Government Incompetence
We have spent unparalleled sums. Yet we have an NHS that is falling in productivity. -Julia Manning
Dozens of National Health Service (NHS) officials with responsibility for deciding which drugs the service uses are also being paid as consultants by pharmaceutical firms, it has emerged, prompting the Ministry of Health to order an inquiry into the allegations. -Donna Rachel Edmunds 
On establishing the NHS, Nye Bevan predicted that, after the first few years, the system would cost the taxpayer less because the population would become healthier. He could not have been more wrong. Its total annual budget has risen over a hundredfold... -Phillip Lee
British doctors slammed the system as “worse than communist China,” condemning the “toxic professional working environment” created when abusive managers or bureaucrats have as much or more power than doctors themselves.
Hate, Government, Incompetence, Character, Threats, Socialism, Healthcare
Hundreds of doctors have been accused of bullying and sexually harassing colleagues in the past five years, prompting concern that a culture of intimidation is thriving in the NHS.
Data shows that reports of bullying and harassment rose from 420 in 2013-14 to 585 in 2017-18. The figures, obtained by the Guardian using a freedom of information request, showed only a fraction of these cases led to dismissal or disciplinary action. Leading doctors were troubled by the findings, which showed the sheer scale of bullying in the NHS...
Ralph Fevre, professor of social research in the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, said that the “dreadful situation” of many NHS employees was “compounded by the anger of patients [and their relatives] who are getting the kind of service we might expect from an organisation at breaking point”.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Half of nurses are working through breaks or beyond their shift, revealing a health service under severe strain, a report has warned. A survey of almost 3,000 nurses by Unison showed that two-thirds believed they did not spend enough time with patients, which most said affected care... The report, Running on Empty, said half of nurses were not confident about raising any concerns they had with their local managers.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Fraud is costing the NHS £5bn a year, with a further £2bn lost to financial errors, the former head of its anti-fraud section says. The amount lost to fraud alone could pay for nearly 250,000 new nurses, a report seen by Panorama suggests.
Crime, Hate, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Earlier this week, its own watchdog warned that some GP surgeries were putting thousands of lives at risk by failing to meet even the most basic standards of hygiene. The Care Quality Commission discovered maggots on the floor of consulting rooms, nurses not trained in basic first aid and patients being given jabs for meningitis, cervical cancer and measles that were out of date and probably ineffective.
Police have even been called in to probe claims that staff at Colchester Hospital fiddled figures to hide the fact that some patients waited up to six months for cancer treatment. -Sophie Borland
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Socialism, Healthcare, Regulation
As UK Prime Minister David Cameron eyes up the financial gain in privatizing more of the NHS, this review looks at the failures of the organization from staff shortages to gross misconduct that led to tens of thousands of deaths. The proposal to initiate the NHS came through disguising the health tax that “would be regarded as a profitable form of insurance,” a medical dentist and author, Lawson Dodd, wrote in 1911. The aim was to reduce national health costs through prevention and sanitary control. However, this was simply not the case. Annual budgets faced black holes since the launch of the NHS on July 5, 1948 as pre-launch budget estimates for 1946 to 1947 stood at £110 million, which proved to be heavily underrated.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
THE NATIONAL Health Service financial crisis could lead to the closure of a string of hospitals and accident and emergency departments, the Sunday Express has discovered. Several trusts could be forced to close because of their financial difficulties or those of next door trusts which are saddled with massive debts. Many have debts running into tens of millions of pounds and their only way of staying open is to axe services.
No Room In An Empty Hospital...
The Daily Mail relayed the story of one 78-year-old British grandmother with breast cancer who was denied surgery at a local clinic because of Covid-19 restrictions, even though the hospital was empty.
Lack of proper treatment and diagnosis is expected to result in an extra 50,000 cancer deaths in Britain.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs
The British Medical Association (BMA) meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland heard that doctors in the UK were resorting to alcohol or even suicide because they could not cope with the pressures of their work. “Stress and burn-out in doctors can be catastrophic, putting our patients at risk while ruining the careers of students and doctors at all levels,” warned Dr Jamie Green, from the BMA’s Junior Members Forum. Dr Sangeetha Sornalingam, also from the BMA’s Junior Doctors Forum, said that the burnout in doctors caused them to leave the profession and look for work overseas.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
A second whistleblower has come forward to claim that the head of the National Health Service ignored written warnings about failings in a hospital trust which is being investigated for persistently high death rates. David Bowles, the former chairman of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (ULHT), said he sent a letter in July 2009 to the chief executive of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, warning that patients could die there because managers were being forced to meet unrealistic targets.
A plan to create the world's largest single civilian computer system linking all parts of the National Health Service is to be abandoned by the Government after running up billions of pounds in bills. Ministers are expected to announce next month that they are scrapping a central part of the much-delayed and hugely controversial 10-year National Programme for IT.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Last week, the Financial Times reported that its own research revealed that the British "National Health Service is suffering a 'brain drain' of doctors as more medics trained at taxpayers' expense choose to pursue their careers overseas." More than 8,000 doctors have left since 2008, said the Financial Times. And it's not Britain's problem alone. Nearly 10% of Canadian-trained doctors end up in the U.S. Several factors were mentioned for the losses in Britain. Among them are "improved lifestyle and better weather ... higher pay, shorter hours and superior arrangements for professional study."
Government, Incompetence, Greed, Socialism, Healthcare, Corruption
London: A former NHS hospital chief turned whistleblower has been paid £500,000 (Dh2.8 million) in a ‘supergag’ deal to prevent him discussing his concerns about patient safety. Gary Walker said he was asked to “compromise the safety of patients in order to achieve government targets” at the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust where he worked. Last night, an MP compared the situation to the scandal at Mid Staffordshire Trust where up to 1,200 patients died “unnecessarily” because of the focus on targets. Tory MP Stephen Phillips said he suspected there has been a scandal of “similar proportions” at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust.
Environmentalist, Warming, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Funny, Socialism, Healthcare
An elderly woman was ordered to find a new GP because the “carbon footprint” of her two-mile round trips to the surgery where she had been treated for 30 years was too large.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Socialism, Healthcare
A new study has found that National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England were needlessly paying large amounts of money for the procurement of medical supplies – in some cases more than twice the average price. These supplies include blankets, forceps and other surgical tools.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Prime Minister David Cameron apologized for the way the system had allowed “horrific abuse to go unchecked and unchallenged” for so long. So deeply rooted was the trouble, he said, that “we cannot say with confidence that failings of care are limited to one hospital.”
Government, Incompetence, Funny, Socialism, Healthcare
The finding, far from being a one-off, is just one of a range of bizarre results discovered by doctors who have examined NHS hospital data. They discovered that 17,000 men were recorded as having been admitted to hospital for obstetric services -a specialism for pregnant women and their babies - and 8,000 to see a gynaecologist; while another 20,000 apparently needed to see a midwife.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Some of the most common operations — including hip replacements and cataract surgery — will be rationed as part of attempts to save billions of pounds, despite government promises that front-line services would be protected. Patients’ groups have described the measures as “astonishingly brutal”.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
British Prime Minister David Cameron is pushing for a radical reform of the National Health Service to save the health agency. Cameron stressed on Monday in a keynote speech that a drastic change to NHS is needed, even as the senior doctor who reviewed the NHS said on Saturday that the government’s existing health plans are unworkable and destabilizing.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
New NHS performance data reveal that the number of people in England who are being forced to wait more than 18 weeks has risen by 26% in the last year, while the number who had to wait longer than six months has shot up by 43%.
As a junior casualty doctor, I can vividly remember putting my hands on a trolley to stop a patient in an A&E resuscitation bay, who was on the verge of a cardiac arrest, from being moved. Two managers were trying to wheel the patient out of A&E, not because it was in the best interests of the patient, but in order to meet the four-hour waiting time target. At another hospital, when working in obstetrics and gynaecology, I was in the middle of performing a very sensitive examination on a woman having a miscarriage when a manager burst into the room, telling me that the woman had to be moved immediately. This was for no other reason than that my patient was about to exceed her maximum allocated A&E department target time. -Dan Poulter
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
On 28 May UK Uncut will be staging an "Emergency Operation", transforming high-street bank branches across the country into hospitals, operating theatres and GPs' surgeries. This day of action is an urgent response to the cuts and privatisation that threaten to wreak our National Health Service.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
The coalition's pledge to protect the NHS is in fresh doubt after four out of five doctors said they had seen patient care suffer as a result of health service cuts during 2011. Doctors cite hospital bed closures, pressure to give patients cheaper, slower-acting drugs, cuts to occupational health support, and reductions in community health services as examples of recent cost-cutting measures.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among operations now being rationed in a bid to save the NHS money. Two-thirds of health trusts in England are rationing treatments for "non-urgent" conditions as part of the drive to reduce costs in the NHS by £20bn over the next four years.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
Speaking to GPs at the Commissioning Live conference on Thursday, Sir David described the “entertaining and interesting” process of changing GP after he moved house recently. Under the current NHS system, which is supposed to back patient choice, all residents of England can ask to join the books of a GP practice but surgeries may refuse patients if they live outside their catchment areas. Sir David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS, was told that the family doctor didn’t like the word “choice” even though it is supposed to be integral to the system.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Hospital patients in the United Kingdom are at risk for infections and deadly injuries because of substandard surgical instruments from Pakistan, the BBC is reporting. Tom Brophy, a technologist with Barts and the NHS (National Health Service) Trust, a British health care provider, told the BBC he has become so concerned over the issue that he has begun documenting the faults. He pointed out that while he can return problematic instruments to suppliers, there is nothing to stop them from being sold to another medical facility.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
British media reports have revealed that Britain's health service's watchdog, the National Health Service (NHS), only probed 300 out of more than 100,000 complaints it received last year. The revelation forced members of the British parliament on the Health select committee to urge the government to implement an immediate review of the way NHS trusts handle complaints from patients, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday waded into terrain where past British governments have foundered, promising fundamental changes to the country's expensive and over-stressed public health care system.