A Fresh Start

Apologies to all for the prolonged, unplanned and unexpected absence.

I have just caught up with some of the emails and the ever reliable Wat Tyler at Burning our Money has drawn my attention to some of the speculation about the inactivity of NHS BLOG DOCTOR.

Much of the speculation has, to borrow a hackneyed phrase, been exaggerated. I am alive and well; I have not been abducted, murdered, struck off or sectioned; I have not eloped, I have not been drying-out in the Priory, and I have not been canoeing off Seaton Carew. The truth, as is so often the case, is more mundane. Pressure of work, family and other commitments made it increasingly difficult to sustain the writing.

Hewitt had gone, unlamented, and there was a spark of hope generated by the appointment of the more reasonable and rational Alan Johnson. And was there not, for a brief moment, a window through which it seemed that Gordon Brown was going to abandon spin and deliver some real improvement?

Oh! Credulous Crippen.

But could I continue to write about the NHS? I had said it all before, and said it so many times. Does anyone listen? Does anyone believe what I say?

If fifty Marks and Spencer customers died of food poisoning after buying salmonella tainted sandwiches, Sir Stuart and his colleagues would be gone. There would be prosecutions for corporate manslaughter. Fifty NHS customers die of clostridium difficile or MRSA because our hospitals are filthy and Alan Johnson does not bat an eyelid. The focus groups are consulted and the Prime Minister announces that more infection control nurse-specialists will be appointed. More irritating, ill-educated, micro-managing commissars with clip boards rushing round the hospital talking about “germs” and generally getting on everyone's tits. Meanwhile, there will be even fewer nurses on the front line providing nursing care so the hospitals will get even dirtier. But the focus groups will be happy.

Morale in the NHS is lower than ever and my brief return in the Autumn after a summer break made me feel like a medical Sisyphus.

I could not face it. I turned off the computer, metaphorically and literally. I have not looked at a blog for three months.

Last Saturday, we had a re-union dinner of a group of doctors who have kept in touch since medical school. Some GPs, some consultants, and even a well known medical politician. You would have heard of him. All long-standing friends and all, over the last two years, a constant source of inside-track information. They have been missing their opportunity to vent their spleen through Dr Crippen.

And then, one of those wine-induced dinner-party epiphanies. The Paediatric Professor who we first met in Mrs Crippen’s Vagina said,

“You know, if I were suddenly taken ill, I would be terrified to be admitted to a British NHS Hospital.”

We went round the table. Each and every one of the ten doctors present felt the same.

It is time to start again.