Is the NHS Failing?

The Beeb has this today- Watchdog vows to get tough on NHS which contains the usual ‘promises’ by the ‘new’ CQC (Care Quality Commission) to “Get Tough” on our NHS.

“One in eight NHS trusts has been told it must urgently improve the care it provides, by a new regulator publishing ratings on England's 392 trusts.

The assessments by the Care Quality Commission show a drop in the number of hospitals meeting basic standards in areas such as hygiene and safety.”

The new commission, which took over the watchdog duties of the old Healthcare Commission earlier this year, pointed out a number of successes in its report.

These included what it called the notable achievement of most patients in England receiving hospital treatment within 18 weeks.

There are the usual patitudes-‘NHS Ratings Health Minister Mike O'Brien said the report showed improving standards across the health service.

"We have transformed the waiting experience for millions of patients and now have the shortest waits on record. MRSA and C. difficile infections have been significantly reduced and over three quarters of GP surgeries are providing extended opening hours, giving patients greater choice and more convenient access to GPs."’

Great, but what is the point of getting patients into hospital faster when the care they receive is sub standard?

There are also the usual discrepancies- ‘"And it is unacceptable that the number of patients who have had their operations cancelled has risen so sharply."’

More than half of primary care trusts were rated good or excellent, with many patients reporting being able to get an appointment within two days and services such as Chlamydia screening for young people improving.

There were, however, significant regional variations, with trusts in London performing particularly poorly on patient satisfaction with appointments and opening times.

Fewer mental health trusts were rated excellent or good, and some struggled to meet new criteria on collecting data about services. Ambulance services also failed to perform as well as last year, but the CQC nonetheless praised the general response to emergency calls.

But much of the focus is on hospitals: fewer acute and specialist trusts were rated excellent, with more receiving an unimpressive fair grading.

But my main concern is the failure to meet Core standards-Based on a system of self-reporting, there was a significant drop in the number of acute trusts fully meeting basic standards such as those relating to hygiene, child protection and training: this was down to 59% of all trusts from 69% last year.

Many also failed to meet new performance targets, such as the collection of maternity data to help improve services, and stroke care.

The number of operations cancelled rose for the second year in a row - equating to 63,000 procedures called off at the last minute for non-clinical reasons.

So I checked out my “local” Foundation Trust Frimley Park, or Grimly Dark as it is known locally-Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and according to the stats it is a wonderful place to be ill in, it has excellent scores in Financial management and Quality of Services (whatever that is) but it failed to meet the Core Standard Target, and was rated as “almost met” which to my mind is a fail.

Some four years ago the Health Care Commission decided in its wisdom that Grimly Dark was failing to meet the core standards and it seems that things have not changed despite the astronomical salaries of the senior management, and the hundreds of millions poured into it.

So I compared them to other Trusts- Survey of patients and surprise, despite all the “excellent” ratings Grimly Dark is according to patient ratings (the people that matter) “about the same” as other trusts.

Which makes me think that something is awry, and that all the numbers and stats in the world will not make treatment any better, because as a potential patient I don’t care about “Financial management” or the collection of maternity data when the hospital can’t provide a clean environment which is staffed with trained professionals, where I will be safe and leave fitter than I was when I went in without spending weeks in ICU because of poor surgical procedure and infection control.

The CQC can wave as many flags as it likes but until personal responsibility is accepted by the senior management and medical staff, until they are held to book for the outcome of poor treatment the NHS will continue to stagger on, top heavy with management and “consultants”, failing to meet even the most basic levels of health care.


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