The Fundamental Problem With Nursing...

Sir Stephen Moss, chairman of Stafford Hospital and himself a nurse for 40 years, said that “too many patients and families” are being let down but that staff shortages are not to blame.

He suggested the problems lie in the training nurses receive as well as the way they work on hospital wards, and plans to lead a new campaign to improve standards.

I take it ‘the way they work on hospital wards’ is code for ‘they should put down ‘Heat’ magazine occasionally and check to see if elderly patients are starving to death’?

Unions and professional bodies have suggested that the problems are down to staff being over-worked or forced to focus on Government targets rather than providing personal care.

Because if it wasn’t for the government telling them how to do every tiny small task, they’d be completely unable to understand that patients need to be fed and floors need to be washed?

But other commentators have claimed that too much care is now provided by cheap healthcare assistants, who do not need to meet national training standards and who are not regulated by a professional body; or that nurses think they are “above” feeding and cleaning patients now that they have to be university-educated.

Surely not!

Sir Stephen is drawing together a group of seven “big hitters” in the health service to suggest ways that hospital care can be improved.

Their plans, to be disclosed in September, will focus on how nurses can be trained for “the real world of the NHS rather than the classroom” .

I can’t say this isn’t welcome, but I fear it’s too little, and far too late.

NHS Fuckwittery (4)

When I hear people talking about "... markets, competition and choice ... improving our health service", my ears always prick up. Altho' the terms are fairly meaningless in themselves, I do believe that the aim must be a largely taxpayer-funded NHS with competing providers*, as in so many other countries.

The logical conclusion is that people could claim vouchers (for no more than full cost of NHS equivalent treatment) and go completely private, paying the top-up out of their own pockets or out of voluntary private insurance.

So why does trade union f***wit Dave Prentis come out with this in today's FT "We were really pleased that Alan [Johnson, current UK Health Secretary] made no mention of markets, competition and choice in improving our health service"?

Also in this article - a quango realises it is pointless and dissolves itself! Now there's a first!

* Who should own such hospitals and clinics is an interesting debate. I see no reason why they should not be owned by charities, churches, trade unions, the local authority as well as insurance companies and private operators. As long as they are competing!