We're Just Such An Inconvenience To The NHS, Aren't We?

As ambulances queued in front of Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading last week, corridors full of patients were waiting for a bed on a ward. Emergency department consultant Omar Nafousi was at his wit's end. "We've no space," he told the BBC last week. "This is not what I signed up for when I became a doctor."

Like the appearance of Cheesy Footballs in the supermarkets and Cliff Richard on the sound systems, this is a regular part of winter. 

Currently nearly 4,000 beds in England alone are taken up by patients with flu, Covid and the vomiting bug norovirus, according to NHS England, and the situation is on a similar scale in the rest of the UK. But that is dwarfed by another pressure – the patients who should not be in hospital.

Such as?  

Every day there are more than 13,000 people whose treatment has been completed who are still in hospitals in England, the latest figures from NHS England suggest. Plus there are a further 4,000 around the rest of the UK - which means around one in eight beds are occupied by people who don't necessarily need to be there. Many of these "delayed discharge" patients are older and may be frail and living with multiple health conditions who need support in the community.

This isn't new, is it?  

The issue of delayed discharges is far from new. For years, it has been talked about, if not agonised over, and the NHS started tracking the delays in the early 2010s.

Tracking the delays - not solving them. Doesn't that just sum up the NHS? And now they are thinking the unthinkable.

Yet the problem throws up many deeper questions about the care system, coordination and planning in hospitals - with some doctors even asking whether the NHS is over-treating patients, particularly those at the end of life.

Yes, pay in to the obscene Ponzi scheme that is National Insurance all your working life, only to find some heir to Harold Shipman is going to consider you a burden to the glorious NHS and ship you off to die... 

Some NHS trusts have bought places in care homes to allow them to discharge patients. University Leicester Hospitals NHS Trust has taken this one step further: it has spent £10m buying and renovating a former care home in the city called Preston Lodge, which opened in July and has more than 50 beds.

And they'll tell you it's all for your own good: 

In Price's view, her own profession bears some responsibility, too. She says about a third of people who are admitted for medical reasons are in their last year of life. "We admit them and end up over-treating them with interventions, scans and pills," argues Price, who is president of the Society for Acute Medicine.

She says for many of these patients, palliative care and managing their symptoms, mainly pain, would be preferable: "Their quality of life would be much better and we would avoid a hospital admission."

I don't know why I'm surprised they are admitting it. 

Never Mind The Law And Reason, Feel The Emotion!

A mother whose baby boy Lucy Letby tried to murder hit back last night at the ‘upsetting’ and ‘disrespectful’ attempts to free her.

We've been here before, Reader.... 

The woman spoke out after a panel of experts claimed the former neo-natal nurse’s convictions were ‘one of the major injustices of modern times’. Letby’s new legal team yesterday unveiled a report which claimed all of the 14 babies murdered or harmed by her were victims of bad medical care and died or collapsed because of natural causes.

Well, we can't have the state (in the form of the NHS) losing, can we? Wheel out the weeping mothers!

Retired Canadian medic Dr Shoo Lee, who presented the findings of 14 international experts at a two-hour press conference, claimed the panel understood the ‘stress and anguish’ of the families involved and insisted their aim was simply ‘to tell the truth’.

But the mother of a baby boy who Letby, 35, was convicted of attempting to murder described the press conference as a ‘publicity stunt’.

Just the sort of person that, as Longrider points out, shouldn't be asked for their opinion. 

‘We want to hit back,’ the parent, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said.

‘Every aspect of what they are doing is so disrespectful, it is very upsetting.

‘They said the parents want to know the truth, but we’ve had the truth.

Well, you've had a verdict. You should know full well that it isn't always the same as the truth. 

'We believe in the British justice system, we believe the jury made the right decision.

I expect the others in that link did too...until they didn't.  

'We already have the truth and this panel of so-called experts don’t speak for us.’

'So-called' experts? I don't think there's any doubt about their qualifications, is there? 

The mother claimed she had previously emailed Tory MP David Davis, who led the press conference, to complain about his involvement but he had ‘ignored her’. 

Sound decision from Davis, I feel. 

I'm So Glad I Never Clapped For Them...

A retired nurse died after hospital staff mixed her up with a patient on a 'Do Not Resuscitate' notice. Pat Dawson, 73, was fit and healthy and had had no medical treatment in 30 years before suffering a suspected bowel obstruction, her family told an inquest. The widow and grandmother was taken to Royal Blackburn Hospital by ambulance but died after she collapsed and staff stopped attempts to resuscitate her following a look at 'her' notes.

 And 'her' is in inverted comments there because the person to whom the DNR was relevant was a man.

By the time medics realised that a mix-up had left them reading a DNR report relating to a 90-year-old man, it was too late to save her. The inquest heard that staff failed to check the NHS number on Mrs Dawson's wristband or even the gender and age on the notes.

The NHS - the place where you can ignore all safeguards and get away with it by pleading 'overwork'.  

Emergency consultant Ahmad Alabood called the tragedy an 'honest mistake because [staff] were rushing' when the unit was 'over-stretched and over-crowded'.

Oh, they were rushing? Well, forget the fact someone's dead, eh? 

The inquest also heard details from an internal report by the hospital trust, which warned: 'Given the relentless pressure on A&E departments, the investigation is concerned that a similar event could occur in the future.'

Utterly shameless. And why shouldn't they be? In any other industry, say, building or engineering, someone would be going to prison or facing a huge fine at the very least. In the NHS, however... 

Mrs Dawson's son, John, told the inquest in Accrington: 'I know that our mum would have been horrified by how the system she gave her life to failed her.

'It is beyond belief the catastrophic way in which she was failed, not only by one individual but by doctors who have sworn the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, and our mum paid the ultimate price.'

Unfortunately, it's not 'beyond belief' at all, and it'll continue not to be until NHS staff face proper  consequences. 

Suspicions...

The accused female member of staff, who is a permanent employee of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, later showed at least three colleagues the footage, one of whom reported the incident.

Rebecca's family have told LBC that days later, after she was told she had been the subject of an illicit recording whilst in a severe state of distress, Rebecca attempted to take her own life. Although evidence has been made available to Lancashire Police, officers have decided no crime has taken place and will not proceed with an investigation.

When you read a story like this, that's almost unbelievable, you start to wonder what can lead to such a clear refusal to do your duty. And you start to think about other news stories you've read, which might help to cast a bit of light on this inexplicable story... 

 If this turns out to be the reason, and the reason should become clear as the big guns are now turning to fire on Lancashire Police:

Former Victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird KC told of her surprise at Lancashire Constabulary's decision, citing the new law introduced in January. She told LBC: "It looks like criminal activity to me. Section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act says that if somebody intentionally shares a photograph showing that person in an intimate state, and that person doesn't consent, and the person sending it doesn't believe they're consenting, then it's an offence. It seems to be absolutely to cover this situation.

"The police really do need to think again. The public interest, seems to me, to cry out for this to be prosecuted to make the point to other people that they can trust the mental health services in the NHS, and they aren't going to be exposed in this way."

Then, the police have just made a very, very bad mistake. 

H/T: Charlotte Lynch via Twitter

Doing A Better Job At Cutting Crime…

...than our police farces?

Almost none of the long-term changes people said the pandemic would bring have turned out to be true. The gratitude and respect for carers and lower earners didn’t last long once we were allowed to do something more exciting than clapping on our doorsteps. Even online shopping has fallen back to roughly where the pre-pandemic rise would have put it.

No, well, the demented-seal clapping was never going to outstrip the NHS's propensity for stepping on its own dick. And I wouldn't write off online shopping too quickly, it's demise might have been greatly exaggerated.

But one change has stuck: working from home (with the important caveat that it’s rocketed among the top half of earners in particular; those working in a shop or restaurant, not so much). What affect will this have?

Don't know, but I can tell you what effect it might have... 

It clearly boosts wellbeing, and is helping more mothers work full time. The research on its productivity impact is far more mixed, and I’d say comes down to a score draw. The big clear win is less time spent commuting, the benefits of which are shared between employees and employers. The losses? Missing out on the less tangible benefits of interacting with colleagues, and humans more generally.

I like both - going into the office and WFH. Luckily, my workplace allows that choice. But these's an added advantage for us all: 

But new research brings a different angle to the debate, suggesting that home working doesn’t just cut commuting, it cuts crime. Specifically, burglaries, where the shift to working from home is given the credit for half of the 30% drop since 2019.

Now, I wouldn't discount the rise of affordable security systems - you can't go 10 minutes without seeing one for Verisure or Sky (with the giant) on TV lately - but it's something to think about. 

Another Unfortunate Juxtaposition..?

Are they all on African Time, then?

Will The HSE Take Action, Then?

It seems foreign worker are already causing disasters, though:

A senior coroner has since issued a warning about the inability of foreign health staff to speak English after hearing how carers looking after Mrs Rymell did not know the difference between 'bleeding' and 'breathing'. Their lack of English 'severely hampered' the call handler's response and made a 'meaningful' assessment of her condition 'virtually impossible', the coroner said. Following the call, Mrs Rymell's case was classified as 'serious' rather than requiring an 'immediate' response and when paramedics did arrive at the care home she was dead.

The inquest shows clearly that the practise of hiring foreign workers is not the amazing boon to the NHS that Labour claim it is: 

The inquest concluded Mrs Rymell had died of misadventure as a result of her fall, a combination of her dementia and frailty and 'mechanical obstruction of respiration'.

But Mrs Marsh said she had been shown evidence that at least one the carers' understanding of English did not meet the standards required to work in Britain.'It transpired during the Inquest that one of the workers on the evening of the 8th August 2022 had never passed the SELT, so was not qualified or permitted to work in the UK.'

So, the care home was blatently breaking the law. At least the HSE has some teeth, so what action will it take? 

There are 152,000 care worker vacancies in England, and care home inspectors often have found that a lack of staff means residents receive substandard, and sometimes dangerous, levels of care.

Sounds like an excess of staff - if the wrong sort - can also cause that. 

Keep Clapping For Them, Sheeple...

A dementia diagnosis service will stop accepting new patients so nurses can be redeployed elsewhere to save on agency staff costs.

...while they sweep your loved ones under the carpet to avoid having to treat them. 

But We All Know It Won't Be...

In a prevention of future deaths report, coroner Laurinda Bower outlined numerous failings admitted by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, including 'inadequate monitoring' as staff were 'distracted by the use of their personal mobile phones', even though it was prohibited on wards.

In the report sent to the trust last month, Ms Bower said she was concerned more people could die 'unless action is taken'.

Who is going to force that action to be taken, then? A report from the coroner isn't going to do it, is it? 

An inquest jury concluded in September that the failings had 'probably more than minimally' contributed to her death.

Her widower Michael, 49, of Rainworth, Nottinghamshire, said: 'When Michelle [seemingly] fell asleep, staff should have realised something was very wrong. Had they acted earlier Michelle would have been taken to ICU (intensive care unit) and put on a drip. That would have saved her life.

'By the time they realised what was happening, the same course of action was far too late.'

Mr Whitehead said his 'warm, caring and easy to love' wife had suffered a 'total breakdown from the person she normally is' in the last days of her life.

And no doubt he was reassured that she was in 'the best place' to treat her condition, when that was very far from the case... 

The trust admitted eight failings which also included staff failure to adhere to policy after Mrs Whitehead was sedated, leading to inadequate assessments of her. There was also a delay in a doctor arriving, and in admitting paramedics to the building.

Ifti Majid, chief executive of the trust, apologised to Mrs Whitehead's family for her 'quality' of care, and said the trust was considering the findings of the jury and coroner.

Why is no-one 'considering' whether this trust is still fit to run hospitals? Because we all know that no-one is... 

How Long Should They Have Closed For, Then?

Police were called and the shop temporarily closed but it reopened the next day - a decision which was heavily criticised by locals as putting 'profit above everything'.

They are a business, after all!  

At the time of his death he wasn't considered 'high risk', so he was waiting for assessment with NHS talking therapies at his request. He had self-referred on March 1 and his appointment for June 3 (three months later) which is within the target wait times for the service.

If you want to criticise anything, maybe this is a better target for your ire. 

Sudiksha Thirumalesh - Remember Her Name...

Because at last, you can know it.

Finally, they can say her name publicly - albeit through a haze of tears. Today, after a gruelling six-month legal battle, the family of the girl known until now as ST - the seriously ill 19-year-old, who so bravely fought NHS doctors in a desperate attempt to receive what her family hoped would be life-preserving treatment - can, at last, reveal her identity, after a judge lifted a draconian court order banning them from doing so.

Her parents, too, can now reveal themselves - her father Thirumalesh Hemachandran and mother Revathi Thirumalesh, both 55. The couple - who migrated to the UK from India in 2000 - ran a local restaurant together until they were forced to give up the family business in 2022, and sub-let it, to look after their daughter full-time. The toll of Sudiksha's death, the loss of their only daughter, is all too apparent - as is their anger at the legal and medical system which they feel was so marshalled against them, effectively preventing them, they say, from fundraising for Sudiksha to receive medical treatment in Canada.

It's a stain on our justice system that they were prevented from taking the chance to get treatment abroad. 

RiP, 'ST'...

...you so shamed them, that even in death, the vile NHS denies you even the dignity of a name.

Extraordinarily, despite her death, the blanket restrictions which ban the media from identifying ST or anything about her and her family or mentioning the hospital involved, still stand.

Her family are devestated twice over: by the end of her brave fight, and by the intransigence and cowardice of the medical authorities and the state:

Her devastated parents said: 'We lost our beautiful and courageous daughter, known to the world as ST. To us she has a real name.'

They added: 'To her family she was everything and we will cherish and never forget the 19 years we had with her.

'The past year, however, has been one of struggle, even torture, for ST and for her family at the hands of the hospital and the Court of Protection.'

I hope some brave and selfless MP would stand up and name her in the Commons, but then, I remember too late, we don't have any, do we? 

'It seems if you disagree with the NHS you must, for that reason alone, be considered delusional.'

No-one can fail to be moved and horrified by the account of 'ST' (stripped even of her real name by the establishment fighting to see she dies in accordance with the NHS's predictions). But also, no-one can be in the least surprised, either. 

Anyone who says they are surprised at the actions of the medical professionals and the state-appointed court system hasn't really been paying any attention, have they?

Some £1.5 million would need to be raised by the family — the NHS would not have to foot the bill — to cover the costs of an air ambulance to either Canada or America, where three hospitals have offered to treat her, and the subsequent clinical trials.

But, says ST, 'because of the court proceedings I am blocked from going [to North America] and because of the gagging orders I cannot fundraise to finance my treatment and transport'.

This is an NHS and court system, remember, that will happily squander taxpayer cash on the undeserving and the criminal, but won't allow other people to spend their cash in a way that isn't in accordance with its wishes...

Whatever her fate, ST says the 'system urgently needs to change' so no one else will ever have to go through what she and her family have in the past year. She insists she will not give up.

'I am in a race against time to escape from this system and the certain death it wishes to impose on me,' she tells me, before vowing: 'But I am a fighter and will continue to fight. I trust in God and will not give up hope.'

I don't believe in God. I wish I did. I wish I did because it would be nice to be able to believe that a reckoning will one day come to everyone involved in denying this brave young lady her chance. 

Remember, Folks, The NHS Is Desperately Short Of Funds...

Swansea Bay University Health Board say their new Trans and Gender Diverse service will support transgender and gender diverse people with voice and communication skills.

A dedicated speech and language therapist (SLT) will teach them about voice care and explore different aspects of communication associated with gender.

Funny, I wonder how this sort of service is somehow immune from economic factors?  

Rebekah Gabbitas, the service’s speech and language therapist, said: “SLT services have always offered services to transgender and gender diverse people.

“Those referrals were previously few and far between but since the Welsh Gender Service was set up we have been receiving lots more.”

Well, of course you have, since the madness is spreading daily. 

“Gender affirming services support people who feel there is a physical incongruence between their physical appearance and their gender, but that can be in their speech and their voice too.

“It can be very distressing for somebody – even hearing their voice, because it doesn’t match who they are or their sense of self.”

Well, of course it doesn't. It never can, can it? No matter how much those in authority collude to try to make everyone else believe they are the ones in the wrong for not going along with the insanity... 

“It can also mean that other people will misread their gender causing embarrassment and distress. Unfortunately, gender diverse people regularly experience transphobia, which can manifest as harassment and violent attacks.

“You can see how that has very important impacts on their participation in society as it can result in a lack of confidence to speak.”

But they aren't 'misreading their gender', are they, Rebekah? They are correctly reading their sex, which is the real issue.  

H/T: Binky via Twitter

'Envy Of The World', Is It..?

Not when you can spend 13 weeks there and they can't agree what's wrong with you, no.

Kayleigh said: “He was there pretty much all day and had scans, then they told him there was nothing wrong and sent him home with painkillers.

“We got home and they told us we needed to go back for our discharge paperwork, so I went back and it said he had some fluid on the lungs on his CT scan.

“They told me they hadn’t read that part and to bring Ben back.”

Boy, that's a world class service, right there! 

The 37-year-old said: “On June 19 the nurse came over and started to put medication into his arm and when he said it hurt she said it was his antibiotic.

“But Ben wasn’t on antibiotics, half of it had gone in already but the nurse went away to go and check.

“It turned out he’d been given another person’s medication, luckily it wasn’t something he was allergic to, but that wasn’t even checked.

“When the nurse who gave him the wrong medication came back she said it had never happened and tried to say to him that on the pain medication he was getting confused, even though his mum witnessed it.”

Angels, they are, selfless angels ministering to the sick... 

Kayleigh claims no thorough investigation happened, and the nurse changed her story to say that she’d realised it was the wrong medication before giving it to him, and again to say she’d connected it but not pushed.

She said the nurse was instructed not to go near Ben, and was later removed from the ward.

Selflessly coping with staff shortages all the time... 

Alison Davis, chief medical officer for Medway NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are sincerely sorry if Mr Wright and his family feel the care he has received during his stay at Medway Maritime Hospital falls below the high standards of care we expect.

“We are investigating the concerns raised by Mr Wright’s family, and we will be in touch with them in due course to discuss our findings.”

So after telling him for 13 weeks his illness is all in his head, your plan is to tell him he's imagining the disgraceful incompetence of your staff too? Great plan, Angie baby... 

The People He Held Hostage Weren't...

The report detailed how on 16 June 2016 Lewis-Ranwell set fire to a wardrobe in his north Devon hospital room.

When the fire alarms sounded "he blocked the exit from the ward and then barricaded himself and other patients into the ward lounge" in what staff called a "hostage-taking" incident.

Police did not attend at the time of the incident as Mr A "was in a safe space", the report said.

...and nor were the elderly people he went on to kill when the medical authorities decided to one-up the police in the game of 'Who Can Screw Up Worst?'.

The review also detailed how at one point a hospital changed Lewis-Ranwell's diagnosis without explanation in his records and released him twice into the community without oversight of his "long-term needs".

When Lewis-Ranwell moved to France in 2017 Devon NHS Partnership Trust discharged him from mental health after care - without evidence he no longer needed after care and against the Mental Health Act Code of Practice.

And no-one will see any jail time or even suffer any consequences for failing in the most basic duties of care.

It Should Be Your Position...

An NHS trust has sparked fury after warning that immigrant doctors who take to picket lines could be referred to Border Force.

*cheers loudly* 

The message, which was circulated on social media, drew the ire of junior medics and the British Medical Association (BMA), which said it 'will unnecessarily instil fear and doubt' among doctors.

And no doubt drew the approval of all those patients whose operations and treatment will be cancelled as a result of the greed of people we are told are 'necessary' to the functioning of the NHS... 

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has admitted that the message was from one of their staff. But a spokesperson insisted it is not their policy and apologised for the distress caused.

They added that the message was sent in a local Whatsapp group who 'made a mistake'.

'It has been corrected internally at the most senior level and we have assured our all teams, including our international colleagues, that this is not our position,' they said.

Pity. It might raise the NHS satisfaction levels a little if it was... 

Maybe Not Everyone Regards Them As 'Heroes', Wes..?

A health service body called NHS Protect had collated and published data on the number of verbal and physical attacks on NHS staff in England for many years, but it did so for the last time in 2016, when it published the figures for 2015-16, and was scrapped in 2017.

Barclay restated his commitment to “a new data collection” in a further written parliamentary answer to the Conservative ex-health minister Dan Poulter in September 2018. However, the health minister Will Quince recently confirmed to the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, that the plan had been dropped.

And Labour are, of course, up in arms. When aren't they? 

...Labour claimed that “ministers are burying their heads in the sand” on aggression against frontline staff, which has become more common since the Covid-19 pandemic began three years ago.

Gosh, what a shock. 

Now, is this the usual drunk, drugged up, mentally ill 'service users' launching these attacks? Or Mr & Mrs Let's All Clap For Them getting to hospital and finding out just how poor a service they've been lionising, perhaps? 

“The Conservatives’ approach to violence and abuse against paramedics and nurses is ‘ignorance is bliss’. What kind of protection is that for the heroes of the pandemic?” said Streeting.

What 'heroes', Wes? The ones who danced and sang on TikTok videos while elderly patients with covid were discharged into care homes? 

Long waiting times for care appear to be a particular source of frustration for some patients or their relatives.

Reality meets PR and it's not pretty...

Don't Blame Me, You Clapped For Them...

...I didn't. Because I knew what they were capable of:

Sarene Taylor, 88, was admitted to a North Wales hospital after suffering a stroke roughly four weeks ago, but according to Rob Taylor doctors said there was nothing more they could do and they started end of life care with fluids and food being withdrawn.

Mr Taylor, a decorated and respected former North Wales rural police officer, described the approach to end-of-life care as 'inhumane' and 'heartbreaking' for the family and said it has to change.

I wonder if he ever had to arrest someone for neglect of the elderly in his police career?

He also spoke about reporting the circumstances that led to his mother's death to North Wales Police and the Older People's Commissioner for Wales.

Who'll do nothing but claim to be 'following agreed procedures'... 

'This is not a story about illegality or legality, it's about ethics. My mum is still alive - 24 to 25 days in without any food, any water, no IV drip, nothing - she's still alive - and it's inhumane and absolutely harrowing to the family and inhumane.

'This is how you would treat people back in the 11th and 12th Century - not 2023.'

Quite. But then, we're devolving as a society, aren't we? 

Still Clapping, Are We..?

Despite ministers' calls for the NHS to cut back on 'waste and wokery', some groups use taxpayers' money to put on events around transgender issues, sexuality and racism, often held during the working day.

These have included 'tea and rainbow cake' picnics, a special session about pronouns and a Filipino martial arts performance. Amid fears of an impending winter NHS crisis, the audit by the TaxPayers' Alliance found there are now at least 493 networks across the UK health service.

Stop calling, and start ordering.

The true figures are likely to be higher as only 111 out of more than 230 trusts responded to Freedom of Information requests.

Start sacking those who refuse to comply.

They only cover time spent running the groups, not attending them.

You couldn't make it up, could you? And in the crazy world we live in now, you don't have to...