The Surgery's Gone Down the Plughole

Ex had that Anya, he was fine after the op.

My GP says there's no treatment bar surgery when it progresses, but then he's a bit of a waste of space anyway. Would be pleased to hear more about your treatment G2

Never heard of Margaret Thatcher. Is she a celebrity?

Much better, GrannyTwice. I'll have to find out if the other grandmother knows Bill Nighy and try and forget about Thatcher.

Anya - I had the Xiapex injection. I found out about it from the British Dupuytrens Society. It was approved by the FDA in 2010 and is available now in the UK. I didn't want the surgery becsuse of the risks and the reoccurrence rates but also because I couldn't be out of action for that long because of work. I was able to find out which hand surgeons in my area had experience of using this injection and then asked my GP to refer me to the one I chose who was the most experienced. Is your cord very pronounced? Apparently that means you are more likely to be suitable for the injection. Anyway if you want anymore info please feel free to PM me - it might sound grisly but I took before and after photos which show ehat a difference it made. There is no permanent fix but it's much better than it was

On TV this evening, a Beccles surgery that's short of GPs has just recruited an English GP who has been working in New Zealand for the last 15 years.

After she got here she was told that she's not allowed to work without retraining.

Oh my word. Yes, leave the UK for a year now and you have to retrain. I have a very fed up GP friend who wanted to swap with an aussie for a year, they both had to cancel when the new law came in.

Nurses and teachers all have to retrain now after leaving the job for a year. The advances and changes in procedures made during that time can be huge.

My sister is a retired GP who was a senior partner in a NZ practice. Around 20 years ago, she fancied taking a break and working in Cheshire for six months but was told exactly the same thing, despite having worked in England both as a GP and hospital registrar early in her career. She got round this by going to another county as a trainee - paid on the same scale as GPs so must have been the best paid trainee in England. That was - and still is - one of the silliest bits of red tape that the NHS ever dreamt up.

Wasn't it introduced as a result of incidents like this?

Just had a letter saying "I am writing to inform you that NHS England have appointed Provide as the temporary provider". What does that mean???

I notice that there's a new practice manager, with the old one promoted sideways, and the GP name on my prescriptions has changed twice in the last month.

Just been looking at Provide's website.
It says that Jane Hentley is registered with the CQC as Provide's manager, but on the CQC website, there is no Provide registered that I can find.

repository247.org/resources/uploads/Provide_Website_2013/images/logo-blank.png

Very curious.

So was that link. Hope this one is better.

www.provide.org.uk/about-us/

www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-1479296015/registration-info

pulsetoday.msgfocus.com/c/139sWxtNBVeSvsqsBm0TdQXq

It's happening in other parts of the country, no GPs when GP is ill. How long will it take to plug the gap.

Thanks, Ana. I did a search for provide and the first four pages were just provider, so I gave up.

Thanks DJ, I Googled Provide but didn't find anything. It seems they've got a finger in about twenty different pies here, including a school even. They're also managing two of the other practices that got poor ratings from the CQC last year.

I presume that you didnt get any other information with the letter crun?

If you live near your surgery, you could have a look in reception and see what information about Provide there is there.

When NHS services are being taken over by private providers, they do not want to tell us. The are even allowed to use the NHS logo and colours.

Our local news broadcasters said about a new NHS hospital to be built in Cramlington. It will be opening soon. The local shopping centre had people going round handing out leaflets, looking very much like NHS leaflets. They were for a private hospital opening up near the new NHS hospital. None of the people being handed these leaflets realised they were for the private hospital.
Privatisation by stealth.

That's bad behavior.

Out of interest, I have just looked at our nearest private hospital. Definitely using NHS colours, . But definitely no sign of the NHS logo, or any mention of the NHS on the first click of its website.

action.peoplesnhs.org/page/s/peoples-nhs---virgin-petition

A petition to tell private healthcare company Virgin to let people know where they are instead of hiding behind the NHS logo.

"You might have heard that since 2012, private companies like Virgin have been running more and more NHS services. But when they run these services, they don’t have to use their own logo – they can hide being the white and blue of the NHS.

Why the cover up? Could it be that the government and private companies do not want us to know how may contracts in our NHS are being won by private contractors?
I’m Ron, I'm a retired GP and NHS Activist from East London. I’m writing because I don’t think that’s right. Patients should know whether or not they’re being treated by the NHS. Please sign this petition now, and let’s ask Virgin to tell us when they’re treating us.

Virgin spends millions promoting their brand. Their logo appears on trains, planes, even wine bottles. But when it comes to a lot of the NHS, they hide away – their logo doesn’t appear anywhere on some of the NHS services they run. They know most of us don’t want to be treated by someone who will profit from our illness, so it’s our job to expose them. Together, we can help shine a light on what’s really happening in our NHS.

Earlier today, activists like myself staged a protest in front of the Virgin Care HQ in London. It’s our way of telling people that some of our NHS services are not what we think they are - they've become Virgin profit centres. Act now, and let's make sure more people know about what's going on in our NHS.

But Virgin are only doing what the government allow them to do. The government lets companies use the NHS logo because they don’t want us to see, every time we use our NHS, that it’s being sold off. That’s why this petition needs to go as widely as it can. The more people who know about Virgin, the more they’ll discover about the sell-off of our NHS. With a new government in power, this is our chance to pressure them to change. Please sign the petition today."
The email I received telling me about Virgin.

"Why the cover up? Could it be that the government and private companies do not want us to know how may contracts in our NHS are being won by private contractors?"

Of course. If you're developing a trial for a new drug, you use blind tests because if people know what drug they're taking it will prejudice the results. The same applies if you are trialling a new provider of a service.

But they are not being trialled. The private health providers have put in a bid in opposition to the NHS provider. The trust has to ask for bids because of the new law.
Private providers have an inbuilt advantage as they can claim VAT back, therefore a 20% advantage.
The point here is whether a private company should be able to say that it is NHS.
Many private health companies such as Virgin also do not pay tax in this country. They pay their profits into offshore companies, meaning the NHS misses out twice.

My mum is still waiting for an appointment to have a growth on her forehead removed. As I've posted in the past, she has had these growths before and they have been removed within a few months when quite small. This time she has waited over a year and obviously as the growth is bigger it will be harder to remove and more painful afterwards.

Colchester Hospital is in special measures, as are all the hospitals in Essex now. She received a letter some months ago from Colchester Hospital saying that her case would be dealt with by a (private) hospital in Chelmsford. When I phoned that hospital up - because again we had heard nothing re an appointment - I was told she was not on their database and would not be treated by them. They couldn't explain why she had received a letter saying her care had been transferred to them. It occured to me that if a person has been waiting over a year for a procedure and then it is brought to their attention that that procedure could be performed by a private hospital, they might - if they could afford it - pay for it to be done privately. So was it a "mistake" sending the letter out to everyone or was it done in the hope that it would "nudge" some people into opting for private treatment?

Interesting idea, Eloethan. We have tried in Durham to extract information about private healthcare companies but keep getting told that it's confidential.
The whole point is that it shouldn't be.
It will not do your mum any good but it would be interesting to see if you can get an answer to that question under the FOI act.

Talking about drug providers, Crun, this bill was defeated by the Libdems in the last parliament. It has now been resurrected.

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2015/06/05/comment-saatchi-s-advertising-talent-is-pushing-through-a-bi

Looks like it will go through without scrutiny. Completely wrong in my opinion.
Those with any medical knowledge in the commons do not want it to go through. It's just business people who do.

Apparently 160,000 people have had to find new GPs because of surgery closures over the last two years.
Haven't noticed that in the main media. Or have I missed it?