Healthcare News Today

The Health Commission, the UK’s audit body for our health services, has just published its report 90 deaths from C. difficle infections at x hospital in the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Primary Care Trust (PCT).

The report cites filthy wards where, due to nursing shortages, patients were left to swim in their own urine and faeces in their own beds and the nurses were so busy cleaning up, they did not have time to wash their hands properly.

The report states that the PCT was too busy and preoccupied with cutting its deficit to meet government targets than worry about adequate clinical care. And a spokesperson for the PCT said it was so busy trying to fulfil the bureaucracy to become a Foundation Trust so it could sell off the family silver in order to cut its deficit that it didn’t have time to run the hospitals.

Alan, our Health Secretary, is appalled. The police have even been called in to investigate the hospital and the PCT.

I would ask the police to investigate Patricia Hewitt, our previous Health Secretary, who forced the PCTs to cut their deficits.

No mention of shirt sleeves.

But in revenge we have a NCEPOD report (spun by the BBC here) that “junior” doctors (a reminder – you are junior until you become a consultant) in Accident and Emergency departments are failing us. I assume this is part of the campaign to close local A & E departments.

I wonder if our local A & E departments on a Sunday morning (let alone any other day) are understaffed and overworked because the government, when it took away out-of-hours practice away from GPs, did not open any out-of-hours walk-in supermarket centres or polyclinics, that the PCT is trying to cut its deficit and that the DoH fucked up MTAS/MMC.

Gordon, Alan, and Ara – Kezia, myself and Nanda are an ignorant patient and ignorant carers. We really don’t know anything about running the NHS. We really don’t know what we want (OOH, polyclinics, less dark-skinned doctors etc etc). Please tell us and then we’ll be able to give the DoH informed opinions during public consultations.

Dr Rant's take here.