MORE NHS WASTE

A hospital that is 3 million pounds in the red has spent 359,000 pounds caring for two elderly patients who have no medical need to be there. Both women have been fit enough to leave the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester since April 2004, but have remained on a general ward for the past two years at a cost of 246 pounds a day each. The hospital has begun legal action to have one of the women moved to a home, and has sought solicitors' advice in the second case.

Winchester and Eastleigh NHS Trust blamed "complicated family and funding issues" for patients not being discharged. It said that lawyers had been called in after negotiations failed. The hospital is currently accommodating 25 "bed blockers" who are healthy enough to leave.

Vera Hill is stranded as an inpatient until Hampshire County Council organises the two home carers that she needs to help her to dress, wash and prepare meals. The 92-year-old widow has been in hospital for nine months, and was declared fit enough to leave a month ago. She said: "I want to go to my own home. I want to be independent. I will go daft if I don't get out of here."

Powers established in 2004 mean that NHS trusts can fine councils that fail to provide care facilities for patients when they are ready to leave hospital, and last year Winchester and Eastleigh presented Hampshire County Council with a 120,000 pound bill. In total the council paid 625,200 pounds in delayed discharge fines to healthcare trusts around the country.

Patricia Banks, the council's executive member for adult social care, said that "great headway" had been made in reducing delayed discharges, and that 500 extra nursing home beds would be made available under a new scheme this year. "Our priority is always to ensure that the most appropriate care packages are in place to suit each patient's individual needs. Delays may occur when it is not possible to locate timely care."

Winchester and Eastleigh NHS Trust said that bed blocking was a "double-edged sword", that incurred costs in terms of capacity as well as the purely financial. Joanna Paul, the trust's director of operations and performance, said: "The national fining system does help a little but in some cases the real obstacles are family and funding issues. "Not all types of hospital beds are included and the fine of 100 pounds per day is less than half the actual cost." Ms Paul refused to comment in detail on individual cases but said: "Royal Hampshire County Hospital is an acute hospital; once patients are fit to leave it is right that they do so. "Our aim is for patients to get the right care and if that means going down the legal route then that is what we will do."

More here






LOS ANGELES CORRUPTION

The city's oldest hospital faces a federal investigation into its shuttered liver transplant program and is laying off nearly 8 percent of its staff, officials said. St. Vincent Medical Center said in a statement that it is "fully complying" with a subpoena received earlier this year from the U.S. attorney's office, which is probing possible criminal activity in the liver program.

The hospital, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, closed the program in September after officials admitted that doctors in 2003 improperly arranged for a Saudi man to receive a liver intended for a higher-priority patient, who ultimately died without undergoing a transplant. Federal officials say staff at the 347-bed hospital tried to cover up the ethical breach by falsifying documents. Spokesmen for the hospital and the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment further on the investigation.

St. Vincent also is in financial trouble, having lost $12.2 million in the last fiscal year and more than $15 million in the first eight months of this one, according to a March 29 report from Standard & Poor's. The medical center said it gave layoff notices to 97 people on Monday, including managers and support staff. The hospital has been losing patients for several years and is having trouble recruiting doctors, and the problems were exacerbated by the revelations about the liver transplant program. In recent months, the hospital replaced its chief executive and was handed an unprecedented public sanction by the United Network for Organ Sharing. St. Vincent has said it will challenge the sanction in court.

Another Southern California hospital, the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, also is being investigated by federal agencies for possible fraudulent billing related to its now-closed liver transplant program.

Source

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

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.

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