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Doctor Blue: High Friction High Fiction Dr Rant
Speaking of our glorious Health Service and our ignoble opposition party's pathetic attempts to fisk it to within an inch of their life Dr Blue has sadness from wall to wall. Or actually, sorry, but it reads like glee.
All very well but let's please have straight answers to this baker's dozen:
Compared with 1997:
1. Waiting lists are much shorter YES/NO
2. Hospitals and equipment are newer YES/NO
3. There are more doctors YES/NO
4. There are more nurses YES/NO
5. There are more clinicians YES/NO
6. Doctors pay is much better YES/NO
7. Nurses pay is better YES/NO
8. Clinicians pay is better YES/NO
9. Cancer survival rates are much better YES/NO
10. Heart attack survival is much better YES/NO
11. Live births/1000 are better YES/NO
12. There are modern walk in centres YES/NO
13. Real expenditure is much much higher YES/NO
Of course there are challenges. We're living longer and (not) dying of more expensive things. That brings pressure even on extended resources.
But while Blue's post is supposed to be a rant, by definition, it is surely too high on assertions and comment and low on facts to be any use? So how about a baker's dozen of factual hospital admissions to be going on with?
TOP PICTURE: Les Fabluss Flamingoes with Dr Rant and Dr Rave. SIDE BAR: Mr Blue's more mannered than Eugenides' explosive plans for Patsy.
1 comment:
1. Waiting lists are much shorter YES/NO
2. Hospitals and equipment are newer YES/NO
3. There are more doctors YES/NO
Doing clinical work? No.
Lots of double counting of doctors that move (for example, locums moving from one area to another are counted each time they move). Lots of new medical management posts. Yes.
4. There are more nurses YES/NO
On the wards doing ward work? No.
Nurse:Patient ratios have steadily fallen in the last 10 years.
5. There are more clinicians YES/NO
On the front line? No.
6. Doctors pay is much better YES/NO
Yes, but few of us give a fuck. We prefer to have patients who actually get better rather than lying in their own piss, shit and vomit and are told by nurses to shit themselves because there is no-one to take them to the toilet.
7. Nurses pay is better YES/NO
Yes, but it was a fucking disgrace before and is still a fucking disgrace now. But at least heading in the right direction.
8. Clinicians pay is better YES/NO
See above.
9. Cancer survival rates are much better YES/NO
Than the rest of Europe? No.
10. Heart attack survival is much better YES/NO
Yes, but it's been made a target. What about care of the elderly or psychiatry. They have gotten a lot worse due to the skewing of targets.
11. Live births/1000 are better YES/NO
Maternal mortality is rising for the first time in recorded history. So that's a big NO!
12. There are modern walk in centres YES/NO
What do they do? Isn't that so fucking like a politician? Nice shiny building that is fuck all use but looks good. Waste of fucking money.
13. Real expenditure is much much higher YES/NO
Yes, but where is it all going?
Either catch up money because of funding cuts for decades or being siphoned off to big business buddies of the government, or wasted on crap 'big ideas' like the new OOH system, NHS DIre, NHS IT system.
The list of fuck ups is endless.
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