Keep the Faith...in our medics !

I got presumptious enough a couple of weeks ago to make a submission on the Aus Productivity Commission draft report on Data Sharing.

They seemed to think the concern of the people at the front end was predominantly privacy.

Good to see someone else fed up of carrying information on a piece of paper from one system to feed into another.

I'm a bit of an idealist, the person at the pointy end is an equal partner. Exploitation may work for a while for someone's business model but it should never be a model followed by government.

Enter once, use many times. Which is far superior to the enter many times use many times the report was aimed at.

My husband retired as early as he could because he couldn't face the thought of more years of "cr*p". He looded at potential income every couple of months for a couple of years - and the expression on his face when he came through and said, I think we could manage, said it all.

He had cut budgets (and no, he wasn't management, he was front line diagnostics, had never had any management or budgetary training and wasn't paid as much as the equivalent grade of manager) year on year and was still being asked to cut further. He couldn't replace staff when they left - even though their post might be the one in his department providing a particular service. Then he was penalised for not providing the service. The place was being managed as if it were a supermarket or factory - if you have ever tried to work out exactly (to the minute) each step of a procedure on a real patient takes so they can tell you you can manage to do another patient in the day you will know the problem.

All my married life his hobby has been his research - even when it was his job. He continued it for as long as he could, unpaid and at home but with at least some time allowed and a research fellow (a medic doing his MD, paid FAR more then he was) - even that was stopped, together with any time allowance for going to meetings. That was it. 

It is being "managed" by people who have never done the job and have no idea. And PFI was the cherry on the top - it cost OH's department £450+ just to have an electrician in to change a broken socket, despite having fully qualified electrical engineers in the department. 

They are killing their staff - the ambulance service is so stretched they don't even get time off for a cup of tea after a traumatic job (fatality, even with children whereas a police officer gets sent home) - greenup and next job - but they can sit for hours in the queue to off-load a not-critical but emergency patient at A&E. Increasing numbers are suffering PTSD and having to leave the service - all it would need to reduce the problem is the right debriefing and care but there isn't the time - so more leave the service and the problem gets worse.

This morning they have been highlighting the shortage of nurses and midwives. They shut the midwife course in Scotland altogether. Then they have stopped free training - so applications for nurse training is down 25%. And they want to stop migrant staff - believing those who currently supply at least 25% of nHS staffing in some areas will remain despite no longer feeling they are welcome.

I despair.

I agree and lets hope it will get better, but we musn't keep shooting the messenger...its a fine balance. we need the admin to make things efficient, stop waste etc. The NHS needs more money to make this possible.    I for one would happily pay more tax for this.

We need to keep our staff, not drive them away with a 'blame game'.

In the NHS we are forced to tick endless computer boxes to meet QOF outcomes, without them we lose funding to pay for patient care etc. I think the general public needs to wake up and think what they can do for their NHS and not just what the NHS can do for them!  

Obesity and lack of exercise is a major cost to the NHS over time in many medical conditions. Every time someone refuses to even try & give up smoking, DNA's appts or has expensive insulin but makes no attempt to manage their diet and exercise so needing more.....we all pay for this !

Of course it doesn't need more money - Jeremy Hunt says so...   They are all lazy and show no loyalty - and he must know, he's worked for the NHS (he says...)

I read in the BMJ recently that QOF was going to be scrapped. Really good news in my opinion if that is correct. 

I was watching GPs behind closed doors on TV recently and there was a lady there who could hardly speak due to long term respiratory problems. The GP was very sympathetic and then just happened to say I assume you don't smoke? Yes she did!!The GP's face was a picture, he just could not believe it. 

Love it! Or is it to avoid being lynched in a dark back corridor?

Will abolishing QOF mean they won't try to force AA and statins on us? 

trouble is we probably need a half way house. QOF has actually led to some improvements in pt care but those beaurocrat types cant resist 'over egging the pudding',    the end result...the medics get the blame ! 

What we need is for GP's to be able to decide about individual statins etc without the risk of loosing funding.

I think they were - until the gubmint intervened. Of course - that was the reason for the DM headlines about greedy GPs clocking up high salaries. They were already doing all the things there were brought in the first time round. People in the NHS at the time DID point it out but they wouldn't listen - rinse and repeat?????????

The GPs were laughing all the way to the bank when Patricia Hewitt MP said they could have a massive salary increase (around 30% on average) and work fewer hours. I know someone who was at the meeting at the BMA and they thought they were going to be taken to the cleaners beforehand, once the meeting was finished all they could do was roar with laughter.

Yup - remember that!

And who on earth thought that if GPs were offered weekends off they wouldn't take it?