state of the NHS

the surgeon who was suspended for taking an xtra helping of croutons has been allowed back to work.

geez, I think this is showing how petty the management are, and are all too happy to take some valuable person off duty for trivialities.

this was not medical related, IMO, the people who are doing these trivial supspensions are wasting taxpayers money, and ought to be sacked themselves. Its not the surgeons fault he is on full pay.

If he was guilty of gross misconduct for thefy, he ought to be sacked,as would be expected, but ought to be allowed to carry on working for the people, as it was nothing to do with his competance.

 

I know. It's beurocracy gone mad. Surely it would have been enough to ask him to pay for them, then he probably wouldn't have done it again. I believe operations were cancelled on the grounds that he was suspended. How would you feel if you were the patient

 

some news accidentally slipped past my bollocks filter this morning. on it was a comparison between the uk and the usa's accident and emergency / emergency rooms. of course the uk's were portrayed as being lightyears behind the usa's however they neglected to mention that if in the usa if you don;t have insurance or a credit card you can bleed untill after everyone who has, has been seen and the doc's finished his round of golf.
that said i would agree that a large chunk of the nhs's problems are to do with too many chiefs and not enough indians.
btw does anyone else watch no angels on ch4 tuesdays? bloody funny it is too. and shameless afterwards is a chuckle too.
cheers


julian

 

hmmm if that's the case, whats happened to the hippocratic oath?

 

it was slain by the mighty dollar in the 50's
cheers


julian

 

most defaintley,worked on the maintenance team of a hospital,for 4 electricions, 6 fitterers 2 carpenters and 3 genral labours we had
1 chargehand fitter
1 chargehand sparks
1 maintence supervisor
2 assistant maintenance supervisors
1 electrical estimater
1 mechanical estimator
1 draftsman
1 electrical contracts manager
2 electrical engineers
3 mechanical engineers
1 head of works
2 directors of works
o and half a dozen admin staff,this was common throught most of the hospital departments

 

I heard a GP wanted to put up a few shelves in his surgery, and was going to go to B/Q for them for about £20, his local health authority said it had to be done by the book, and did assessments, and then got an outside firm to do it, all in all cost, over£1000, for a few shelves this is what these idiots are doing with our cash.

Also health and safety mad, I was in the old dss office that closed down and is being merged with the job centre, they were doing some kind of assessment on the place, of removing desks, something minor anyway, and they all had flash yellow coats on and hard hats...I mean, its not as though the place was unsafe and construction work was going on, they were simply moving stuff around!!
It was as though they were kitted for a major construction project.

 

unfortunately if the 20 quid b&q shelves fall on a patient i doubt it would be covered by the insurance. similarly if some workman drops a desk on his toe which isn;t encased in a nuclear hardened steel toecap then he'll sue the local authority yankee style for a ton of money. sadly this kind of common sense stuff, you know, wear apropriate work clothing, don't let you'r A.D.D. suffering 5 year old with suspected tourettes swing on the doctors shelves now have to be legislated for thus costing the tax payer extra. once again i wonder whether the fundamentalist muslims are on to something here.... the root of all evil... america?
cheers


julian

 

Take it from me boys who has experienced medical treatment on the other side of the pond - they are light years ahead of us. They also spend more of their GDP on it than we do, but then again most countries in the industrialised west do.



Bob

 

I am still waiting to here when I am going in for my operation. Its doing my head in as I can't commit to anything at the moment until I have had the operation done. The surgeon has told me that I must have the operation within the next two months other wise complications may start to arise. However I have still not heared anything.

 

Go Private

and you will go straight to the top of the list. It is the lure of lolly which is buggering up the health service. It is becoming a nice little earner from privately paid consultants down to employees of private hospitals.

My wife has a knee complaint, two years waiting list on the NHS but only a couple of weeks if I use my insurance. It is the same quack performing the op. By going private , he gets paid more, so he shits all over his other NHS patients by allowing my wife to jump the queue.

Being a private patient is something that I do because I want to look after my family but I feel ashamed of it.

Regards

Mick

 

We were recently in the same position, Mick. My mother (79) was as fit as a fiddle - except for one arthritic hip, which kept getting worse and worse. Wait for a replacement, about 2 years. Knowing that she'd be totally immobilised by then, my brother and I pushed her into going private, with us bearing most of the cost. The operation was performed after a couple of months' wait, and now she's skipping around to such an extent that my brother is terrified that she'll overdo it. It went against the grain to do it, but the alternative didn't bear thinking about.

 

bob,
having been in the position where my fiancee (with no insurance and not covered by mine because we weren;t married) was forced to wait in the witing room of the er department, whilst suffering from a very severe asthma attack and needing to be put on a ventilator. i can honestly say that the american medical system sucks donkey balls (unless you have money or are covered by insurance). the uk's system isn't perfect and most of europe's free equivalents are far better. however holding the american system up as the shining light to follow is imho the wrong thing to do.
as mick says money talks and the ill with no money suffer under that system.
my father has suffered from 3 heart attacks, a stroke, lung cancer and diabetes. as he's retired he would have had to pay for all the treatment he's had out of his own pocket (which he could ill afford) so he would now be dead. The nhs whilst not perfect has kept him alive for 6 years now even though he was only given 2 years to live when he was diagnosed with cancer. IMO the people who actually do the work at the nhs are heros nothing less.
cheers


julian

 

good stuff Jules, very true, its not BAD by any means, the media furore makes you think it is in total meltdown, which it may be, I tend to think it will just continue to plod along....the truth is somewhere between the two, yes you may have to wait or go private, but then again, it is 'free' and an institution

So why are we so mean as a people and not wish to spend our taxes on REAL improvements and make our countries infrastructure...roads, health, superb....or is it more complex, like we don't want taxes swallowed up by the desks and contractors? niether do I but I would pay more for real good things

 

I'm surprised!!! I suffer from asthma and have had to go to A&E on a few occasions over the years and I'm always seen and put on a nebuliser within 10 - 15 mins of getting there.

If I go there with a serious cut, broken ankle etc the story is completely different - I'm lucky to be seen in 3 or 4 hours

 

Re: Go Private

This is a blatant (and probably wilful) misrepresentation of the situation. The NHS is chronically underfunded because high taxation is politically unacceptable in this country. We spend a much lower percentage of GDP on health in the UK than in any other comparable country, and it is not enough.

As an NHS consultant, I am not allowed to do any more work in the health service than I already do, because there is no extra funding available for that work.

What I do in my spare time is up to me. Outrageous, Mr Parry.

 

Simple - too many managers wasting our time and money on endless petty meetings. It's the same everywhere in government/council; since they don't have to worry about shareholders and profits nothing much happens.

In private companies, ineffectual managers get sacked. It's the way the public services should be run too.

 

The reality of life

Dr McPeake

I do not blame you for taking private work, I would do so if I was in your position.

Howvever there is a fundemental flaw to a system that says there is a 2 year waiting list to be operated on by Doctor X but only a fortnight if you go private.

I accept your statements on underfunding.

Regards

Mick

 

..there is a fundemental flaw to a system that says there is a 2 year waiting list to be operated on by Doctor X but only a fortnight if you go private.

True, but the root cause of long NHS waiting lists (for non-urgent cases) is NHS underfunding and a relative shortage of doctors. The fundamental flaw is not enough cash.

FWIW, the NHS as it stands actually represents very good value for money, this has been well shown by health economists.

 

Dr McPeake

I agree that we need to pump more money into the NHS and correct me if I am wrong but Gordon Brown is doing just that with increases in NI contributions.

I think health and education are the two areas where the public are prepared to pay more than what they currently do.

Having said that, most hospitals seem to have more office workers than medical staff and that is not directing money at the front line.

Regards

Mick