Hospital infections...

[frosty the snowman]

Originally Posted by dry suit diver

of course you do have the problem in wales where the welsh hospitals take english patients to reduce english waiting lists, although I am sure the free prescriptions make up for this

the problem is like all public services its target driven not care driven anymore.

Originally Posted by Ahoy

Oh aye, as simple as that is it. The NHS is ridiculously heavy in middle management and target driven practice. Good, effective management is crucial to successful running of the service, of course, but the current systems are not based on best practice.
S.

Well, I joined the NHS 27 years ago, before the idiocy of the internal market and hundreds of 'managers' trialing pointless initiatives largely to give themselves something to do. The health service has always been a political football and as a result it seems to me that we now have the NHS that some of the electorate wanted but not one that we actually needed. Yesterday I sat for 4 hours with a lady of 86 who had just had bowel surgery while she waited on a trolley because her bed was still occupied by a preious patient. This happens every day without fail in my 'flagship trust' hospital. You want couple of weeks less waiting time? Fine. That's how you're getting it.

[cazyoung]

Tonight my on-call consultant doc husband has gone back to work (this is the first night since 26th when it was quiet and he got home before 22.00hrs having been at work at 07.00hrs and NO he does not get paid overtime) to attempt to sort out a no beds issue. The duty bed manager is busy with personal problems and is not communicating - in the meantime there are more patients than beds available. For people working at "the sharp end" of the NHS this is not an uncommon scenario but it does piss one off when NHS workers who are in the non "front line" disiplines (look at profiles of previous contributers to this thread) critisise and diss their co-workers who work their butts (male + female) off to provide as good a service as they can. Yes there are a few members of the "sharp end staff" who are not as on the ball as one would like BUT given the rates of pay in the health we are not doing the job to get rich - but it would be nice to get similar rates of pay as the managers/IT people etc etc and to work set hours with tea breaks and lunch breaks pure bloody luxury!!!!!!!