There has been a lot of publicity recently about the poor care given to patients by Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust
It has been found that patients were routinely neglected, left to die and “cared” for in appalling conditions. For me though, one of the interesting and appalling things about this is that in all of the media reports I have listened to I heard few genuine apologies. In the main hospital managers, so-called nursing leaders such as Dr Peter Carter the General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing and various Politicians have all been rushing to shift the blame on to each other. I have heard no one come up with any long-term plans to improve the situation and to stop patients from dying at the hands of the NHS.
One thing that NFR believes should not happen is a rush of new target driven reforms, it is time that the Government realised that all targets do is to pull resources away from patient care and in to the administration of reports to the Department of Health.
Radical reform is needed across the NHS it is time that the Government had less involvement not more in the delivery of patient treatment and care. As a start, Mid-Staffordshire, and indeed all other failing NHS Trusts, must be given over to new management, ideally from the private sector as has happened here. If hospitals or trusts continue to fail their patients they must expect to be closed or taken over by new management.
It is time that we stopped tolerating this NHS that is failing in its duty time and time again.
