Back in sunny blighty

The fancier has been away on Alpine slopes for the last week, trying to get away from the torture of training in the NHS by bombing down steep slopes at high speed using cognac as his source of fuel. He has returned in one piece, although a little battered and bruised, and is still feeling rather militant having switched on his lap top again.

The issue of quacks has been prominent in the news recently, it seems the never ending government drive to hand power to the under trained is gathering momentum.

Have a look at this document, it gives the Blair game away; it comes straight from the horse's mouth, Alan Maynard's mouth that is, a health economist who allies himself with brainless government schemes:

www.health.nsw.gov.au/amwac/amwac/pdf/9_phyprod_uk.pdf

In para 5.ii of this piece, the government agenda is revealed:

"These reforms are part of Blair`s frustration with the slow rate of change in NHS service delivery. At the outset, he offered more funding in exchange for the NHS "acting smarter". This exchange, he believes, has not been met by providers. More expenditure has not been accompanied by improved service delivery. Consequently he is seeking to undermine the monopoly power of physicians with investment in other skill groups with enhanced roles. This bold policy is largely evidence free; many assert that nurses may be retrained to take over medical roles cost effectively but the quantity of trials are poor. Such issues have yet to inhibit the Government!"

The implication of this statement is frankly terrifying. Tony Blair has deliberately undermined the monopoly of physicians by empowering quacks, such as the nurse practitioner and the physicians assistant. This is 'largely evidence free' policy and this fact doesn't inhibit the government's drive, no surprises there then. The danger posed by this cynical destruction of proper medical training cannot be understated; patients have died as a direct result of this shabby logic and many more will continue to do so unless something is done. Rather than seeing physicians as such a threat, it would have been far more sensible to try and work with these highly trained professionals to improve the service; but then again this kind of wanton destruction of functional institutions is typical of New Labour's paranoid megalomaniacal nature.

Continuing on this theme , it seems there is a complete lack of any decent evidence to show that PFI is a decent way to spend tax payer's cash. Allyson Pollock, a person the government should be listening to and not ignoring when it comes to health policy, succinctly points out the gaping flaws and lack of transparency concerning PFI schemes here. There are some excellent readers comments too.

This excellent bit of digging has uncovered a phenomenal amount of NHS University wastage, it seems the DoH tried to block this information getting out into the public domain; surely the DoH wouldn't cynically abuse the Freedom of Information act to prevent embarrassing evidence of their cock ups coming to light? I agree with Dr Rant.

Many thanks to Dr Rant for nominating the fancier as a 'thinking blogger', I am glad that someone other than my girlfriend at gunpoint reads my ranting.

For anyone who hasn't found the excellent Dr Crippen as yet, his round up of british medical blogs really is something to behold, even if it does shorten the weekend significantly. His mocking of Patricia Hewitt's dastardliness is well worth a read too. I really find it hard to read that ignorant woman's words without wanting to invest my fist in her malingering chops.