NHS – the heart of the doctors and nurses on the ‘shop floor’.
I also watched with interest at the entirely appropriate visit of Mr Brown and Mr Johnston to the Brompton Hospital to meet the patients, and workers involved in the evacuation from the Royal Marsden Hospital. As they shook the hand of the junior doctors, I wondered if they glanced into the eyes of the professionals in front of them. I doubt they will have any idea about how many of the doctors in front of them had agonised over the possibility of unemployment or the lack of training places in the previous year. The same doctors that now are rightly being hailed for their professionalism.
Indeed, the dark cloud of the 2007 medical recruitment fiasco has never really shifted, even though it has not been in the news headlines – people leaving medicine for good, emigrating to the southern hemisphere in droves, doctors displaced across the country…. the list goes on and on. You can’t blame the overseas doctors for this one – this is years and years of poor workforce planning by managers and politicians who I guarantee will be paid way in excess of any junior doctor or nurse.
The recruitment process has changed slightly this year, and yes, the multimillion-pound computer system is gaining dust somewhere, but again the numbers just don’t add up. A ratio of at least 3 doctors to every post means that the already despondent profession will have its morale burnt to a cinder.
Enough to set the fires burning in the hearts and minds of junior doctors…I think so. I have a strange feeling of déjà vu.
Yours,
Dr Philip Smith
Junior doctor
London
Sent to anyone that will listen
I watched with admiration at the professionalism and dedication of the doctors, nurses and other health professionals at the Royal Marsden Hospital this week. The way they coped with the unbelievable chaos surrounding them, gives the public at large a more accurate portrayal of the work doctors and nurses do within the NHS rather than the one often relayed. The selfless and dedicated manner in which they ensured that some of the most vulnerable people in society where protected and guided to safety shows the real face of the heart of the NHS – the heart of the doctors and nurses on the ‘shop floor’.
I also watched with interest at the entirely appropriate visit of Mr Brown and Mr Johnston to the Brompton Hospital to meet the patients, and workers involved in the evacuation from the Royal Marsden Hospital. As they shook the hand of the junior doctors, I wondered if they glanced into the eyes of the professionals in front of them. I doubt they will have any idea about how many of the doctors in front of them had agonised over the possibility of unemployment or the lack of training places in the previous year. The same doctors that now are rightly being hailed for their professionalism.
Indeed, the dark cloud of the 2007 medical recruitment fiasco has never really shifted, even though it has not been in the news headlines – people leaving medicine for good, emigrating to the southern hemisphere in droves, doctors displaced across the country…. the list goes on and on. You can’t blame the overseas doctors for this one – this is years and years of poor workforce planning by managers and politicians who I guarantee will be paid way in excess of any junior doctor or nurse.
The recruitment process has changed slightly this year, and yes, the multimillion-pound computer system is gaining dust somewhere, but again the numbers just don’t add up. A ratio of at least 3 doctors to every post means that the already despondent profession will have its morale burnt to a cinder.
Enough to set the fires burning in the hearts and minds of junior doctors…I think so. I have a strange feeling of déjà vu.
Yours,
Dr Philip Smith
Junior doctor
London
Sent to anyone that will listen
Friday, 4 January 2008
With thanks to Richard Taylor MP
Richard Taylor is the independent MP for Wyre Forest, who won his seat campaigning against closure of his local hospital (like our campaign in Bedford).
This little gem comes from his website:
ANYWHERE IN EUROPE !!
Whatever Mr. Brown says !!!
'Border Restrictions' on Health Care Treatment will be scrapped, under radical new laws being drawn-up in Brussels .. .. whatever our "Two Chancellors" government wants !
Britons will be able to travel ANYWHERE in Europe to access ANY treatment - from dental work to open-heart surgery; paying only for travel, accommodation and any top-up charges if their work is more expensive than that back home.
So there are hospitals in 27 different countries to chose from.
And if we travel abroad and enjoy our convalescence in warmer climes - and take our funding with us - what will that do for the calculations of our hospital 'managers' - who will be staring at empty wards ! empty coffers !! but full staff canteens !!!
Last year's court case, where pensioner Yvonne Watts won her right (and ours) to have her hip operation in France seeing that she was experiencing an 'undue delay' in this country, is the final piece of the jig-saw falling into place on this issue.
Over the past 5 years, some 3,000 patients have exercised this 'right' without having to resort to law.
It may not help 'ex-pats' living abroad; being designed for people making explicit trips in order to obtain health-care.
This little gem comes from his website:
ANYWHERE IN EUROPE !!
Whatever Mr. Brown says !!!
'Border Restrictions' on Health Care Treatment will be scrapped, under radical new laws being drawn-up in Brussels .. .. whatever our "Two Chancellors" government wants !
Britons will be able to travel ANYWHERE in Europe to access ANY treatment - from dental work to open-heart surgery; paying only for travel, accommodation and any top-up charges if their work is more expensive than that back home.
So there are hospitals in 27 different countries to chose from.
And if we travel abroad and enjoy our convalescence in warmer climes - and take our funding with us - what will that do for the calculations of our hospital 'managers' - who will be staring at empty wards ! empty coffers !! but full staff canteens !!!
Last year's court case, where pensioner Yvonne Watts won her right (and ours) to have her hip operation in France seeing that she was experiencing an 'undue delay' in this country, is the final piece of the jig-saw falling into place on this issue.
Over the past 5 years, some 3,000 patients have exercised this 'right' without having to resort to law.
It may not help 'ex-pats' living abroad; being designed for people making explicit trips in order to obtain health-care.
It's enough to make you sick
The winter vomiting virus is a nasty beast; so why is it being such a problem this year?
Well there are two main reasons:
Firstly, thanks to general cutbacks in the hospital sector, hospitals are running at occupancy rates of close to 100%. They were never designed for this, and it means that when a infectious case arises it is almost impossible to isolate it, with inevitable consequences.
Secondly, what does a poor patient lying at home, in pain and vomiting do? There is no longer an out of hours GP service, so they end up going to their local A and E; once they are there they have ample opportunity to spead the wretched bug to everyone else.
So, the government didn't cause this outbreak, but they certainly created the opportunity for it to cause chaos.
Well there are two main reasons:
Firstly, thanks to general cutbacks in the hospital sector, hospitals are running at occupancy rates of close to 100%. They were never designed for this, and it means that when a infectious case arises it is almost impossible to isolate it, with inevitable consequences.
Secondly, what does a poor patient lying at home, in pain and vomiting do? There is no longer an out of hours GP service, so they end up going to their local A and E; once they are there they have ample opportunity to spead the wretched bug to everyone else.
So, the government didn't cause this outbreak, but they certainly created the opportunity for it to cause chaos.
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Dirty work
Do you remember Gordon Brown telling us that all hospital wards were going to be “deep cleaned” to fight infection, although no doctors, nurses, microbiologists or cleaners had ever actually heard of “deep cleaning”.
Has anything actually happened or was this just the usual Brown piffle?
Has anything actually happened or was this just the usual Brown piffle?
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
More magic
So Gordon Brown has started 2008 promising more reform in the NHS. It is about the last thing we actually need - what we really want is a period of stability and some basic competence from our political masters.
It smacks of a degree of desperation - all rather like the magician who borrows an expensive watch from a member of the audience,smahes it with a hammer - and then, after much anguished brow-furrowing, confesses that he has forgotten the rest of the trick.
It smacks of a degree of desperation - all rather like the magician who borrows an expensive watch from a member of the audience,smahes it with a hammer - and then, after much anguished brow-furrowing, confesses that he has forgotten the rest of the trick.
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