Scotland: NHS Pain Care Deemed Inadequate

The Scottish National Health Service (NHS) is being criticized for not providing adequate care for over 200,000 Scots suffering from chronic pain. As with all socialized medicine schemes, which promise everything to everybody for free but are funded by finite resources, units of health care ultimately must be rationed. One area being denied is pain management.

Thousands of patients living with incurable pain are being let down by the Scottish NHS, according to a hard-hitting report by the health service's own watchdog.

Despite four official investigations in the past 14 years highlighting worrying gaps in care, the research reveals there has been very little improvement.

Specialist support for people who suffer chronic pain is patchy and inadequate, patients are confused and clinicians are frustrated, say the authors.

To emphasize, the NHS's own watchdog is doing the criticizing.

NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, which monitors standards in the health service, has published the latest report.

It notes the Scottish Office first described services as patchy in 1994 and further documents published by very experienced people in 2000, 2002 and 2004 raised the same issues.

"Despite all of this, very little progress has been made. Access to specialist services is poor."

NHS QIS found not one health board could accurately describe the services they did offer.

So, there you go. The Scottish NHS has repeatedly been attacked for uncorrected deficiencies over the years and it's as bad now as it's ever been. Not only that, but the quality improvement people couldn't find anyone in the Scottish NHS who knew what the NHS provides.

Coming soon to America, government-run health care.