You and Yours today had a feature about thrombosis. They suggest on their website that “hospitals are failing to risk assess patients for DVT resulting in thousands dying needlessly”. The mortality issue around preventing DVT – blood clots – in hospitals is a very interesting one. NICE guidelines last year said that ” A note of […]
Continue Reading →Coalition loses it : the NHS really is for sale
“And in all these areas, the data will be updated regularly,” he said. Whitehall sources say that clinical audit data will show which GPs have never diagnosed a case of cancer, for example. The figures will be available from December. Information about individual GP practices will also be made available with patients able to judge […]
Continue Reading →Older people and alcohol: Royal College of Psychiatrists gets screening wrong
Much ado about the RCPsych report out today on ‘Our invisible addicts’; supposedly, older people addicted to drugs or alcohol. I don’t think this is a new concern. Part of the ‘problem’ is that the care of people with addictions has slowly got better and people are living longer. Northern Doctor has written very well […]
Continue Reading →Bayesian and needles in haystacks: why medicine is difficult to do well
and why protocols are not the answer to good diagnosis and risk management. Excellent BMJ editorial telling it like it is. “identifying those febrile young children with the greatest risk for serious infection at the time of clinical presentation is like looking for a needle in a haystack.” Essentially, if you have a child with […]
Continue Reading →Easy NHS reforms of evidence lacking and expensive healthcare items
Hospital food initiatives Choose and Book Connecting for Health / National Programme for IT http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=17511 Wash your hands campaigns, and associated badges, cut out cardboard nurses, nurses carrying clipboards to see if you washed your hands Management consultants Walk in centres ISTCs and take or pay contracts 4hour waits and associated management to enforce Homeopathic hospitals […]
Continue Reading →The Home Office, ‘Prevent’ and doctor/patient confidentiality
How I wish that politicians would stop telling doctors how to professionally behave. While we are much vexed about the Health Bill (how can there be a “u-turn” until commissioning is fully stopped?) the Home Office have put out their review of the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. I worry that the authors understand what doctors do, why they […]
Continue Reading →Tell Panorama why the health reforms are so bad
Gerry Robinson is making a programme about the proposed reforms. Panorama have said that they want to include as many GPs as possible giving their views. I have given mine (as Scottish GP looking on with alarm and horror.) Please join me. http://tinyurl.com/66ty56p
Continue Reading →Panorama and care homes
I couldn’t watch this programme. The abuse was horrific. If you don’t know already, it was about physical and emotional abuse delivered by ‘care’ staff in a private hospital to patients with complex learning disability and mental health problems. Question Time just now is going on about private vs NHS care services. There is no […]
Continue Reading →NHS reforms at the Guardian
reply below I wouldn’t argue – at all – that patient groups can be very useful for people and carers for many reasons. Patient groups, formal or informal, have been going on for years, and many people find them useful – many doctors find them useful as a resource for patients. But there are real […]
Continue Reading →Charities vs the NHS
The CEO of Marie Curie is defending the charity sector’s position in providing end-of-life care. He is arguing for the ‘Big Society’: “Make far greater use of society in healthcare. Welcome volunteers to help deliver care in every setting in the public sector. We do in the voluntary sector and it works and it is […]
Continue Reading →