Iwantgreatcare - farce in the making

Taken from Iwantgreatcare.org, a new insecure website created by Dr Neil Bacon for the government which enables anonymous patients to feedback on individual doctors (see the Jobbing doctor for a good lowdown on this story):

"Q: I objectively believe this is damaging to doctors, can't you just drop this whole idea?

Respectfully, no. It is clear from the evidence base that effective communication improves clinical outcomes, improves patient satisfaction, reduces the risk of medical errors and reduces the risk of litigation. The evidence also clearly reports patients can effectively judge doctors' communication skills to this effect. If you are aware of any peer-reviewed evidence that contradicts this summary, please email details to adminservices@iwantgreatcare.org.

If you are fixed in your belief that iWantGreatCare is damaging to doctors, please consider that iWantGreatCare is advised by a range of respected doctors and the emerging requirements for revalidation make patient ratings of your care fundamental to the measurement of your work. It is also clear, even with superficial knowledge of medical history, that this is not the first and will certainly not be the last new way of working that is challenging for some doctors. "

Dear Dr Bacon and GMC/government cronies,

There is also an abundant amount of evidence that useless poorly designed insecure websites can result in a lot of damage being done very unfairly to people who do not deserve it.

In fact a lot of websites have found themselves in legal trouble for allowing the baseless assassination of people's characters on their pages, what a shame if this happened to your great website.

I like it how one can only rate doctors if they have been one's colleague recently, I find it strange that there is no mechanism for rating doctors in politics or management despite the fact that their work has a massive impact on our working lives.

Why can we not rate Lord Darzi for his work proving the government with backing for their continued destructive privatisation of the NHS?

Why can we not rate Sir Liam for his pitiful work that failed to represent the profession regarding MTAS and MMC and his hermit like existence ever since?

Why can we not rate Dame Carol for taking on a lot of responsibilities and then failing to do her job properly by neglecting glaring problems that were staring her in the face?

I wonder if this is anything to do with the fact the Iwantgreatcare was created in consultation with the GMC, the Department of Health et al.

I wonder if this is because the likes of Iwantgreatcare sum up the the complete lack of accountability that is present in the political and medicopolitical establishments which is present from the very top.

Those like myself who work on the front line are already very accountable for our actions, it is remarkably easy for a patient to complain given the mechanisms in place, the argument that Iwantgreatcare will improve patient care is disingenuous.

The real motives for it are revealed by Professor Bulstrode's slip of the tongue:

'Doctors will feel threatened'

Our morally bankrupt leaders want to control and bully the only accountable people in the NHS a bit more, it is the sign of the Stalinist system that we live in today, those at the top are free to do as they see fit and would only leave office if doctors launched a military coup to depose them from power.

Respectfully you can stick your poor excuse for a website where the sun don't shine. I have no problem receiving feedback from my patients, however if this is to be done it should be done in a very regulated and secure manner so that no unnecessary harm can result from baseless vindictive slander. The good feedback is also meaningless as the website is not secure.

So overall the site is of no benefit to anyone and could potentially result in a lot of harm coming to a profession that already has amongst the highest rates of mental illness of any profession.

Respectfully if you genuinely cared about improving patient care then you would be better off investing your efforts in forcing those in positions of power in politics and in the medical establishment to act in the best interests of doctors and patients, rather than bullying doctors and acting in their own self interest, while remaining completely unaccountable for their negligent actions.

For example in medical training the DH, PMETB, Royal Colleges and government have been found to be grossly incompetent in their actions and this must be having a massive negative negative impact on patient care. However I see that no one has been called to account yet.

One rule for us and another for our masters, again, it's alright for you though Dr Bacon, you've now engineered a position for yourself that is away from the trench rot of front line accountability. Congratulations, I hope you are proud of your achievements.

ps Have a look at the mickey take site www.iwantgreatbacon.com, very amusing indeed; Dr Crippen and Rita Pal have also had their say, while apparently Iain Dale has been defending the site on the BBC. It's funny how politicians are so keen for doctors to be subject to anonymous abuse while politicians are frequently completely unaccountable for their mistakes.