Nurses for Reform Blog

Today Dr Helen Evans has a letter in the Daily Telegraph.

SIR – Ed Miliband’s failure (report, February 19) to recognise that the NHS is to health care what the Soviet Union was to economics shows just how out of touch Labour has become under his leadership. Tony Blair and the rest of New Labour must be livid at this policy, which will only lead to electoral ruin.

As a nurse on the NHS’s front line, I have long believed that no NHS-funded patient should ever again have to go into a state-owned hospital or clinic. Nurses have everything to gain from a policy that will allow patients and their local doctors to direct NHS money to the highest quality and best value services.

Dr Helen Evans
Director, Nurses for Reform

This morning I as interviewed on LBC Radio’s breakfast show to discuss the reform of the NHS.

This is a truly shocking report released yesterday by the NHS Ombudsman, detailing an investigation in to the systematic neglect of elderly patients by the NHS.

I also find it terrible that at the end of this Daily Telegraph article Nigel Crisp, Head of the NHS Confederation, states that he wants the 10 cases that the Ombudsman investigated put in to perspective.  The perspective is that only 10 cases were investigated, the NHS Ombudsman stated that they considered the neglect to be more widespread and that elderly patients with relatively little political voice are being left to die in the most appalling circumstances by a system that will continue to fail them unless radically and speedily reformed.

This is one of the daftest ideas I have seen for a long time.

A community healthcare trust is suggesting that a smoking quit kit with a free voucher for nicotine replacement therapy patches is something that you should give your date for Valentine’s Day.

Apart from the fact that this is probably one of the least romantic ideas going, I would like to know, at a time when the NHS is supposed to be making huge financial savings, just how much this is going to cost?

Finally, it is up to an individual whether or not they wish to smoke.  This is yet another example of the nanny state interfering with peoples life style choices and in my opinion it is unacceptable.

Yesterday afternoon I was interviewed on LBCs drive time show about the proposed NHS reforms.