Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health, has published the Health and Social Care Bill 2011.
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3 responses to Modernising the NHS
Patient care is so damaging currently that modernising the NHS is essential.
When trying to investigate damaging care at Royal Sussex County Hospital, Duncan Selbie treated me as though I was faulty and declined to investigate my neglect. Mike Weatherley was immediately responsive and managed to get Royal Sussex County Hospital to investigate my health care.
NHS and Ombudsman reforms
I am relieved to see that the role of the Ombudsman is to be reviewed. My complaint to the Ombudsman was badly handled. For example, The conclusion reached by Ombudsman over my serious concerns in my health were along the lines that my care from the local nhs was “not unreasonable”. Furthermore they did not challenge the fact that I received “routine” treatment rather than individualised care designed for my special needs. The problem with this is that poor performing doctors /consultants have the permission to continue giving sub-standard mechanised care to patients whereby harmful medicines are casually given, when we should be treated as people as individuals with our special needs due to dangers of damage accrual as in my case i.e. diabetes was speeded up as the consequences of harm were not considered. There was no proper weighing up of pros and cons of treating an already damaged patient, and mental and physical trauma damage can bring. The objective of a caring physician should certainly not be to give “routine “ and “reasonable care” as the idea is to prolong quality of life for as long as possible – by giving person-centred holistic care – as in the long run such patients are a burden to the nhs, to their spouses, families, society and the economy, if mismanaged.
I am glad to see that MPs like Dorrell are addressing patient concerns and the importance of accountability in the nhs. Please contact Mike Weatherley for further information regarding my NHS and Ombudsman experiences. Or contact me for my lived experience.
Modernising the NHS
As a nation we spend a lot of money on our health service and the standard delivered is well below other comparable countries. The role of the Ombudsman is crucial in ensuring the standards we expect are delivered. According to the Ombudsman’s Annual Report, In 2009/10 the Ombudsman received 14,429 health service related complaints of which 180 were investigated and 112 were fully or partly upheld, i.e 0.8%. Such a low level of upheld complaint is symptomatic of either an extremely high performing organisation or a poor performing complaints investigator. Current reports in the media echo these findings e.g. BBC and other sources. I don’t think many would believe that the NHS is a high performer and so the answer is more likely that the Ombudsman is not doing a very good job.
I accept that many complaints are probably resolved locally but even so such a low level is extremely suspicious. There is a complaints process but this entails the Ombudsman investigating itself which cannot be considered independent. As a consequence there does not appear to be any independent review of the performance of the Ombudsman and so perhaps we cannot be surprised with the poor performance of our NHS. I think this is very worrying indeed and I hope that Steve Dorrell is genuinely interested in creating a workable complaints system and Ombudsman reforms, so that we can say that we have a world class health system. This may come as a surprise but my dad goes to India to gain advice over his care due to lack of confidence in the UK health care. Particularly as my brother died of mrsa after heart surgery in a major hospital in London. We came to the UK because we believed we would have world class health service for my young brother who had lupus, but in the end he died a most traumatic death due to neglect. Likewise I hope to go to China as I have steroid-induced diabetes after medical blunders, in Sussex, to receive stem-cell therapy in the hope curing my diabetes.
Modernising the NHS
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