The BritMeds 2007 (20)

We should treat our doctors like gods
By Andrew O'Hagan

Let us stop talking about British health institutions as if they were something to be ashamed of - undermining them, short-changing them - and railing against our health workers as if they were behaving shamefully, and let us begin to invest a little feeling and a little belief in what they are and what they could be.

A work of genius

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Patricia Hewitt is a crooked, dishonest, scheming, unprincipled, oleaginous, incompetent, transparently ambitious, devious, calculating, wily, underhand, Machiavellian, corrupt, amoral, deceitful, unethical, insincere, unscrupulous, inept bungling slime ball.

You think I am exaggerating?

Read this delicious story about Hewitt, unearthed by the ever reliable Mr Eugenides.

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Wasting money on medication?

The BBC and the Guardian have both run a story about £100m worth of drugs being wasted each year by patients. I'm shocked. Shocked that it's only £100m per year. The real figure is going to be far higher. I have returned medicines collected every couple of months by a contractor. They normally take away seven or eight sackfuls of drugs - thousands of pounds worth. As an example, I have had two boxes of Casodex (at £240 per box), two seretide 250/25 inhalers (£75 each) and 30 diamorphine ampoules returned recently. Once something has left the pharmacy it can't be reused. There are two reasons for this. Firstly I don't know how it has been stored, and secondly I have already claimed payment for the drugs…..

The UK Commuity Pharmacist shows it is even worst than you thougt.

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A memo to Gordon Brown:

If you could change 5 things about how the NHS is led and managed what would they be? An American reader emailed this question to me yesterday and I've been mulling it over this evening, during a train journey to Edinburgh.

The Changing NHS

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Closing down maternity units

A hospital administrator (poacher turned gamekeeper – she used to be a nurse) seems to argue that maternity units are not safe if they are not backed up by paediatric units. So, if you have no paediatric unity, you must closed the maternity unit.

But, just a minute, who closed the paediatric units?

Let's not jump to conclusions…

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The cost of medical care for a hamster

How much should GPs get paid compared with, say, vets? They plainly get less - or so Dr Grumble thinks. Dr Grumble knows quite a few GPs and he has been in their homes. Mostly they are very modest. He knows where his vet lives (Mrs Grumble once had 22 pets to care for). He has not been in the vet's house. It's up a very long drive and there are big electric gates at the end. There's usually building work going on there - new swimming pools, that sort of thing. It's very grand….

Dr Grumble compares GPs and Vets

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GPs prescribe too much Prozac

There is no help for us, except our GPs.

Since I called that health visitor for help all those weeks ago the only person to have shown concern is my GP. The health visitor hasn’t rung back to check on Zach’s welfare or me. It makes me wonder what the hell health visitors are for? That’s a lot of salary for a weekly weighing machine.

Emily tells the other side of the story in Prozac Nation

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Big Pharma rules, OK?

The cost of drugs has been rising at about 7% every year compared with the rest of the costs of the NHS at about 3%. Big pharma has the NHS over a barrel and spend a great deal of time selling its wares through talking to patient groups, doctors and the media. Headlines such as 'NHS refuses to treat alzheimers patients' are a clear example - perhaps it is because the new drug is unproven, unreliable, ineffective , and therefore pointless.

Green the Health Service

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Hang the nurse specialists

The Mental nurse (specialist?) comes out fighting

The moral of the tale is this: blogs like Dr Crippen’s might be popular, but at the end of they day they’re still just one man’s opinion, and not necessarily an informed opinion at that.

Quite right too.

See The Mental nurse and the Dr Crippen reply here

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Truly righteous indignation from an angry medical student sitting exams

Firstly - I wrote about Monday's exam here, since then, it has come to light that that some students at one of the base hospitals were given 35 extra sample questions at a revision session for their base hospital. Of these 35 questions, 12 appeared in the real exam.

Full story here

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Trotting up Everest with Tony Plant

Tony’s Happenstance blog had always been a source of “good things” but has been silent recently. And no wonder. Someone just spotted him on Everest.

Click on the photo, Tony Plant (Happystance) is the chap in front, on the left hand side, wearing the Buff beanie.

He looks happy and healthy enough. Apparently, Trek K made it to Base Camp in a new record time. Excellent news because the last that I heard, Tony was 1 of only 3 people out of the 16 who had *not been 'visited by the monkey' which I gather is a local colloquialism for a nasty GI infection - the scourge of many treks.

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Closing hospitals

Under current reconfiguration plans City Hospital, the most central general acute hospital in Britain's second biggest city faces losing inpatient beds for emergency general and trauma surgery and for children.

Supporting City Hospital

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Words failed Dr Crippen when he read this article by some batty old coote. Can someone help?

A healthy attitude to politics

Patricia Hewitt is an intelligent, clear-thinking, diligent minister with an an aversion to social oiliness - she is far from incompetent.

“In praise of Patricia”

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Too much sex

The NHS is failing to ensure all non-emergency hospital patients are kept in single-sex accommodation, the government has admitted. Campaigners say mixed-sex accommodation denies patients the chance of treatment with "privacy, respect and dignity".

Socialized medicine

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I was NOT being witty

NHS Blog Doctor has been doing an energetic job publicising the MTAS débacle. He wittily goes on to suggest that the Nationalised Health Service should have a fee at the point of use…..

Purple Scorpion

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More lies, lies, lies from the BBC….

The BBC Cancer Week news special is really getting on my nerves. Every day they spew forth more smoke and mirrors rubbish for English consumption.

Waking Hereward

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A breast specialist looks at Patricia Hewitt's boobs

Time was when anyone with a vibrator up their rectum would have their x-rays shown around the doctors mess - with the marvels of PACS and the NHS IT system the images can be shared with the whole world. Let all hope it's not Patricia biggest boob.

Dr Ray

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Dangerous bugs are on the rise

…blood-sucking creatures move north. So how can we protect ourselves?

Kate Craven

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It’s not just MTAS that leaks like a sieve

The medical testing arm of pharmaceutical giant Roche has exposed the personal and medical details of UK customers on its website. The firm has admitted the security breach but has not explained how it happened. Customers who had registered their details with Roche Diagnostics received the first edition of an email newsletter on Wednesday which included a link via which they could update their personal details. Users who clicked on that link were directed to a Roche website which displayed the details of someone else.

The Register

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And it is not just MTAS and Big Pharma that leaks like a sieve

30,000 disabled people had sensitive personal information including bank account details stolen last September, Liberal Democrat research has revealed.

Recipients of Independent Living Funds and civil servants working on the scheme had personal information including their names, addresses, National Insurance numbers and bank account details stolen when a van was broken into last year.

Public Technology

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Famous blogger prints picture of injured patient

A courageous post from Random Acts of Reality

Tom Reynolds

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Rant and Crippen are in trouble…

Some of the more notorious sites such as the tasteless Dr Rant have, I regret to inform you, been less than generous in their assessment of yourself and your predecessors in the Department of Health. By pointing out deficiencies in the NHS I believe these sites are subversive and serve to increase patient anxiety. It may be that these sites seek to drive patients to the private sector by circulating tales of patients being treated by unqualified quacktitioners on MRSA infested NHS wards and in support of this I would point you to the large number of advertisements for private care on the disgraceful Dr Crippen Blogsite.

A new voice

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Discrimination

Two lesbians who lost their nursing jobs have won what is described as a record amount in a sexuality discrimination case in the UK.

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NHS fails cancer patients

Cancer patients are being systematically let down by the radiotherapy services in England, a damning government report concludes. Lengthy waits and huge variations in service from place to place mean that tens of thousands of patients every year are receiving substandard service, reducing their chances of survival. The report to ministers from a top-level committee, whose broad conclusions were first revealed in The Times last month, calls for urgent action. "Unless action is taken without delay, the Government will lose the opportunity to save lives, and services in this country will fall further behind those of other comparable countries" the National Radiotherapy Advisory Group says.

Socialized medicine

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Transform????

The latest web technology has the potential to disrupt the NHS status quo - but it could transform our experience of healthcare

Paul Hodgkin and James Munro

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Medical student needs help

If any of you doctor types out there have any useful advice or tips for me, please please please leave a comment! That also includes any 4th/5th/final years who have been through the thing before.

Of short white coats

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A lament for the Fat Doctor

It was with great sadness and a sense of irritation on her behalf, that I discovered yesterday that the Fat Doctor blog is no more. Some wicked person had found it, printed the whole thing out and shown it to her boss…….

Life in the NHS

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Older people are often denied medical treatment because of age discrimination.

Obesity and the Salt conection

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Spring cleaning the NHS

ANGRY doctors ambushed health secretary Patricia Hewitt amid allegations their hospital was specially cleaned for her visit.

Full story here

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Even the rich and famous need ambulances…

It was Saturday night, and my friend A and I were off to a party somewhere in the midsts of the West Sector, in one of those places that I’m not convinced really exists. I should have known it was a bad idea. It was a very decadent party, with a outdoor jacuzzi, a chocolate fountain

Newnaw in West London


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Whistleblowing in the wind?

A new hotline for those who suspect malpractice in medical research has not been universally welcomed.

Science Misconduct

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The MMC/MTAS week

still she clings on to office

The final update from RemedyUK on:

Patricia Hewitt v the doctors

RemedyUK

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A detailed analysis of the mess left behind now that MTAS has gone. The problems are only just beginning.

An excellent article from Dr Grumble

Unfinished business

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The now famous HACK cartoon for RemedyUK

Take a look here

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As always, the Ferret Fancier has an excellent selection of articles:

Doctors, nurses and other NHS workers are quitting the NHS in their droves. Some are emigrating and others are switching careers. These highly skilled workers did not come cheap either, each doctor cost over two hundred thousand pounds to train.

The "flexible" labour market

This letter in the Times by Carol Black and James Johnson has created a storm of controversy with hundreds of doctors writing to voice their disagreement. It must be noted that Carol Black was directly appointed by Patricia Hewitt to her role, and that the DoH is refusing to release information concerning how she has been briefed to carry out this role. James Johnson is the beleaguered BMA boss who seems intent on siding with the government in just about everything.

Bite My Arse - the BMA

Either way, there does come a point where appeasement is no longer an option. That point was passed long ago, the malignant quango PMETB has been used by the government as a tool to force through their cynical policies.

Appeasement is rife

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The Save Bedford Hospital site says:

See you in court

a junior doctor’s view


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Nail hit on head shock horror

MTAS: Ditched. Hewitt: Still on £255,000 a year.

SJHoward

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Patricia Hewitt in the Dock

Dr Michelle Tempest


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The DK discovers the real culpril behind MTAS.

Given this mind-boggling catalogue of incompetence, laziness, and stupidity we really should be looking for someone to blame. So who should that be? Let's look to PMQs to enlighten us, shall we?

Mr Hague said his question had been about junior doctors. He asked who was responsible in government for the "fiasco" of the online recruitment system.

After a pause, Mr Prescott said….

You will not believe the answer. All at the Devil’s Kitchen

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The risks of the MTAS whistle blowers being prosecuted.

Will bloggers get the blame for DoH mess?
Criminal charges for who?

Tim Worstall

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And from Dr Rant…

This piece was written by Dr Clive Peedell, whom Dr Rant greatly admires. His words have appeared here several times in the past. It was originally posted on DNUK, and provides the evidence that shows MTAS was used a research project for Professor Fiona Patterson to help validate her ideas for selection of doctors into higher training.

This is a scandal.

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MTAS canned

"She added that intensive security checks had been made of the website and the MTAS computer system, allowing it to reopen partially. A report was being sent to the police and Miss Hewitt admitted that "criminal offences may have been committed".

Indeed, criminal offences may have been committed. In fact, I'd say it's very much an odds on certainty. So we have the (I believe a reference to Kafka is obligatory here) situation whereby a grossly incompetent, almost certainly law breaking, computer system is online but anyone who checks that it is indeed lawbreaking and/or incompetently put together is guilty of an offense.

More from Tim

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And the cost of the MTAS fiasco?

Let’s start at £6 million…..

Burning our money

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Please send your recommendations for next week’s BritMeds to: thebritmedsATnhsblogdoc.wanadoo.co.uk

The BritMeds will now be published on Saturday morning, so please let me have your recommendations by Friday evening latest.