Dr Rant Is Back

Lets see if they need any friendly advice from me this time

Conservative health promises

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/files/health-draft-manifesto.pdf

Death in the UK

So the Daily Telegraph today confirms what I have been saying for a long time.

Lots more people die early from dehydration under sedation in the NHS than need to.

16 % of folk in the UK die from dehydration under sedation compared to 8 % in Belgium.

This is a lot of people dying a lot sooner than they need to.

And considering many of them will be dying having had no treatment for illnesses where treatment would be routine in the rest of the developed world, this makes it even worse.

How can NHS supporters continue?

mandy and the nhs

so lord mandy got good service?

how did he get scheduled precisely to fit his holiday and work plans? none of the rest of us can?

ill give some money to charity if he didnt have a private room for recovery rather than a bed 6 inches from the bed of another patient?

i know when he had the stones last time he called lord darzi for morale support, and no doubt to encourage them to sort him out sooner

yep the nhs is great if youre a pig on this animal farm, just like blair and his heart op, even dennis skinner got a heart op in circumstances ordinary citizens wouldnt

its a sham

mandy can go ahead and praise the nhs

its makes the folk i know dying of prostate cancer having had no treatment but pain relief all the more sad

the nhs is shit for the vast majority!

Message to Lord Darzi

We the patients cannot access the NHS anywhere in the country, we do indeed have to go back to our home GP even if he is at the other side of the country to where we currently to get referred, and we cannot access GP's other than the one we are registered with

So all in all you were talking bollocks on the TV tonight

Even when not ill the NHS still gives you hassle

Had a stroppy letter from the NHS choose and book mafia today

Complaining that I have not been responding to their calls and letters (mainly cos I'd never had a call or letter prior to today)

Telling me to ring urgently to make an appointment

Well...

I was fascinated, what wonderful Star Trek style diagnosis and referral technology the NHS must be using, and how great that they can tell I need to see a consultant when I have not actually seen an NHS GP or doctor (about myself) for what 4 or 5 years now. When I've been ill it's always been impossible to use the NHS even for a simple GP appointment so I've gone private in recent history. And I don't think I've seen a private GP for ages now.

So I rang up, confirmed my ID, oh how funny. They think I have a whole bunch of illness and have been referred by my GP. Sadly for them I don't, and the useless "too many tweets" NHS GP has never seen me, as a patient, so quite where such a magical diagnosis came from I have no idea.

So I pointed this out to the lady wasting my time and phone bill from choose and book, and of course she blamed the GP.

I feel sorry for the real patient who really does need to see a consultant who this useless bunch of idiots have let down. No doubt they will lie about events if the patient complains about his late referral.

More crap from GPs

What the NHS web site says:

Medical Exemption Application Process

How To Apply
If you suffer from one of the specified conditions ask for an application form FP92A, available from your doctor's surgery. You need to fill in parts 1 and 2 and your doctor (or an authorised member of the practice staff) will sign to confirm the information youve given is correct.

The surgery will arrange to send completed application forms to our office, using pre-paid envelope PPAEXENV, at:

NHS Business Services Authority
Help With Health Costs
Medical Exemption
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 1DB

What the local GP says:

Sorry we dont post these forms, happy to sign it but you will have to post it yourself.

Forcing the patient to take more time off work to queue up to collect the form from the surgery. They clearly think they are saving the cost of the stamp.

Useless GPs as per usual.

Do GPs really think patients would put up with crap like this if there was any choice of GP at all?

well worth a read

http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2009/07/26/a-not-very-healthy-budget/

Loosing your sight the NHS way

So you are pregnant

You are also diabetic

You have had the routine retinal scans

You've been called in to see the consultant because they were very concerned about the retinal scan

The consultant says "you must come back in three weeks, do not miss the appointment, this is very important, you are in danger of loosing your sight" and writes in big letters on the appointment form for his admin staff "DO NOT POSTPONE THIS APPOINTMENT, IT MUST TAKE PLACE ON GIVEN DATE", he also verbally complains that mostly his appointments get cancelled and postponed a long time into the future

A few days later you receive a letter from the NHS, "We are sorry we are cancelling your appointment, we have made a new appointment at X" where X in long way in the future

Absolute disgrace

NHS dentists demand deposit

I realise even I don't realise how crap the NHS has become

And yes I know large parts of the country have no NHS dentistry at all

But it has come to my attention that NHS dentists are now routinely demanding a credit card payment for the full price of the check-up before giving a check-up appointment over the phone

And demanding a £100 deposit before offering an appointment to look at someone with tooth ache, similarly to be paid by credit card over the phone

What is going on? Even top flight consultants see private patients on the more traditional basis of getting paid after the event

The NHS really is crap

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

Lots of patients think Coventry PCT is Rubbish

thanks

I hereby give credit to the great GP's, the great nurses, other health professionals, workers, cleaners, receptionists, in the best practises in the country

I give credit to the warm caring folk in palliative care, the consultants, docs, nurses, auxiliaries, volunteers, cleaners, all of them

Merry Christmas

And may all the patients in NHS hospitals be given their pain relief much more promptly after requesting it in NHS wards

May the Healthcare commission be banned from giving good and better ratings to any hospital repeatedly slated by the local coroners

Unlike Dr Crippen I've been spending the days of the Christmas season on NHS premises, and in homage to the great Dr Crippen if anyone comes up to me and says "you're not Dr Rant" I'll give them a sweetie

What would I do instead of the NHS?

In a quick (no time) nutshell
1) Everyone pays whatever they currently pay in tax for the NHS into a new "state backed medical insurance fund"
2) That fund has minimal headcount, circa 20 or 30 people max, less if they outsource more of the donkey work
3) All NHS providers of care are sold or given away to whoever wants them, else they get shut down, all hospitals etc are then forced to compete for patients directly with patients (and by implication with their GPs, but patient keeps the ultimate choice)
4) For most secondary care on diagnosis patient gets give a cheque by "state backed medical insurance fund" to take anywhere they dam well want, including abroad, including to BUPA etc with a top up of their own if they so choose
5) State stops funding cheap/infrequent stuff for the vast majority, so GP appointments are charged at full commercial rates, free market allows some innovation, and patients and doctors come to better compromises about what suits both sides
6) Central NHS IT is shut down, all senior bods involved sacked from where ever they are in government/public sector and never allowed to work again, lock them up, throw rotten fruit at them
7) To compensate for 5 above, SBMIF covers expensive stuff much better, much better funds for cancer treatments, heart treatments etc
8) Special dispensations to 5 for folk with long term life threatening conditions, diabetics etc, SBMIF picks up tab
9) Some subsidies for rare places, remote parts of Scotland etc, dished out directly to patients for them to spend locally as they see fit
10) Any patient is allowed to go to any doctor or consultant, no artificial barriers to access
11) All doctors are forced to work one year in four in an inner city
12) Task force sent round "best of rest of world" such as Europe, New Zealand, States, and brings back best practise from those areas and refines regulations with this in mind
13) Medical business becomes a state regulated not a state run business
14) NHS dentistry is abandoned, poorest patients given cheques to take to any dentist they choose
Needs a good transition plan, wouldn't want to do it overnight, but over the course of say 4 years this could be implemented easily

Docs issuing prescriptions with no signature

And pharmacy's handing out the drugs when the prescription has no signature

And some prescription signatures are nothing more than a one or two centimetre straight line

Are the GP receptionists so clever that they don't actually need the docs to keep the patients prescriptions flowing?

Or does this make a mockery of the whole prescription system?

Does anyone audit the prescriptions returned to the nhs for payment from the pharmacies to verify the signatures even exist?

Are docs too busy to be bothered with which patients get which drugs when?

Is self-prescribing and self-referral really so much worse than this?

Are the untrained receptionists way out of their depth?

Man dies after inhaling anthrax

I wonder, was he told to piss off you don't get antibiotics in the nhs for a chest infection until you've visited the doctor at least half a dozen times? Fuck off and die cos that's gonna solve the c diff problem much better than actually cleaning the wards of the hospitals?

Fucking useless cunts in the NHS

So we have the comments

"The death rate from inhalation anthrax is very high regardless of clinical intervention. As far as I am aware there is nothing to suggest that this mans care was sub-standard.

How this example relates to everyone in the NHS being cunts is beyond me."

Which is bollocks, anthrax is routinely wiped out by antibiotics if caught early enough

The NHS are cunts because those old fashioned medical fashions like examinations and taking history from the patient have been replaced by "looks similar to the cold flu to me, we don't give antibiotics out for that, go away and come back if it doesn't clear up" if you can get to see a doc in the first place

Another related tale, nothing to do with Anthrax but brings similar issues out:

Large family on holiday somewhere in Asia, towards the end of the holiday they all develop minor cold like symptoms

At the end of the holiday half the family fly to Australia, the other half to the UK

The symptoms for the entire family get worse, sore throat, fever, etc and all of them go to different docs in Australia and the UK.

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM IN AUSTRALIA WAS GIVEN ANTIBIOTICS and was symptom free within a few days

Every single one of them in the UK was given the old fuck off its a cold we don't give antibiotics for that clap trap, and went on to have a fever and bad symptoms for 2 weeks or more

NOW IM NOT A MEDIC but this demonstrates for me how fucked up and useless the NHS is, stories like this are too common place, my own experience of the difference between prescriptions from private docs in the UK and the non prescription from NHS fucktards is all there for the public to see day in day out

The lies and crap from the NHS are so obvious for all to see

THAT'S WHY THE NHS IS FULL OF CUNTS

Late opening of GP surgeries

So now even the most battle hardened 9-5 GP surgeries (or so they claimed, 10.30 till 3.30 more like in practise) are now caving in and doing the bare minimum to tick the "late opening" box to keep their political masters happy, and no doubt trigger some incentive payment or other
Lets look at it from the patient perspective

So your GP's have 3 physical sites, spread quite far apart, THEY ONLY NEED TO DO LATE SURGERIES AT ONE OF THESE 3 SITES to satisfy the politicians

Lets look at the type of appointments, "no emergencies", "no appointments made the same day", "no appointments for routine procedures such as blood pressure check", "no dressing change by nurse"

and while we cannot register with any other GP (we tried when we moved here but the closed shop dictates all other GPs will refuse to register anyone at this address and claim we are "too far away", yet these are the 2nd and 3rd (and so on) closest surgeries, giving the patient in practise no choice of GP at all

So no consumer pressure able to force the GP's to open at more client friendly hours, cos the patients have no say in who their GP is, and only the top down government dictat which means that if you attend one of the 2 surgeries where this practise of 3 sites works you will not be able to access any out of hours appointments

Late appointments for GPs seems to be a bit of a laugh as well, as they close well before most commuters will have returned home

So all in all the government spin and mismanagement have led to hype and change but the piss poor access for the patients remains

'Stayin' Alive' has near-perfect rhythm for CPR

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/10/16/disco.song.health.ap/index.html

Scottish NHS in under investigation for breaking European competition laws

European Commission has written to the Government asking it to explain exactly how a contract for a new telephone network was awarded to BT

Patricia being employed by BT doesnt have anything to do with it

how rubbish is the nhs

anyone in any doubt at how rubbish the nhs is should read, and the feedback from the public

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/health/3204594/Two-thirds-of-patients-fail-to-get-GPs-appointment-within-48-hours.html

as ever the patients dont rate the crap they get from the rationed nhs, they know the service in other western countries is significantly better

and yet it continues

i see the healthcare commission have rated the trusts, im really struggling as some of the best rated trusts are in my personal experience crap, how can such much effort be going into monitoring the nhs and yet have so little clue how massively crap it is

the leaders of many of these trusts should be stuck in prison for the rest of their lifes, its that bad, how dare they take the public purse and provide such shit?

i really dont know