GOOD, BAD OR INACCURATE?

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has commended NHS progress on infection control the link is here

To carry out the assessment, it asked that trusts declare whether they were compliant with the regulations and cross-checked this with other performance information, including patient and staff surveys, findings from the Healthcare Commission's hygiene inspections, trusts' declarations against core standards for infection control, and rates of MRSA and Clostridium difficile infection

And that is the problem, self declaration, the same system that allowed Mid Staffs Hospital to attain trust status, which was Monitor’s responsibility Monitor picks chief executive for Mid Staffordshire and apparently failed miserably to pick up any problems as did the now deceased Healthcare Commission.

The CQC then came up with a list of 21 Trusts that are subject to conditions, which are legally enforceable and must be met within agreed timescales or enforcement action will follow

Ten acute trusts, six primary care trusts, four mental health care trusts and one ambulance trust were registered with conditions. Four of these are foundation trusts. Some conditions are ongoing, such as keeping wards clean, while others have a deadline for taking action (ranging from one to eight months).

This is the link for the list-HCAI registration status of NHS trusts that provide healthcare directly to patients (XLS, 205KB, opens in new window) take a look at your local hospital.

I see that the Royal Surrey is included in the “conditions” list, I know the Royal Surrey quite well and am surprised at this entry, but is it in the list because it is underperforming or because it is Honest?

That is the problem I have with the NHS now, I don’t trust the “trusts” to be honest, all I see is spin and stats, along with how wonderful everything is from Darzi.

The medical bloggers don’t seem very happy either, too much admin, too little resources, and too little time.

The NHS is not what it should be, the pointy heads at the Dept of Health have tried to introduce too many bad policies too quickly, GPs are suffering junior doctors are suffering, nurses are suffering and worst of all patients are suffering.

The NHS is now too complicated, the pointy heads need to think again and return to the tenet of the “customer is king” hospitals should concentrate on treating patients, not reaching targets.

Why do we need “Foundation Trusts”? what is the problem with just having hospitals where the management is there to ensure that the front line workers have the staff and resources to treat patients?

Let’s be a little retro with the NHS and return to the days when you came out of hospital fitter than when you went in (in most cases), when consultants actually spoke to the patients, and doctors had continuity of care of their patients, when nurses could actually nurse and didn’t spend 75 percnt of their time filling forms or begging the management for more staff.


Let’s make the NHS simpler, and allow it to do it’s job-treating the people that need it, let’s lose three or four layers of management so that the medics can concentrate on the patients and the management can take the back seat where they belong.

Let’s.

“Managers construct, rearrange, single out, and demolish many 'objective' features of their surroundings. When people act they unrandomize variables, insert vestiges of orderliness, and literally create their own constraints.” Karl Weick

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