Organisation: UK DoH
Reasons to get merry, Part 3
What better reason could there be to top up your glass (and make it a big one), than that the Government and the BMA want to "crackdown on middle class wine drinkers". Some people damage their health by drinking too much, so of course it is…
The NHS IT system - beyond a fiasco
What is the word for a story that reached the level of fiasco some time ago and continued to deteriorate? Fiasco seems inadequate as a decription of the failures of the NHS IT system, several of which have been noted on this site by JG. The…
MTAS - still the fault of the doctors
Patricia Hewitt, interviewed on News 24 on Saturday morning, explained that she should not take responsibility for the MTAS fiasco because the new system had been widely consulted and widely supported prior to deployment. In other words…
The good, the bad, and the not so ugly
JG has been highlighting the MTAS fiasco. Besides the fine illustration it provides of this Government's incompetence and refusal to take responsibility for their mistakes, it also sheds an interesting sidelight on another bad Labour policy…
The tax-payers are the biggest losers of all
I haven't mentioned the NHS for a while, but it was always going to come back. So here goes - the National Health Service's £12.4 billion national computer system. It's not a particularly new story, but confirmation of what we all feared…
The sickness tax
Has there been a government better at "charging for old rope" than this current one. As I understand, our taxes go, in large parts, to the funding of all things NHS - including their car parks. However, our money that went to towards…
How do you lose £2.7bn? Ask the NHS
The NHS has a pensions black hole that has risen by £61bn in just two years. That is incredible! According to the Telegraph the figures include an addition £2.7bn because, and I kid you not, the Government accidentally lost this sum on last…
Paperwork over patient care
It is reported today that Government reforms have led to patients being put at unnecessary risk by an over load of paperwork required by their carers. The British Medical Journal describes hospital wards as having "appalling conditions" and…
Reforming NHS
Today's papers are reporting further mismanagement of the NHS. A leaked document has revealed that the government expects a shortage of nurses and GPs in four years but the NHS will have to reduce the number of hospital doctors to save…
Government-inflicted pain
Mark and Lezley Gibson and Marcus Davies were convicted on 15 December of distributing cannabis-laced chocolate bars to multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferers. They await sentencing on 26 January. Lezley is herself a MS-sufferer, who was told at…
Cottage hospitals next for the chop
Following on from the item on birth centres, we now learn that upto eighty cottage hospitals may be facing cuts. As per birthcare, it's not the cuts themselves that are necessarily the problem, but the fact that this is no economic choice…
NHS Indirect
Someone in Whitehall decided that the most efficient way of dealing with out-of-hours medical enquiries was to have a centralised phone enquiry system (NHS Direct), rather than doctors on call. This would save money and make doctors…
Birthcare lottery
Upto 20% of Britain's "home-style" birth centres may be closed due to the NHS's "funding crisis" (read, "spending crisis"), the Sunday Telegraph reports. Your options during childbirth will now, even more than before, depend on where you…