Wednesday 6 February 2013

Liverpool Care Pathway - Failing The Ailing


When the conductor doesn't trust the driver, it's sensible not to get on board.

And this is the NHS charged with operating a killing machine, the LCP...

This is Mail Online -


Thousands of NHS staff admit they wouldn't want their families treated in their own hospitals because care is so poor
  • A quarter of medical staff say they don't rate standards, according to a poll
  • Findings come as damning report into NHS is about to be released

Thousands of NHS workers would not send relatives to their own hospitals because the care is so poor, according to a survey.

One in four doctors, nurses and other staff at some trusts have admitted they don’t rate the standards at their own workplace.

The worst trust was Croydon, in South London, where 30 per cent of staff said they would not recommend it to friends or family.

This week a high-profile report will call for major changes to the health service in the wake of one of the worst-ever hospital scandals.

As many as 1,200 patients died because of poor care at Mid Staffordshire NHS trust between 2005 and 2008, and doctors have admitted they were ‘immune’ to their anguish.

NHS bosses say the release of the report on Wednesday will be one of the ‘darkest days’ of the health service’s history.

The poll of doctors, nurses and other medical staff asked whether they would recommend their organisation to friends or relatives. At five trusts, at least a quarter of workers said they wouldn’t, because standards were so poor.

They are Croydon; Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals; Royal Cornwall Hospitals; South London Healthcare; and North Cumbria University Hospitals.

The report into the Mid Staffordshire scandal is expected to warn that similar standards of neglect still exist at some hospitals. 

Patients were left to become so dehydrated they were forced to drink from vases and nurses were threatened with violence for exposing poor care.

The report will call for major changes to the NHS – including tougher hospital inspections and laws to prevent cover-ups – to prevent a repeat of the disaster.

At five trusts, a quarter of hospital workers said they wouldn't recommend their organisation to loved ones
At five trusts, a quarter of hospital workers said they wouldn't recommend their 
organisation to loved ones. File picture

Mike Farrar, head of the NHS Confederation, which represents health workers, said: ‘This Wednesday will be one of the darkest days for the NHS but we must turn it into an opportunity to build a better NHS for patients.

NHS CHIEF FACES MP QUESTIONS

THE head of the NHS will be quizzed by MPs over his expenses.
Sir David Nicholson racked up £6,000 on weekly first-class train tickets to Birmingham, where his new wife lives.
He said all of the 41 trips last year were for ‘official meetings’, but many were carried out via video-conferencing – and he has not explained why he needed to travel to Birmingham to chair them.
Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Commons’ public accounts committee, said she would question Sir David on the issue at the next hearing.
‘Our failings in Mid Staffordshire will be laid bare – and rightly so. We have to respond. We need to make it easier for patients to give feedback.

‘The people in charge of running our health services should rightly be held to account when they fail to act in the interests of patients.’

The head of the Royal College of Nursing has admitted that many workers have just an hour’s training before being allowed to care for patients.

Dr Peter Carter said healthcare assistants – who account for nearly half of nursing staff – were often ‘picking it up as they go along’. He added: ‘If you walk into a ward for older people, this is where you find most of the problems, most of the staff nowadays are not nurses; they are healthcare assistants.

‘There’s nothing wrong with healthcare assistants, providing they have had a proper training and education, but in far too many cases they’ve not had as much as an hour’s training.’
There are about 300,000 healthcare assistants in the NHS. They wear similar uniforms to nurses, but have no medical qualifications or formal training.

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