Looks like our mate Andy Burnham is in trouble

[Mrk]

After the news that 13,000 people have needlessly died in the NHS (envy of the world etc), it appears Andy Burnham "ignored" warnings in 2010 and the Labour government "ignored" warnings of high death rates for political reasons since 2001.

How many lives could have been saved if they had acted instead of ignoring it? So much for being the party of the NHS.

 

[Coach]

Hard luck.

http://www.hsj.co.uk/acute-care/keo...-staffing-issues/5061217.article?referrer=RSS

Sir Bruce rubbished newspaper reports over the weekend that used the HSMR data for articles claiming the 14 trusts were responsible for 13,000 “avoidable deaths” since 2005.

His report said: “However tempting it may be, it is clinically meaningless and academically reckless to use such statistical measures to quantify actual numbers of avoidable deaths.”

 

[Mrk]

Avoidable, needless, however it is described, 13,000 more people have died than should have by the national average, and that's only since 2005, god knows how long it has been going on. Something has gone seriously wrong and countless warnings have been ignored.

 

[Coach]

Not the case though as the report makes clear.

 

[tsubaki]

Labour do deserve a kicking over what happened in the NHS - especially with regards to PFI, the utter lack of control over what was happening at many Trusts (where standards, number of beds and number of nursing staff dropped whilst wages and perks for executives rose to ludicrous levels), and the creation of the CQC (which replaced three competent bodies with one horrendously incompetent one).

However given that the solution to fix the NHS that the coalition has adopted - ie: "more of the same, please, and from the same people" - they shouldnt escape the nations wrath over this either. What is needed (like most of the rest of government) is first to establish what the NHS is, then state what it is intended to do, then fund and run it properly and honestly. This will of course probably mean that thousands of executives and managers get sacked, and private healthcare firms and the hedge funds that have bought out many PFI contracts for hospitals lose a lot of money - but that is necessary pour encourager les autres.

 

[Mrk]

Not the case though as the report makes clear.

The report will say nothing has gone wrong? Or that warnings haven't been ignored? Or both?

 

[Coach]

Did you not read the quote above?

 

[Mrk]

Labour do deserve a kicking over what happened in the NHS - especially with regards to PFI, the utter lack of control over what was happening at many Trusts (where standards, number of beds and number of nursing staff dropped whilst wages and perks for executives rose to ludicrous levels), and the creation of the CQC (which replaced three competent bodies with one horrendously incompetent one).

However given that the solution to fix the NHS that the coalition has adopted - ie: "more of the same, please, and from the same people" - they shouldnt escape the nations wrath over this either. What is needed (like most of the rest of government) is first to establish what the NHS is, then state what it is intended to do, then fund and run it properly and honestly. This will of course probably mean that thousands of executives and managers get sacked, and private healthcare firms and the hedge funds that have bought out many PFI contracts for hospitals lose a lot of money - but that is necessary pour encourager les autres.

Politicians of all parties simply can't be trusted to run an organisation which aims to save lives. It really is a deadly mix.

 

[Mrk]

Did you not read the quote above?

Yes. It doesn't say nothing has gone wrong and neither does it say warnings haven't been ignored.

 

[Coach]

It quite clearly says you cant jump to the conclusion you are jumping to.

 

[Mrk]

It quite clearly says you cant jump to the conclusion you are jumping to.

It suggests that we can't jump to the conclusion that all 13,000 were 'avoidable', it doesn't suggest we can't come to the quite obvious conclusion that something has gone very wrong. An extra 13,000 deaths in 14 trusts doesn't sound like a rounding error, that's a lot of extra deaths.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Hard luck.

http://www.hsj.co.uk/acute-care/keo...-staffing-issues/5061217.article?referrer=RSS

Sir Bruce does have a ring to it I must say.

 

[tsubaki]

Politicians of all parties simply can't be trusted to run an organisation which aims to save lives. It really is a deadly mix.

I disagree - lets face it, the most guilty in all this were the trust, NHS and CQC execs and some senior doctors - but the current ungodly mix of spin-and-money obsessed but utterly inexperienced of the real world party hack ministers and an NHS management who believes in bullying, the fuhrerprinzip, the silencing of all dissent (however justified) and ever-increasing salaries for themselves has proved that they cannot be trusted to run the NHS.

 

[Coach]

It suggests that we can't jump to the conclusion that all 13,000 were 'avoidable', it doesn't suggest we can't come to the quite obvious conclusion that something has gone very wrong. An extra 13,000 deaths in 14 trusts doesn't sound like a rounding error, that's a lot of extra deaths.

So if they weren't avoidable then they must have been unavoidable then.

 

[Mrk]

I disagree - lets face it, the most guilty in all this were the trust, NHS and CQC execs and some senior doctors - but the current ungodly mix of spin-and-money obsessed but utterly inexperienced of the real world party hack ministers and an NHS management who believes in bullying, the fuhrerprinzip, the silencing of all dissent (however justified) and ever-increasing salaries for themselves has proved that they cannot be trusted to run the NHS.

The thing is, I can't see that ever changing while politicians have control, because it's in politicians interest to paint a picture that everything is fine and dandy, even when they know it isn't. Much of the way NHS is run is deeply flawed, and if you combine that with politics, it's just an accident waiting to happen.