NHS CAN'T HANDLE PREMMIES

Premature babies are being sent hundreds of miles to be placed in intensive-care units, an audit has indicated. The UK has the highest rate of premature births in Western Europe, and one of the poorer records in treating premature babies, Bliss, the charity which commissioned the audit, said.

An average of three babies a day have to be transferred. Many are moved more than 100 miles, and the longest recorded journey was 286 miles, Rob Williams, the charity’s chief executive, said. Since the first audit of services last year, things had worsened, he added. Despite a government commitment in 2003 of 70 million pounds to improve care, it still fell short of an acceptable standard. “The money was welcome but nothing like enough to achieve what is needed. The service is overstretched, under- resourced and slow to respond to promising initiatives. “Ninety-five per cent of units are working at overcapacity, and 78 per cent of intensive and special-care units had to close their doors to new admissions, up from 72 per cent in 2004.”

Most importantly, he said, hospitals failed to apply to babies the same nursing care that would be provided to adults. In adult intensive-care units, there was, on average, one nurse for every patient — but only 3 per cent of baby intensive-care units achieved the same standard. Neonatal care for babies is provided by 22 networks of hospitals. But the survey found that transfers outside networks were common. Parents were often poorly informed and not told that their babies might need special care.

Sarah Skates, from Crayford in Kent, gave birth to twins after 26 weeks of pregnancy. One child was transferred to a hospital in Norwich, and the other to a hospital in Surrey, a two-hour journey in the opposite direction. The twins’ father went to stay in Norwich while their mother stayed at home to look after her older child. It was, she said, “the hardest time of my life”.

The research was carried out for Bliss by the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at Oxford. The report says that the Department of Health should require intensive-care units to have a nurse for every baby. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: “On average, a quarter of neonatal intensive-care cots are empty at any given time, so the creation of local neonatal networks has helped local areas assist each other when demand is greatest. “These provide as much of this care locally as is possible, but there will always be occasions when transfer to a more specialist unit outside the network may offer better outcomes.”

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.

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