BRITAIN: EVER MORE "CUTS"

One of the largest staff culls in recent NHS history worsened yesterday as more hospitals announced cuts and politicians gave warning of a final total of up to 20,000 job losses. Two trusts, in the North East and Kent, said yesterday that cuts were imminent or likely involving hundreds of members of staff. The announcements took the total job losses this month to more than 3,000, with two thirds occurring in the past week.

The Conservatives yesterday accused the Government of runnning scared of a crisis that would probably result in a cut of between 15,000 and 20,000 employees across the NHS. While Gordon Brown fended off criticism for skirting round the health service’s mounting debts in his Budget statement this week, it also emerged that there would be no specific health funding debate in the wake of his speech.

County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust yesterday became the fourth trust in less than 24 hours to give warning of serious service cuts. Up to 700 posts are expected to go over the next three years. The announcement came after news from East Kent Hospitals Trust, one of the largest hospital trusts in the country, of the possibility of job cuts in an attempt to reduce a predicted 35 million pound deficit. On Wednesday night — just hours after the Chancellor addressed the Commons — the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London, and Queen Mary’s, Sidcup, Southeast London, added their names to the growing list of organisations planning to shed staff.

Andrew Lansley, the Tories’ health spokesman, said that the Government could not be allowed to hide from NHS deficits now running at about 750 million pounds. He predicted total job losses approaching 20,000, and questioned why Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, was not scheduled to take part in post-Budget debates in the Commons. “The Government has mismanaged the service and much of the money it has pumped in has been wasted by bureaucracy or the mismatch of supply and demand,” he said. Although he accepted that some of the bureaucratic job losses could be the result of slack in the system, Mr Lansley said that laying-off doctors, nurses and midwives was absurd. He added that the Conservatives would do the things that Mr Brown had prevented, including allowing foundation hospitals to borrow freely to expand their services.

Mr Brown explained yesterday the absence of detail about health funding during his Budget speech by saying that the extra money for the NHS had already been announced. Health trusts would receive an extra 6 billion pounds in the next financial year and a further 6 billion the year after that, he said. “When we talk about deficits faced by some trusts, most organisations in the NHS are getting more money next year and more money the year after.” The Chancellor added that only a “small number” of trusts were affected by the highly publicised deficits. “They have got to sort their problems out,” Mr Brown said. “There is more money going into the health service. It is our duty to have more value for money.”

Announcing the likelihood of 700 job losses yesterday, hospital chiefs at County Durham and Darlington blamed changes across the NHS nationally — including the use of the private sector to carry out NHS work, and how hospitals are paid for operations. They said the job losses were not about saving money.

More here





Just one episode reported by a doctor on the NHS front-line

Don't read the rest of his reports unless you have a strong stomach. They are too awful. It sounds like the guy is working in a Communist country. But socialism is just slowed-down Communism so it figures

Third patient in is Mary, one of the local speech therapists. She is approaching retirement. I sent her husband into hospital three weeks ago in rip-roaring heart failure. He was on CCU for three days but now is on the far flung corner of Dixon, one of the medical wards. He is partially sighted due to an old stroke, and is hard of hearing. The nursing care is appalling. He has developed pressures sores on his sacrum and heels and, oddly, a suppurating area above both ears which Mary thinks is due to the oxygen mask he uses being too tight. He is losing weight because he cannot really manage to feed himself. Mary was in each day over the weekend. Uneaten food from Saturday was still on his bedside table on Sunday. Mary went to the nursing station at the end of the ward. The nurses were all eating take-away Pizza. Deep Pan pizza from Pizza Hut. Mary remembers that particularly. Mary thinks her husband is dying. She is not sure which consultant he is under, and has not been able to find a doctor to talk to. The nurses over the weekend do not speak English. She tried to tell them that her husband is partially sighted but they do not understand. They show here the nursing assessment. Under “visual problems” it says "none". Mary is in tears and asks what she should do. I suggest she phones the Chief Executive and makes a formal complaint.

I do not suppose that Pizza Hut pizzas carry harmful bacteria, but should they be on an acute medical ward?

***************************

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here, the mirror site may be more up to date. My Home Page is here or here.

***************************