I was at a party yesterday and got in to conversation with someone about the NHS and healthcare provision and funding in the UK. What was most interesting was that, although they admitted that the NHS was a system that failed people, they still thought that the Government would be able to put things right. The idea that given government has made such a mess of things should mean that it should stay out of healthcare in the future was not something that had been considered.
With stories such as this and this appearing daily in our press isn’t it time to give the market a chance to put things right?
Yesterday I had an article published in the Daily Telegraph, discussing the future of the NHS and how NFR believes the process towards achieving better healthcare for the UK population should be started.
To read to complete article click here.
I also urge you to take time to read the comments. It is amazing not only how people interpret what I have said differently but also how people have completely different expectations of what the NHS should be and do.
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.
Here are two stories that should make the Government and the NHS hang their heads in shame. Despite the billions of pounds that have been poured in to the NHS under New Labour some of the most vulnerable members of society are being failed time and time again. Not only do half of Alzheimer’s patients leave NHS hospitals in a worse state than they entered them but care in NHS hospitals for them is so bad that a third of their carers have to complain and a greater number think that they should have.
Surely we have seen enough of these horror stories for even the most die-hard NHS supporter to realise that the system is failing. With the cuts in public spending that are inevitably coming our way there is an historic opportunity to put things right. It is too late for the Government, who I am sure will make some empty promises in today’s Queen’s Speech, but the Conservative party must take notice of the suffering reported in these all too frequent stories. It is time for the NHS to stop subjecting people to this substandard care. All NHS hospitals must be returned to the independent sector where the language of price drives quality of care. The NHS has had sixty years to try to prove its worth. It has failed continually, now it is time for the market to demonstrate its superior qualities.
The Taxpayers Alliance (TPA) have published a revealing new report in to the underuse of vital diagnostic and treatment equipment in NHS Trusts.
The key findings of the report are:
Using Freedom of Information requests to every one of the 200 Acute NHS Trusts, the report investigates how many times a year each Trust uses each of five different classes of medical equipment:
• Linear accelerators (Linacs) play a critical role in cancer care as part of radiotherapy treatment. Each patient receives several treatment sessions, known as “fractions”:
- The average usage of each Linac machine in 2008 in the NHS was 7,191 fractions per year. That is significantly below the recommendation from the National Radiotherapy Advisory Group of 8,000 fractions per machine per year – a rate which was only achieved by 11 Trusts nationally.
- There is also considerable variation between trusts, with two Trusts (Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals Trust and University College London Hospitals Trust) providing fewer than 5,000 fractions per machine.
- If all trusts below the national average brought their usage rate up to the average, an additional 128,758 fractions could be provided – equivalent to 18 additional Linac machines.
• Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners are extremely useful in effectively diagnosing cancer and then planning appropriate treatment.
- The average usage of each PET scanner identified was 956 scans per year. That is significantly below the Department of Health target of 2,000-2,500 scans per year. Only one Trust, University College London Hospitals NHS Trust, achieved that Department of Health target.
- There was considerable variation between Trusts, and three Trusts produced fewer than 500 scans per machine while one met the Department of Health target.
- If all trusts below the national average brought their usage rate up to the average, an additional 2,492 scans could be provided – equivalent to three additional PET scanners.
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners are a safe means of producing detailed internal scans useful in diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of conditions.
- The average use of MRI scanners in 2008 was 4,912 scans per machine.
- There is considerable variation between trusts; nine trusts used each machine less than 2,000 times while nine trusts used each machine more than 8,000 times in 12 months
- If all trusts below the national average brought their usage rate up to the average, an additional 273,680 scans could be provided, equivalent to 56 additional scanners running at the average annual usage.
• Computerised Tomography (CT) scanners provide a detailed view of different tissue types not available with traditional x-rays.
- The average usage of CT scanners in 2008 was 7,424 scans per machine.
- There is considerable variation between trusts, with six Trusts using their CT scanners over 15,000 times, while seven had an average
usage lower than 2,000.
- If all trusts below the national average brought their usage rate up to the average, an additional 656,647 scans could be provided, equivalent to 88 additional scanners running at the average annual usage.
• Lithotripters use ultrasound shock waves to break up kidney stones.
- The average usage of lithotripters in 2008 was 457 uses per machine.
- There is considerable variation between Trusts, with three Trusts getting more than 1,000 uses per lithotripter and another just 18 uses per lithotripter.
- If all trusts below the national average brought their usage rate up to the average, an additional
8,528 uses could be provided, equivalent to 19 additional lithotripters running at the average annual usage.
As Katherine Andrew of the TPA states:
“These pieces of equipment are not only expensive, they are crucial to the treatment of people who suffer from a wide variety of conditions. It is simply not good enough that so many Trusts are failing to make the best use of their resources, and in doing so letting down patients and taxpayers. If those Trusts that are lagging behind caught up just with the NHS average, it would make hundreds of thousands of extra treatment and diagnosis procedures available.”
