Thursday 29 March 2007

Born free......and unaccountable


In the news today Margaret Beckett has been slammed for her role in the fiasco of reforming farm subsidies. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee reported that she oversaw a shambles that has already seen millions of tax payers cash wasted, and several poor farmers have committed suicide as a result of the affair. There was also a mention of a useless computerised system that crashed, sounding familiar isn't it. You can read more about it here, here, here and here.

So what happens to Margaret Beckett afterwards? She is promoted to foreign secretary. That's yet another example of how accountable our politicians are for their negligent work. It does seem to stem from their leader a one Tony Blair, who did take us to war on very shaky grounds indeed, a decision that has since been shown to have been based on propaganda and not credible evidence.

This tale of useless reform, wasted tax payer's cash and crashing computers sounds remarkably like our good old buddy MTAS (Medical Training Application Service). The lack of accountability demonstrated by those who have forced this ill considered reform upon on is quite remarkable. I am referring here to the likes of Liam Donaldson, Patricia Hewitt, Alan Crockard, Neil Douglas and possibly even people even higher up the chain of command.

It heartens me to learn that Professor Alan Crockard has been reported to the GMC for his role in the MTAS debacle. It will be very interesting to see whether the GMC feel he has remained true to their 'Good Medical Practice'. It does seem that the GMC's guidelines are routinely ignored by several senior doctors involved in the current government reform agenda, one rule for them and another for us. Our 'self appointed' leaders are seemingly unaccountable for huge decisions that affect millions, while we are held accountable for much smaller decisions that affect individuals. Totalitarian justice has appeared.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi

This comment relates to the MTAS FAQ but comments are not possible on that post.

I have put the document up as a Wiki with room for comments, your critque in detail would be good. Might be worth going into things in detail.

Anonymous said...

Someone posted a rumour that Cockard may have resigned:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=OPKENPOWI0AJNQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?view=BLOGDETAIL&grid=F11&blog=yourview&xml=/news/2007/03/08/blpetition08.xml&posted=true&_requestid=384086

x said...

I believe that there is indeed no accountability. Crockard apparently ( according to my sources) used to be a decent guy when he was a junior doctor. For some reason he seems to have lost touch with the normal profession and now lacks in insight.

Yes, we all attempt to report those who have done something wrong to the General Medical Council. You only have to read my blog to find out that the GMC will simply let old Crockchops off.

Nice blog btw.

Dr Rita Pal
www.nhsexposed.com
www.nhsexposedblog.blogspot.com

Garth Marenghi said...

indeed, crockard has gone, hopefully the domino game can begin now.