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I have lived in the UK since September of last year. In any case, I have plenty of family and friends who live in the UK and who all seem to have their own horror story of the NHS under Labour. It's all a bit much to be just coincidence.
Are you being serious? She was going through a traumatic time, having to undergo the loss of a limb. The last thing that she needed was the ineptitude and insensitivity of Labour healthcare workers. You do realise that she was asked to pay for a prosthetic that would match her skin tone? I find that insulting and offensive. With all the money being taken from the British taxpayer, that's the last thing I would have expected. But I guess you have to learn to expect the unexpected when Labour is in power.
I'm still at a loss as to when I've insulted you.
If anything, your friend would have to pay more for prosthetic (and a normal one at that let alone a perfect tonal match) under the sort of wholesale privatisation agenda pursued by Tories.
I don't deny that she was going through a traumatic time. But let us look at the facts - she was offered a prosthetic limb so she would be able to walk again. Then she complained about it not matching her skin tone and was given one which did. To be honest, I would have thought the important thing would be to have a prosthetic limb that worked and so she could walk again. The NHS' duty of care was to give her a limb so she could walk which they did, the fact she wanted one that would match the rest of her skin is cosmetic and so that was an additional service. Fact is, she was offered a limb so she could walk again - that was the job of the NHS, she refused the limb offered so could be expected to pay for one. The NHS only has finite resources and in the list of priorities I don't think her having a limb which matches the rest of her skin comes anywhere near hiring doctors and nurses and keeping hospitals performing essential tasks. But despite this the NHS still managed to provide her the limb she wanted so I really don't see the point in this argument.
So in effect you cant speak about how the system works now can you not having 1st hand knowledge of late.
I cant speak for the fella with a knife-slash on his face but when you are a N.H.S patient you dont get the comforts of private waiting area, you are prioritised so obviously you have to wait till the more severe cases are seen to, even if that means waiting in a waiting area with other injured/poorly patients :rolleyes:
He thinks that private hospitals are efficient
Each hospital purchases their own medicines and equipment now. Where national agreements exist, they are usually bogged down by bureaucracy and delays are inevitable.
Another person happy to trot out tabloid shite without actually checking f.a.c.t.s.
Shall we start with reduced waiting for outpatient appointments, or just rush into reduced waiting for surgery? Shall we look at the two-week wait for cancer diagnosis or look at the amount of choice now offered to patients…?
I could go on, but clearly you aren’t interested in fact…
Yes, lets look at her case. She needed an operation and received it – free of charge. She was given a prosthetic limb to help her walk again, but it didn’t fit her needs and so she was asked to contribute to the cost of another.
I agree, the insensitivity was astounding and I won’t defend the workers for that.
But isn’t that what you are suggesting people should have to do anyway.
In fact, under your scheme she would have had to pay for the operation in the first place.
You hardly have room to comment, do you?
BTW The hospital I work at carried out 1400 operation last month and yet we received no complaints about the standard of care we gave. In fact we carry out 1400 operations every month and yet receive very few complaints. That is one Trust out of approx 300. You can draw attention to the news grabbing stories, or you can look at the whole picture. You can look at what we do achieve…
You can call them anything else you like, but don’t ever refer to NHS staff as ”Labour” healthcare workers. They would be healthcare workers under any govt (assuming that the Tories don’t cut jobs again that is!) and their actions wouldn’t have been any different.
~~~
As for the wonderful French Health Service, aren’t they a contributing factor to 10,000 deaths in the past two months?
And yet you draw attention to one case :rolleyes:
Yes, the NHS is getting better, but not at a rate that justfies the volume of money that has been taken from the taxpayer during the Labour government. It's been a very poor return or such a massive investment.
The Ingrid Nicholls case is a clear illustration of how poor quality the NHS still is, despite several years of Labour throwing money at it. Labour doctors are inept and insensitive. Large volumes of taxes are being paid, under the premise of providing a better quality public healthcare system, yet they somehow couldn't afford a prosthetic that matches her skin tone. As is if the ordeal wasn't traumatic enough... :rolleyes:
For one, the inept GP who only diagnosed and prescribed treatment for my grandfather's emphysema when it was far too late. The man robbed my grandfather of his dignity by allowing him to die in serious pain. This was in 2000. The doctor had been practising for 2 years.
I don't think proud is the right word. Delusional is what you're looking for.
You've just written a lengthy paragraph in response to me, yet all you've managed to say is, "She was given a limb to walk on, hooray for the NHS!" What is your point, I already know that?
Still doesn't make your assertion correct though does it? All you have done there is confirm that the broadsheets are equally badly informed.
The significant investment required came in from April this year so I'd say it was a little early to judge, wouldn't you?
So lets see about the poor return on Labour's investment:
In 1996 you would:
Just five issues which the public said were major concerns of theirs. The reason we know that the public said this, is because the NHS asked them and didn't rely on the media to tell us public opinion.
So let's compare shall we:
As from March 2003
Like I said, just a starter but after 20+ years of under investment, of cuts in available beds (did you know that last year saw the first increase in the number of beds since the NHS started?), cuts in staffing levels etc it really is no surprise that the NHS found itself in difficulties.
It's about time we started to sing the praises of the NHS. It's easy to find criticism.
No, the Nicholls case is one case. It shows you nothing, other than what happened to one person on a day when thousands were treated.
Like I said, those individuals should be condemned for not showing most compassion and for not taking her skin colour into consideration.
At the end of the day though she had her operation and is now mobile. Thhe only problem with her treatment was that she was offered a prosthesis which was the wrong colour.
Whereas before labour came to power they were perfect?
They are the same doctors FFS.
Actually they could.
That she now has one proves that.
Was the "ordeal" originally of the NHS' making, or we just picking up the pieces as usual?
Not knowing the precise details, I refuse to condemn the GP.
However, I have to ask, did your grandfather smoke?
Yes he did, and I know that would have been a major contributing factor. I'm not blaming the doctor for my grandfather's death, the only person to blame that on is my grandfather. What I do blame him for, is denying my grandfather some dignity. It wouldn't have been dificult for him to move the planned oxygen 'treatment' to a much earlier date. As it was, my grandfather was scheduled to be placed on oxygen the week after he died.
It wasn't the doctor's fault that a lifetime of smoking killed my grandfather, but it was his fault that all his dithering and procrastination meant my grandfather had a very uncomfortable death.
Can I see the data source where you obtained those figures?
Ingrid Nicholls was told that the NHS could not afford a black prosthetic and that she would have to pay for that herself.
I see no reason to praise a Labour NHS that thinks it acceptable to conduct itself in such a way.
Instead of concentrating of one bad example you should be looking at the overall performance of the NHS. I challenge you to find a single company in the world, be private or public, that has never treated a single customer badly.
To save you time, let me point out that you won't find any. All companies, be public or private, do fuck ups.
To me the fact that some people put disproportioned emphasis in one bad case (and as bad cases go, pretty inconsequential) instead of being able to criticise the overall performance of the NHS is a very clear signal that things are going well.
it took me about 30 secons to find this on the Department of Health website www.doh.gov.uk
http://www.info.doh.gov.uk/doh/intpress.nsf/page/2003-0312?OpenDocument
http://www.info.doh.gov.uk/doh/intpress.nsf/page/2003-0253?OpenDocument
possibly not the same as MoK is quoting but they do support what he says.
Please explain.
My point is - she was given the operation she needed and she was given a limb she could use and in the end she got a limb made to her own specifications. So if that's a story of NHS failure the NHS must be in a pretty good state. Fact is you would turn that story anyway you could to put the NHS in a bad light because you are against its very existance for the selfish reason of having a lower tax bill.
I already said that the NHS is getting better, I'm not blinkered. I just don't think that it's improving fast enough.
You're right, I am discrediting the state of the NHS, but there is no desperation involved.
I'm not concentrating on one bad example, just using it to illustrate my point. There are plenty of other incidents that I could use if I wanted.
You can take a look at the NHS plan, for the promises on improvement. And yes, that is a document written in stone, so unusual for a Govt paper.
The original figures come from the work I am doing, much of it not available on the internet I'm afraid. That said, I do have an article available on the internet which covers some of that data. I'll find you the link - I think it's here
However, if you really want to find out what waiting times were you could always contact your local Strategic Health Authority who, I'm sure, will happily show you the changes.
And I think that you'll find that the DoH (you know, the Govt department responsible for the NHS) has actually condemned what happened. You cannot blame the Govt for how an individual employee acts, that is a totally unreasonable position to take.
However, it's also worth saying - again experience tells me this - that what Ms Nicholls was told, and what was fact may have been two different things. Sadly, communication is not something that the NHS is good at. It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that the nurses involved were told that there was an increased cost to the prosthetics and that this "will be passed on", meaning that another organisation would pick up the bill. They may have assumed that this meant passed on to the patient. But that is just conjecture. Fact is Ms Nicholls has the right prosthetic now, so clearly the money was there...
Perhaps you could also ask youself another question - this time of the supplier. Why is there a price difference at all?
So what would be fast enough?
As I have already said, the additional funding became available in April this year and so less than six months have passed.
The NHS has a huge change agenda - hell even the US healthcare system is looking at what we are doing because they have never attempted anything so large on such a wide scale. What you have (in the NHS) is the largest single organisation in Europe. I don't think that many people will disagree when I say that it has been underfunded for much of its history and finally it is getting a much improved level of funding. And you expect dramatic change in less than six months?
Don't you think that is a little unreasonable?
BTW Yesterday, the independant organisation N.I.C.E said that the NHS must offer IVF treatment to all infertile couples. Current estimates put this cost at £300m. Where do you think this money will come from? More Govt funding, or existing budgets?
I won't argue with that. But then I would just reiterate what Aladdin says, look at any large organisation and you will find lots of examples of where they let people down. Sadly for the NHS (and the patients involved) the implications of an NHS mistake is higher than for most other organisations...
BTW The correct link to my articles is HERE