Non-political Save our NHS

Though being admitted at the weekend.

I was in hospital myself four times during 2013. There were no senior doctors or consultants available at weekends expect for emergencies. Even the catering staff had the weekend off and the nurses had to prepare patients' meals themselves - usually soup and sandwiches.

Through not though

Oh, dear me...

This is getting farcical!

fullfact.org/live/2015/jul/7_day_nhs_6000_deaths-46562

The government will not give the source of its statistics to back up what it says.
The information I gave soon about the weekend admissions also came from FullFact, probably the same article. I read it all.

So did I.

I was in intensive care for a week when the new NHS came in and in another hospital for three weeks after that. The doctors were there in both hospitals I was in. I went in on the Thursday before Easter, and was discharged on a Saturday. There were always doctors; every morning the consultant did a round with other doctors in attendance, even at weekends. My condition was not diagnosed at first because there was nobody to read the scan, not because the surgeon was not there.
The staffing problem was in the backup, but Hunt has managed to annoy every hospital doctor there is. There were not enough nurses at times.

Sorry, whitewave. I've made it political again.

Is it political to say that the NHS actually works very well? I recently visited A&E when my mum had a fall. We were seen quickly, staff were polite and good humoured, mum needed an x-ray which was done quickly. This was on a Sunday evening as staff finished a long shift and in a crowded city dept. They even took time to compliment mum and ask her what she used to stop getting wrinkles. Something that really cheered her up. I also was referred to our local physiotherapy service which impressed me with its efficient and prompt service. I am not saying everything is always perfect. Mum has had a lot of treatment in many different departments and I have had to complain occasionally. But whenever I did my complaint was always followed up and acted on. There are always slip ups but on the whole we have an incredible health service and we should recognise this.

Hear hear trisher!

It's a pity Jeremy Hunt doesn't recognise it, and stop criticising and changing the NHS. He's managed to upset just about every part of it.

I know durhamjen I do wonder when mum was being looked after on Sunday evening just as the nursing shift was changing what JH himself was doing at the time. Not finishing a long session working and handing over to another set of dedicated staff I bet! The A&E dept was full but seemed to be running very smoothly.

I think someone actually did that last year; where's Jeremy?
He is probably on holiday somewhere exotic for a long time.

I was in hospital over two weekends in 2013 and 2014. The first was a scheduled knee operation and all the services except Outpatients were running as normal. There may have been fewer staff on but since there were no clinics this didn't seem to cause a problem. The second was an emergency admission and the consultant did his usual round on Saturday morning. The consultant shouldn't have to be there personally all the time to ensure things are OK. Head teachers don't supervise every class, senior social workers don't deal with every case, co-pilots fly the plane. And in the case of the pilot, they aren't allowed to fly if they've been on duty for 72 hours. Unlike doctors.

www.pulsetoday.co.uk/political/political-news/government-focused-on-chasing-headlines-rather-than-future-of-nhs-says-bma/20010756.article

An interesting article from the BMA.

Is this a good use of NHS funds?

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/23/nhs-competition-waste-millions-labour-care-uk-private-healthcare

Up to now private companies have been getting the major share of new contracts.
Now a CCG has decided to give one to an NHS consortium, Careuk cries foul and threatens the NHS with lawsuits.

TTIP springs to mind - shades of things to come.

www.jeremyforlabour.com/jeremy_for_a_publicly_funded_nhs
He'll get rid of PFI and not sign up to TTIP.

What a relief that would be to the hard pressed hospitals.

I don't know if I have said before but when I was working I had to look at various PFI contracts and was pretty appalled at what the tax payer would end up paying and the profit that was being made. To my mind it was utterly
immoral.