The Scarlet Pimpernel of the NHS

Whilst Reception committee waited

They seek him here ……  They seek him there

That Dxxxxxx elusive Minister

NHS Watchdog spends your money on taxis

MONITOR is tasked to secure NHS value for money

Yet its chief spends £25 a time on taxis to commute

short hop across bridge

Baroness Hannam, Monitor’s Chairman of the NHS watchdog supposed to secure value for taxpayers’ money, spends £25 a time on taxi journeys of less than a mile to hop between her offices in the House of Lords (whose members get a daily expenses allowance) to travel to Monitor’s offices just across Westminster Bridge.

The Bridge supposedly that “earth has not anything to show more fair”.  Yet the Baroness scorns advice of her employer, NHS, to exercise more for health – and walk across it. Now, someone has “whistleblown”, and Monitor is “urgently reviewing” its expenses policy.

Hannam’s excuse? She WAS “horrified” and “didn’t know”,  rings a bit false, when for years she was a Councillor of Kensington and Chelsea Council, so one assumes she got to know London very well.

The Baroness apparently clocked up a bill of almost £1,000 in two months for the short journeys across the Thames, on 38 trips between the Houses of Parliament in Westminster and Monitor’s HQ, the regulator of NHS foundation trusts, in Waterloo.

 A journey that normally would take less than 10 minutes walking.

One wonders why NHS big wigs don’t take their own advice, and WALK.

Questions need to be asked about NHS – and perhaps case of Ashya King will bring these out

Hurrah – Ashya’s parents are free

But at what cost?

• How much did the ridiculous Police hunt across Europe, pursuing the family of Ashya King cost the British taxpayer?
• How dare Cameron bolt the stable door, and now offer a cancer expert to advise the family?
• and Why can’t EVERYONE IN BRITAIN have the same expertise offered when they need it – not just after a massive media campaign?
• And why did a massive NHS organisation waste so much time hounding the King family, when all they had to do was listen to the father’s very reasonable requestsWatch the family on YouTube, see for yourself, and decide it this isn’t a very articulate, caring and intelligent family, well able to ask Oncologists questions, which they seemed reluctant to answer.

NHS PR loses out big time over Ashya

Public Questions NHS Big Brother approach over little cancer patient

A frightened 5 year old lies in a hospital bed, denied visits from his family, whilst his parents languish in jail waiting to hear what are their bail conditions.

Meantime the clock is ticking down on the 4 months doctors say this little boy has left to live.

When the story of Ashya King first broke,  (he was suffering from a form of cancer in University Hospital, Southampton), at first public opinion seemed to be on the side of NHS.   The Public believed that

when a child was suffering, the NHS would be the body to treat them.

But then public opinion, aided by Social media, comments on TV shows such as The Wright Stuff, and unease that seemed to be expressed by the spokesman for police called in by the hospital to search for the little boy after his father had removed him from hospital – swung the other way.

How to waste your time visiting the GP

CCGs find a use

 

 

 

Someone has finally found a use for CCGs (Clinical Commissioning Groups);  the extra layer of quangos

 

 

 

set up by the last Minister of Health. They are generating so much paper-work, etc., that  Pulse, the doctor’s magazine, says up to  25% of GP appointments could be avoided.

 

 

 

At last someone is realising what a waste of time so many of these appointments are, but how else are we to get our referrals to Consultant for treatment we know we need, without going via GPs for the obligatory ‘referral letter’ and other time-consuming procedures?  Unlike appointments in European hospitals, whee they assume their patients have some brain and know what’s needed.

Cancer, Polio, Diabetes and other conditions

Polio and other conditions

can affect Cancer Treatment

Update on yesterday’s Post:  suddenly my visitor stats to the website went rocketing up – I never knew so many people had problems from other conditions, that impacted on cancer treatment.  I was even singled out by Chris Salter, who publishes a daily bulletin on Polio around the world, and made me feel very honoured to think he was reading my article.  But researching available information, it seems to those MDT teams don’t take in to account what else we have had,

President Franklin Roosevelt, polio survivor

 

It had taken me two months to get over problems because the anaesthetist for my cancer op. had disregarded the fact that I had had polio.  Next time I asked the British Polio Fellowship to send their pre-operation pack to my surgeon, and also my anaesthetist, and bless them – both read it from cover to cover, and I sailed through this op.

Grudgingly the Oncologists acknowledged that polio might impact on some of my treatment, and at last I made such a fuss that I was sent to see a Polio specialist, and from then onwards things improved. But it took visits to hospitals in Europe before I found doctors to treat the two conditions holistically.

Complaints and the NHS

Is it worth complaining?

 

Every time I hear that the NHS has appointed yet another over-paid Consultant to look into problems, I want to ask why waste the money?y?

Patients DO know best

Now doctors agree

Pulse is THE magazine that goes out to GPs.  A recent issue had a fascinating article about letting patients refer themselves to Physiotherapy.

Wikipedia

The article came up with the conclusion that doing this had “slashed care costs by almost a third compared with referral through a GP, a study by one NHS primary care service has found”.

Apparently the sensible folk in Barnsley introduced a self-

Well done, Scotland – pity NHS England won’t copy

Live in England?

Tried using 111 telephone service?

This service replaces NHS Direct.  Which was working perfectly well, using health professionals to answer calls.  Whenever I called I found staff were excellent.

Churchill had right idea – could he help NHS?

Churchill’s first speech after he was appointed Prime Minister in 1940 promised the British  – blood, toil, tears and sweat.   He told us the truth and didn’t make ‘political’ promises.

And believe it or not, although he was head of the Tory party, Labour  were right behind him – Tories were lukewarm.