Humanitarian Crisis in UK

DD
There is a catalogue of things that need to be implemented at Stafford hospital. I am sure others have many ideas to put forward.
In my ideal world in all NHS hospitals there would be a 2 tier nursing system
The first tier would be the highly trained nurses (for example in drug administering and theatre nursing.)
And the second tier would be as before with SEN system
Nurses who would be on hand to see to personal care and hygiene.

These nurses also would oversee meals and if need be feed the patient.
They would also be required to monitor fluid intake and report back any problems.

One of the big problems I encountered at Stafford hospital was patents especially the elderly being given meals that were often unsuitable (eg chewing problems)
They were served their meals by catering staff who would return later often to untouched food
The food would be removed.
No medical staff informed
Nobody questioning why food was uneaten.
Water or fluids were often provided in jugs that were not in easy reach or jugs left empty (remember the reports of patents drinking water from vases)
I have gone over to other patents whilst visiting father and helped them with a drink.
I had to insist on drinks beaker for my father on several occasions.

Patents left in wet beds in the elderly wards was also a problem.
This again could be under of the 'SEN' remit

Hospital cleaners in my ideal world
Would be interviewed and employed individually by the hospital and not contacts given to the lowest bidder.

The hospital needs to employ staff who care about their patents.
This may sound obvious but this was a huge failing at the hospital.
The top must know how every department is performing
Nothing should be allowed to be concealed ever again.

One thing that I think Stafford hospital has got right is to have a separate A&E for children.
Although at the moment there is no night A&E at Stafford

How does anybody in charge of the NHS provide the required medical staff to every hospital in the UK.
When there are shortages in every field?

STPs are the melting pot at the moment, with the secretary of state moving even further away from the problems.

All managements should listen and act. Do you have any idea about specific recommendations? I assume an improvement plan is in place.

You mean re-centralised with a Health Minister who is responsible?

Jalima at last! Someone is singing off the same hymn sheet as I am

I would say one of the first and essential things was for management to LISTEN and ACT.

To say that it was not possible to establish if there were any unavoidable deaths at the hospital was a whitewash.
For Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson to apologise shows that things had gone wrong.

Stafford Hospital is held up as an example of bad management, bad nursing practices and neglect - it is because people from there were not prepared to have it all swept under the carpet and made a fuss that
On 21 July 2009, the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Burnham, announced a further independent inquiry into care provided by Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust. The generally critical inquiry report was published on 24 February 2010. The report made 18 local and national recommendations, including that the regulator, Monitor, de-authorise the Foundation Trust.

Have those recommendations been acted upon? I don't know although Cherrytree's post seems optimistic.

Quite frankly, the whole NHS seems to be in a melting pot at the moment.

The NHS should be taken over by an independent body - without any of the previous culprits who presided over such disasters then and now having any part in its future.

The reason the NHS is used as a political football is that the Tories have never believed in it and continue not to believe in it. You can ask for consensus as much as you want but when a party has as an objective the reduction of any state support they are manifestly not going to agree to such measures, and if they did so, would be lying, and working behind the scenes to achieve their real objective. "There will be no top down reorganisation", but of course there was!

I think it's obvious to anybody that part of the current problem has been cuts to social care. That's not going to change and is not a whim of one government or other.

As a matter of interest, which lessons do you think could be learnt from Mid Staffs? I have no personal experience of the hospital and it's ages since I read the Francis Report.

Thank you Cherrytree - interesting.

I no longer live there but still have family there and some of them live even further away from Stoke so a difficult journey for treatment and especially emergencies.
I know some people (a relative and friends) had gone to great lengths to avoid going into Stafford hospital.

Yes roses fingers crossed.
Its bit like snakes and ladders.
We get our hopes up and then they are dashed again.

Agreed that the NHS should not be used as a political football, but sadly it is.

Or even

That's good news Cherry [smile*]

Jalima
Some Good News re Stafford Hospital
Spooky this came in the post this morning.

From Jeremy Lefroy MP
A children's minor injuries unit is now in operation. (Closed last August)
The paediatric Hot clinics have restarted.
The trust is working national experts to open fully childrens emergency centre
It is vital that CEC reopens fully as soon as possible
Fully details www.jeremylefroy.org.uk/news
There is also a newly refurbished ward 15 and the chemotherapy suite has now opened. Refurbishment on other wards continue.
This I know is a small step
But is massively important to my family and the others in our area
What we require now is medical staff that are prepared to work at the renamed County Hospital.
I truly hope lessons have been learned.
Apologies for hijacking the thread again

If we don't learn from mistakes then we learn nothing.

The NHS shouldn't be subject to the whims and political ideas of different governments who keep changing the agenda.

Jalima,

You could add to your list that it was Labour which awarded the contract for Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon to Circle. When Circle couldn't make a profit, it handed the hospital back to the NHS to sort out the mess.

I am not claiming and never have claimed that Labour did a brilliant job with the NHS. What I am saying is that it doesn't help to look back and blame or to use past failures as an excuse for current inaction. We need to look forward and stop the political tit-for-tat. It is obvious that the aim has been to privatise the NHS. If you read the book Hunt co-authored, it's also obvious that he wants to introduce an American-style insurance scheme.

The government could start by giving ring-fenced funding to local councils for social care and mental health services rather then having stupid apps which will tell us we have a headache and should take an aspirin...or maybe it's a subarachnoid haemorrhage and we're going to die anyway. In either case, there's no point going to A & E.

Ankers I wasn't asking for information, I wss asking whether YOU knew when the news scandal at Stafford broke. That is relevant to what is happening NOW, and reading the link may not have been relevant when I posted. no I did not read it, but I shall (when I get back from some necessary shopping, my fris=dge and cupboards are bare)

Jalima If lessons have NOT been learnt and neglect and bad procedures still exist, then that IS relevant and disgraceful.

I think my point has just been proved.

www.nhsforsale.info/privatisation-list/surgery/the-great-pfi-swindle.html

PFIs - that wonderful way they built new hospitals but now we are paying through the nose with money that could be spent on more medical staff, new drugs etc.

2005:
Shortly after the last general election, health secretary Patricia Hewitt announced that the use of the private sector to carry out NHS operations will double in the next five years. She wants between 10% and 15% of operations to be carried out by the private sector - rising from around 5% now.

If you disagree with privatisation now, then why was there not an outcry then?

I must say I do not disagree with that - having had an operation done on the NHS in a private hospital in about 2001 I was perfectly happy with the treatment I received. DD also had an operation at a BUPA hospital under the NHS - we could not fault the treatment and the waiting time was cut from about 18 months to a couple of weeks.

I agree that much needs to be done but to dismiss the distress of those who lost relatives through neglect, hospital acquired infections because of the filthy conditions when Labour was in power as a fuss is neither helpful nor compassionate.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7186799.stm
2008 - how long had they been in power then?

www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/4647
2005 - cuts, closures, waste.

I agree that much needs to be done now and, without reading reports in depth, I cannot tell which areas have improved and which have not or which have got worse.

However, the above links and other links given on more recent problems convince me that I agree with Anya that the NHS should be taken out of the political arena and not used as a football between the different parties.

Elegran Stafford Hospital A&E is not open 24 hours; this is a hospital in the County town serving about 70,000 people plus surrounding districts. The A&E was closed altogether for under 18s as the paediatric A&E service was deemed unsafe.

Lessons have not been learned.

We are advised on here to march, demonstrate, be active, write to our MPs about the NHS now, but those who did so after the disaster that was Stafford are dismissed as making a fuss on this thread.

Did you read the link Elegran? Up to you of course whether you choose to read it.
Some of what you are asking is in the link I think?
Plus there are first hand up to date accounts here, so long as you trust the posters concerned.

"We actually spend a little bit more than the average for rich countries on our health services

I'm not sure where he's getting his information from but we don't.

The chart on this page, compiled from OECD data clearly shows this.

www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0006_health-care-oecd

So does this one:

www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/health-care-spending-compared

What the chart from the first link shows is that we spend a little more than the OECD average. Which, when you consider this covers all the countries in the world is not very surprising. Or anything to be particularly proud of when you look at what other rich countries spend.

Thinking about 'waste of money' and things like petty pilfering in the NHS I don't think that this is a problem only experienced in the NHS. I think it is probably common to all organisations, public or private. To single this out as a major failing in the NHS is unrealistic.

In 2005, Jeremy Hunt co-authored a book with Douglas Carswell and Michael Gove (and others) called ‘DIRECT DEMOCRACY – An Agenda for a New Model Party’.

Here are a couple of quotes from the book:

'The problem with the NHS is not one of resources. Rather, it is that it is a centrally run, state monopoly designed over half a century ago.'

'Our ambition should be to break down the barriers between private and public provision, in effect DENATIONALISING the provision of health care in Britain'

The whole book can be downloaded. It's all about minimising the role of the state in public services for ideological reasons. There are no sources for some of the rather spurious claims and no actual explanation of why private providers can do better than the state.