Cameron And Co,

[hawksley]

I see the cons are as usual blaming Labour for the present problems in the NHS ,amongst other things,when the cons can not come up with an answer ,they always blame the previous government.THEY HAVE BEEN IN POWER NOW FOR ALMOST THREE AND A HALF YEARS. I expect when they lose the election in 2015 they will also blame labour .?

[VHG]

And of course Labour never blame the Conservatives for things they did in power do they.

Don't be so blinkered, they all do it.

[jake-the-peg]

They've also been badly caught spinning numbers

They claimed 13,000 preventable deaths - by calculating the difference between those trusts and the Average figure.

The report's author 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."

Meaningless and reckless - that rather sums it up

[Sqad]

LOL......you can turn statistics to mean whatever you want them to mean.
That of course if the statistics are accurate.

[naomi24]

And Labour was in power for 13 years before that. Did they remedy the failings in the NHS created by the previous Conservative government in 1993 with its costing-cutting plan called 'Care in the Community'? No, they made them worse! And you expect 20 odd years of mis-management to be remedied in 3 years? Take a reality check!

[factor-fiction]

Whilst it's true that every government blames the previous one (and some still blame the Thatcher government) it's the case that many of the NHS problems identified have been in place for at least 10 years -i.e. under Labour and the Coalition.. There were warnings about some hospitals that were ignored by the previous government.

[jake-the-peg]

I would have expected them to have been higher on their agenda if things were that bad

Talking of reality checks I think you should take one.

This is a moderately serious issue that the Tories have attempted to exaggerate into a major crisis by deliberately exaggerating figures for dramatic effect.

They have assumed in their numbers that every death over the average in these hospitals was avoidable - which is clear nonsense and the reports author has said that it is.

The true case is complex with some very bad practice in some areas but the overall theme if you actually look at the detail is a major staffing shortage which is, I agree not new but it's not been rectified, nor are there any plans to rectify it.

Indeed given the number of foreign workers in the NHS and the current immigration rule changes they are going to make it worse

[mushroom25]

Care in the Community? what a bloody misnomer that turned out to be! "cast the mentally ill adrift and let them get on with it" might have been a more accurate title.

[naomi24]

Jake, //This is a moderately serious issue that the Tories have attempted to exaggerate into a major crisis by deliberately exaggerating figures for dramatic effect. //

Tell that to the people who have been affected over very many years.

//They claimed 13,000 preventable deaths - by calculating the difference between those trusts and the Average figure. //

You're big on statistics when it suits you. How would you calculate the figure if not on the average? What other figure is there?

[naomi24]

Mushroom, precisely!

[jake-the-peg]

Duh!

OK Naomi - if all the poorly performing hospitals did as well as the average - what would happen to the average?

It would go up and all the ones at the old average would be under performing!

Near enough half of them will always be below average by definition!



Average is totally inappropriate here - you need to know what the distribution of the data is - what is the standard deviation here


example:
0 100 200 = average 100
99 100 101 = average 100

How far away are the underperformers from the average - that's the key


Unfortunately people are not good at understanding statistics that's why they don't trust them

I say that as a man with more than the average number of arms! (think about it)

[naomi24]

Jake, //if all the poorly performing hospitals did as well as the average - what would happen to the average?//

Depending upon the way you look at it, poor performers would be considered the norm – or all hospitals would be considered poor performers - which is why those that don’t meet the current expectations gleaned from taking the average from the rest of the hospitals are deemed to be poor performers.

//Unfortunately people are not good at understanding statistics that's why they don't trust them//

Is that why you don’t trust the ones that don’t suit you?

[naomi24]

I agree - and that's been going on for years too.

[emmie]

care in the community was a load of botox, it wasn't care, i have some experience of this, and fighting the authorities over this so called care was an experience i will never forget.