Monday 3 August 2009

Morons, swines, cretins and fools


These are the people that run the NHS and that waste ridiculous amounts of money on various useless harebrained schemes that are usually aimed at pretending to do something rather than actually doing anything of any use. The swine flu drama has encapsulated just how utterly pathetic the people are who run and managed the health service from the very top.

Swine flu is a a disease which differs little from severity from several winter viruses, but the English NHS is behaving as if we are in the middle of an Ebloa epidemic. Call centre operatives are making diagnoses on the basis of no training at all, indeed one can even dispense with the call centre and simply diagnose oneself on-line - they are then dispensing a drug of uncertain benefit, but with known side effects and with a documented ability to produce resistance, 'prescribed' by either a computer or a call centre operative with no discernible medical training or skill.

As I have read elsewhere it is rather obvious that many people will have died and will die due to various untrained and uneducated people assuming that every febrile illness is swine flu, thus people who are unfortunate enough to get a severe case of meningitis, urosepsis, cholangitis, endocarditis, and on and on will just be left at home to die because it's 'probably swine flu'. Stories of various patients being refused hospital admission by those without medical degrees with febrile illnesses which were clearly not swine flu are already coming to light. Various numpties have been empowered to diagnose swine flu, who needs doctors? Well, no one does if you would rather die.

This little story also captured my imagination, the DOH is commissioning management consultants KPMG to report on a vision for a digital strategy for the NHS. Well, whoopeedoo, why not waste more money on reviewing just how many completely useless schemes you can come up with to compliment NHS Direct and NHS Choices while diverting more money away from the frontline services that actually make a difference to patients.

I will review NHS Direct and NHS Choices for free, the former is a dangerous waste of money while the latter is more of a plain waste of money. The sad thing is that both the Tories and Labour want to continue to develop this market of madness which simply involves around paying off various big companies to generate more useless NHS bureaucracy that does sod all of any good for patients. What hope is there for the NHS, there is no choice for voters, we are doomed either way.

3 comments:

GP Informed said...

But surely you realise the Dept of Health only exists to spread the gospil of best management practice throughout the land?. We all look forward to the glorious day when managers will be responsible for individual patient care - armed only with a flowchart and a MBA from the Formerpoly of Scunthorpe these brave warriors will usurp the doctors and nurses and no will will ever be ill again.

Old Codger said...

You have to remember that Dave waits for input from his focus groups. As long as they think NHS Direct and NHS Choices are not vote losers they won't tell Dave to change them.

One doesn't have to vote for either Gordon or the Tone clone. Although it might shake Dave up if he realised that relying on Gordon to lose was not the best option I doubt it would make any difference to the NHS.

Old Codger said...

GP Informed said:
"We all look forward to the glorious day when managers will be responsible for individual patient care".

I fear that day is not too far away. My local practice used to have a practice manager who seemed to run the place. Introduced an 0844 telephone number "to improve patient care". Responded to any critical letters written to a partner by attacking the writer without even mentioning the partner. She should not have been allowed within a mile of any customer. She organised a computer system upgrade so that the system was down for days, just before last Christmas. Electronic communication was impossible. Appointments could not be made in advance. The dispensary was in chaos for weeks, and all over the Christmas period, still doesn't seem quite back to normal. She is now the business partner.