ChatterBank0 min ago
Hospitals
13 Answers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18584968
On the lunchtme news there was a labour spokeman saying that before 1997 we were crying out for decent healthcare and that they built tens and tens of new hospitals. Yes - hospitals too big to be managed effectively or efficiently, gobblng up increasingly enormous amounts of money while departments, units and wards get closed on a regular basis in never ending rounds of cuts. Yes, and closed down all the old Community hospitals which now seems increasingly, the way forward (or backwards depending which way you look at it)!!! Grrrrr Grumble over - I'm going back to my eBaying.
On the lunchtme news there was a labour spokeman saying that before 1997 we were crying out for decent healthcare and that they built tens and tens of new hospitals. Yes - hospitals too big to be managed effectively or efficiently, gobblng up increasingly enormous amounts of money while departments, units and wards get closed on a regular basis in never ending rounds of cuts. Yes, and closed down all the old Community hospitals which now seems increasingly, the way forward (or backwards depending which way you look at it)!!! Grrrrr Grumble over - I'm going back to my eBaying.
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I worked in the NHS most of the time in question, and I've seen the arguments from both sides. One side says that the public purse just simply cannot afford to keep major units open - here in Kent there was a huge furore a few years back when it was proposed to downgrade one hospital because we just couldn't afford to keep open and fully staff two state of the art hospitals. The same argument's going on now in Hastings and Eastbourne. Hospital Trusts can only afford to provide the services they are commissioned to provide (and that funding process is all changing come next April) - Community Hospitals (by and large) are part of Community Trusts so are different healthcare providers.
It was true that the hospitals infrastructure needed significant investment. Even the Tory administration prior to Blairs new Labour recognised that. Which party was it, do you think, that introduced the PFI scheme in the first place? Yep, Tory.
What you can blame the new Labour administration for, along with their civil servant bureaucrats in the DoH and the consultants hired by the bucketload was an enthusiastic embrace of a scheme that took capital expenditure of the balance sheet - without properly negotiating the terms, and now thats come back to bite us in the ass with a vengeance.
As to too many big hospitals, not enough community hospitals, thats more a clinical and logistics argument rather than primarily one about costs. It is true, from a clinical perspective, that centralisation of specialist services makes the most sense, and the same logic applies to A&E and probably maternity.
Costs also matter however - this is illustrated in London in particular, where you have duplication of a host of hospital services in hospitals maybe only 6 miles apart, essentially serving the same community. It would make far greater clinical sense to rationalise and centralise at least some of the more acute and specialised services, but local people and staff will not necessarily see that.
Convalescence and elderly care hospices etc would be better smaller and more widely distributed throughout the community.
What you can blame the new Labour administration for, along with their civil servant bureaucrats in the DoH and the consultants hired by the bucketload was an enthusiastic embrace of a scheme that took capital expenditure of the balance sheet - without properly negotiating the terms, and now thats come back to bite us in the ass with a vengeance.
As to too many big hospitals, not enough community hospitals, thats more a clinical and logistics argument rather than primarily one about costs. It is true, from a clinical perspective, that centralisation of specialist services makes the most sense, and the same logic applies to A&E and probably maternity.
Costs also matter however - this is illustrated in London in particular, where you have duplication of a host of hospital services in hospitals maybe only 6 miles apart, essentially serving the same community. It would make far greater clinical sense to rationalise and centralise at least some of the more acute and specialised services, but local people and staff will not necessarily see that.
Convalescence and elderly care hospices etc would be better smaller and more widely distributed throughout the community.
I don't think there was anything wrong with the old community hospitals Boxtops. Certainly in our area, granted it's not a large city, we had a super general hospital, a maternity hospital where my Mum, myself and my son were all born, an eye hospital and an isolation hospital. I drive past the isolation hospital every day - it's just a shell - all the lead's been stripped off the roof etc. The maternity unit is now in the new giant hospital and quite frankly is FILTHY, the old maternity hospital is now the site of a PC World, Matalan etc. Just seems like an awful waste to me. If something aint broken, don't mend it.
\\\\It is true, from a clinical perspective, that centralisation of specialist services makes the most sense, and the same logic applies to A&E and probably maternity\\\
Exactly Lazygun, but that would mean the patient travelling to the consultant rather than the other way round......not popular with the patient and hence difficult for the Politicians.
Exactly Lazygun, but that would mean the patient travelling to the consultant rather than the other way round......not popular with the patient and hence difficult for the Politicians.
Depending upon the treatment needed, we have to go to a hospital specialising in the giving of that treatment. Maternity, oncology, knee/hip replacements.
On this side of the river, we complain about having to go across the water, them on the other side reciprocate but each side is grateful of the care given.
On this side of the river, we complain about having to go across the water, them on the other side reciprocate but each side is grateful of the care given.
Sqad - I 've had to go all the way to Liverpool for some treatment! That's almost 150 round trip! So I assume that we don't have that particular facility in North Wales.
I agree wholeheartedly with your statement - not popular with voters, but sometimes a government must do what's needed. I don't think a dislocated shoulder's very popular with the patient but the doctor must yank it into place!
I agree wholeheartedly with your statement - not popular with voters, but sometimes a government must do what's needed. I don't think a dislocated shoulder's very popular with the patient but the doctor must yank it into place!
Funding the health service is a problem whichever way you look at it. We need, as a society, a proper debate about the mechanism of funding, but the current model represents one of the fairer and more inclusive models. Any other system, such as a private insurance funded model as in the US, works well for the well off and rich - but out of a population of around 320 million, around 45 million or so have no insurance at all, and are completely reliant on charity and free clinics. So you have, in the US,the sight of some of the best equipped and most professional hospitals in the world - and a free clinic in somewhere like Tennessee where you will get people travelling 100s of miles and queueing all night just to see a doctor or dentist at a free clinic. That sounds like the crumbling and broke health system, rather than the NHS.....
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