I have said it before and I'll say it again, ISTCs are expensive and dangerous. This recent BBC Panorama program says a lot of things that I have said on this blog time and time again.
The comments from the Health Minister and the regulator are beneath contempt, they are either being dishonest or they are completely ignorant of what they speak. The dangerous lack of safety at ISTCs cannot be put down to 'human error', they were down to negligence and a complete rank lack of decent procedure being in place.
ISTCs have been brought in without adequate mechanisms in place to ensure that the care they provide is of a decent and safe standard. This is the fault of the government and the regulator. The only outcomes these shoddy centres have measured are extremely soft and meaningless.
The same lack of transparency is present for many of the government's recent health reforms. No one has looked at outcomes for GP out of hour's services that have been farmed out to dodgy private firms, no one has looked at the dangerous Walk in Centres that often have some rather dodgy staff running them, no one has looked at many new health care projects that this government has forced through in a reckless manner. This government quite literally has blood on its hands, this privatisation has not only wasted our money but has also killed people.
2 comments:
I haven't watched the programme yet, but as I understand it these ISTCs display NHS logos and are stafgfed by NHS surgeons receiving NHS salaries to do the work as part of their NHS contracts. The fact that they are woefully inequipped to deal with emergencies is appalling.
there is a mix
some istcs have been employing non-UK surgeons who are not able to do what they have been set
so they are dangerous on this front too
add to this the fact that even the safe ones are often paid far more than the NHS for the same work and they therefore pay the staff fees above their NHS fees, then you have a cost ineffective danger
it's bad on so many levels
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