London V Scotland

As we are going through an election where all parties are talking about cuts to the public sector I thought I would remind you of a post I did in January. In it I said that although Scotland spent more money per head on health services I asked what was wrong with this. I now want to tell you a personal(ish) story.

I have an aunt who has lived in London for years, She is in her late 60's early 70's (I don't like to ask ladies ages) and has needed the NHS a fair bit over the past few years. Recently she has returned to Scotland and of course everything has been transferred with her. We were talking the other day and she was discussing the NHS in our part of the world and my first thought was oh no, what have we done. Turns out it was the exact opposite, she was so impressed with our services, she pointed out that in London if she goes to A&E she waits for hours - despite the 4 hour target - when she goes to our hospital for a clinic appointment she is seen pretty much on time and there is a notice stating "if you have waited 20 minutes past your appointment time come to the desk and let us know". She also feels that up here the consultant she sees is willing and wants do more for her. So all in all a very satisfied patient who is glad that she has come home.


Now, I understand that direct comparisons are difficult and that London has huge problems that we don't but the experience of my family (her daughter and grand daughter) are that in Scotland we are doing it better.

I want to make it absolutely clear that I am in no way getting at London hospitals or the English NHS workers who I am sure are working as best they can with what they have. What I am trying to compare is that if you spend a bit more money and have a higher ratio of doctors and nurses to patients then things can be better


This report in The Telegraph makes for sad(angry) reading, I have commented in other places that management level never seem to be cut, it is always the front line staff who go. It is always nurses, porters, cleaners and now doctors who are cut. How do know when a politician is lying to you? - Their lips are moving.


Before their are more Stafford's, can I remind you of something I wrote in January;

Recently we had the horror of Mid Stafford where over 1000 people may have died unnecessarily - why? Well here is a quote which may help point you in the right direction
"Over the years, many clinicians had noticed deterioration in the standards of patient care, which became particularly acute approximately three years ago when major cutbacks were made in staffing numbers. This included a ­savage reduction in the number of nursing staff."

As Scotland is in charge of it's own NHS then perhaps we can avoid the worst excesses of the Westminster government. But I am not hopeful especially if Westminster cuts the budget.

I would love to see a hung parliament on Friday 7th May with SNP and Plaid Cymru having deciding votes.

Sorry not posted for a while, been ill.

My thanks to Campaigning for Health for this.

I didn't think our politicians could get any lower but..........

Go here and see what nonsense they are spending our money on now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7OGUAQSYQ4&feature=player_embedded

Following on from my last post about nursing numbers in Scotland I find this little piece. Nursing numbers to be cut by 13,000???? WTF? As the current vernacular has it. If you are working short staffed now, where are they going to make the cuts? Especially when you consider that we have an ageing population which is increasing as the baby boomers are only going to get sicker as they live longer and sicker patients need more resources, basic health economics I would have thought.

Recently we had the horror of Mid Stafford where over 1000 people may have died unnecessarily - why? Well here is a quote which may help point you in the right direction

"Over the years, many clinicians had noticed deterioration in the standards of patient care, which became particularly acute approximately three years ago when major cutbacks were made in staffing numbers. This included a ­savage reduction in the number of nursing staff."
The whole article can be found here.

So despite Scotland being criticised for having a higher nurse/doctor to patient ratios I hope we keep this and as health is a devolved issue as long as we can keep those Labour sycophants out we should be if not OK then at least a bit better. To think that Labour is supposed to be the party of the people, they are not the party of any people I know.


Thanks to Militant Medical Nurse.

NHS Scotland

According to this report NHS England is more efficient than the rest of the UK. What exactly is wrong with Scotland spending more per head on health care? Why is it bad to have more nurses and doctors and to keep people out of hospitals? A few years ago I studied for a management qualification and one of the points they tried to put over was that it was better to be effective than to be efficient in a business sense.
What surprises me is that even with these supposed extra resources we are still running short staffed, so what are English hospitals like?
A point I would also like to make is that these figures are now 3 years old and very out of date. They were gathered from a time when we had a labour government up here, now we have an SNP government things have improved and waiting times are nowhere as long as have been indicated. And being Scotland, we gather information differently from England so comparisons are not quite as straight forward.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year and is keeping well.

Requests

Didn't realise I had been away for so long, no real excuse just could not think of anything to write. I have been popping up on other blogs to add my twopence worth to the comments and as always managing to upset a few people.


In A&E (ED or ER whichever is your preference) I get asked for a fair number of emergency equipment at times; an airway, an ET tube, various drugs - all no problem I can cope with this but sometimes the requests are for things I am unable to provide.


I have been asked for a condom by a person who was passing our hospital at 2:00 in the morning and thought that we should provide these - became quite irate when told that we did not provide these things and he should have thought of this sooner, possibly while he was in the pub/club which has machines. Actually asked me what he should do without one - er, abstain?

I have had drug addicts asking for needles and syringes (at least they asked and did not just steal them) and also asking for drugs as they have had their prescription stolen. In both cases the answer was no, sorry, we do not do that.

But recently I had a patient come to me stating "it is an emergency, do you have a phone battery charger!" No, of course we don't, but he seemed to think that this was a reasonable request, perhaps I should think about this when restocking our emergency trolleys, but at least he didn't ask for one stat!



I get pissed off when some young doctor goes all ER or Casualty on me and uses the word 'stat', it is meaningless and just annoys everyone. We will get the job done as fast as we can, you shouting out orders like an actor in a drama will get you nowhere. I have even been known to ensure that this word does not get uttered by saying to young and eager doctors "The first one to say 'stat' or 'right people lets move' gets slapped". It usually lightens tension and gives people a laugh.

My Future

I read this post by Grumpy Old Ken and it got me thinking, is this my future? Are all us old gits going to roam around forever befuddled? I was in England recently and came out of M&S to hear a woman in her 70's tell two men, one of whom I presume was her husband, to "stay together and she would see them in 10 minutes." Now this is the sort of thing that I used to say to my kids when they were quite young and wanted a bit of independence and would go somewhere without us. Have I discovered the great untold truth about being male? You live with your mother who looks after you until she hands you over to a wife who looks after you and then quite slowly and subtly your wife turns into your mother. Perhaps we should change the marriage ceremony, it should perhaps be "Who gives this MAN." and your mother hands you over to your future wife/mother. Ah well, as long as I get my pocket money and am allowed to get to the pub occasionally I suppose I should be happy.

Dear Doctor,

Dear GP and GP's receptionist,

When you (correctly) dial 999 for an ambulance to your surgery and the crew arrives please do not refer to the female member of the crew as an ambulanceMAN she gets a bit upset by these things and also wonders at the observation powers of receptionists. It would also be a good idea if when asking the patient to go with the crew not to say "Right then, lets get you on the bus." It is demeaning to professional people and when they tell us about it it makes you look a real dick!

GrumpRN

Dear America

OK America, what are you doing? In the past 3 days I have become aware of some really serious nonsense and downright lies that are being said about the NHS. First Dr. Crippen pointed out an idiot Conservative MEP -that no-one here has ever heard of - who uses lies and out of date and distorted figures to tell you rubbish and now there is this from FOX news which I picked from Ben Goldacre's site which is a blog which only ever uses researched and verifiable information and is dedicated to pointing out the truth.
Please be aware, the NHS that is being promoted in these 'news' segments bears absolutely no resemblance to the NHS that I work in and that I access as a patient. Can I point you to this, this is more like the NHS that I love and use.

Always always remember, if someone is telling you something is rubbish, always check their motives -who is paying them and who stands to benefit from the status quo.

Parents!!!

This post is not work related in any way.

Can someone please tell me when parents stop being embarrassing? I ask as I was out with my dad the other night in our club, and he decided to compare nails with a group of twenty year old girls. These girls were not regulars, he had never seen them before and they had only come through to the room we were in to escape the bingo as they wanted to talk and talking during bingo is a big no-no. So these poor girls were exposed to my dad who is in his 70's. He is very touchy-feely as it was OK when he was younger - doesn't care that you are not allowed to touch women these days without their permission. So these girls were comparing their nails and he shoves in showing off his nails and criticising the girl beside him for biting her nails. What is worse is that his nails were better than any of the girls there. One of these days he is going to get us barred but at least they took it as good fun. But as he leaned over the girl I suddenly had a thought; now she knows what is meant when they say old age is creeping up on you!

la fenetre

Today's word is "Fenestrate" from the French 'fenetre' for window.



I first came across the idea of someone being fenestrated over 30 years ago when I read a collection of short stories by Arthur C Clarke called "Tales from the White Hart", one of the stories was about a character being thrown out of a window.

Why is fenestrate the word of today? Well, I have just seen 3 patients who had window related accidents. One bumped his head on a window, one put his hand through a window and one fell out of a window. All were fine although the one who fell out of the window did require admission for observation. Isn't it lucky that kids bounce when they fall from heights, this one certainly was.