NHS knowingly used contaminated blood

Victims of the contaminated blood scandal renewed their calls for compensation yesterday, as evidence emerged that the Government was told about the dangers of using "skid row" blood products as early as 1975. At an independent public inquiry into the supply of tainted blood to haemophiliacs during the 1970s and 1980s, survivors and relatives of those who died said that questions still needed to be answered about what successive governments knew.

At least 4,500 haemophiliacs were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated plasma. A total of 1,757 have died and thousands more are terminally ill.

One letter presented to the inquiry showed that in January 1975 the Wilson Government was warned that one of the US companies it bought plasma treatments from sourced all its blood from "skid row derelicts". The letter, written by Stanford University Medical Centre to the Blood Products Laboratory at the Lister Institute, said that these clotting products, known as Factor 8, had proven to be "extremely hazardous", with recipients having a 50 to 90 per cent chance of developing hepatitis.

The inquiry, chaired by Lord Archer of Sandwell, a former Solicitor-General, heard that other products were bought from companies that acquired blood from prisoners in America.

Those giving evidence yesterday spoke of their harrowing ordeals. Sue Threakall, whose husband died in 1991, aged 47, after contracting HIV following the use of Factor 8, told the inquiry: "This terrible tragedy should never have happened; it was wholly avoidable. Warnings were ignored, lessons were not learnt and our community was lied to by the people it should have trusted most."

The Government has not confirmed whether it will allow ministers or civil servants to give evidence to the inquiry, which is scheduled to report by late summer.

Source





Malnutrition in NHS patients

Patients are at risk of malnutrition because of a shortage of nursing staff to feed them properly, a survey suggests. Almost half of the 2,000 nurses questioned by the Royal College of Nursing said that they did not have enough time to make sure that patients got their meals and were able to eat them because they were too busy. The findings come six years after the Government spent 40 million to improve nutrition in hospitals.

Difficulties getting food for patients outside set mealtimes was cited as the main problem by 49 per cent of nurses. Almost as many (46 per cent) nurses blamed a lack of staff to assist those patients who needed help eating.

Campaigners from the charity Age Concern say that elderly patients in particular are regularly going without meals because they are placed out of their reach or because they are unable to eat without assistance. The survey was released at the annual congress of the college in Harrogate yesterday.

Source





NHS goes private to hit target

EMERGENCY funding totalling 160,000 pounds has been set aside so that more than 40 patients can be treated at a private hospital and waiting list targets can be achieved in East Lancashire. General surgery and orthopaedics cases being dealt with by East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust were in danger of exceeding 20-week in-patient treatment targets. The hospitals trust has undertaken a series of waiting list initiatives to meet the NHS goal and a number of patients had been transferred to the private sector Abbey Gisburne Park Hospital, near Clitheroe, for treatment.

But since an initial batch of patients were relocated to Gisburne Park in December, the transfer rate appears to have dried up, according to a Blackburn with Darwen Primary Care Trust report. The report adds: "East Lancashire Hospitals Trust has repeatedly been reminded, via performance meetings and e-mails, of the opportunity to transfer patients to the independent contract, if additional capacity was needed to meet the March targets. "They have however made, limited use of this, preferring to retain the patients at the hospital trust, and giving assurances that they could manage the lists internally."

Every patient on the 20-week waiting list should have been given an appointment date by February 16 and the hospital trust has been asked if any outstanding patients can still be moved to Gisburne Park. Some of the 40-plus outstanding cases, were not medically suitable for transfer to Gisburne Park, others refused to attend the hospital, and a proportion were reluctant to change their consultant mid- treatment. But in the meantime the primary care trust has also held talks with Beardwood Hospital, the privately-run facility in Preston New Road, Blackburn, about dealing with NHS patients there.

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?

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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