Heart Attack Hot Air On Spinning Sunday

Desperate efforts to spin its way out of the busted economy moved up a gear as a government planted 'positive' story over heart treatment popped up on the radar. The ink wasn't dry on the 'tough' immigration line, before today's reassurances for heart attack victims.

The Orange Party hadn't even chance to check out the Sunday papers or check up on the BBC when it posted: "next up, expect a couple of planted feel-good stories to reassure voters over public services." Government spin doctors didn't disappoint. 

BBC On-Line news reports: "Hundreds of lives will be saved every year with the introduction of a "gold standard" treatment for heart attacks across England, say ministers." 

That's "government ministers", "gold standard", "heart attacks" and "saved" all in one sentence. Quite an achievement. even for those used to writing prosaic prose and free puffs dressed up as news stories. And the BBC was not alone. 

The free puff and the line to reinforce public services are safe, centres on the use of the medically invasive balloon and tube angioplasty used for some heart attack victims. As usual, the devil is in the detail. 

Apparently, in some areas of the country this life saving angioplasty is already widely available but not in others. So this is more about trying to wriggle out of the despicable practice of the post code lottery rather than good medical practice. And it gets better, or worse, depending on your point of view.

"It is envisaged that regional cardiac networks... working in a specialist centre ... rush patients to the specialist centre, bypassing more local district general hospitals on the way."

By-pass (sic) local hospitals to the new super regional centres as part of the Darzi NHS privatisation plan and that means you can justify the closure of local hospital that much easier. 

The only criteria for medical treatment should be on medial need, regardless of where you live, who you are, or what it costs. 

Nor should someone's medical condition be used as yet another government propaganda tool which will force hospitals to look over their shoulders again to achieve unrealistic government targets. 

Only yesterday the Brown spin tried to use immigration to take the heat out of the busted real economy. Today it's health. What next? Well, schools secretary, Ed Balls, is missing out on the limelight. Troop withdrawal from Iraq? The UN mandate for occupation runs out at the end of the year.

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£12.7bn Wasted On NHS Computer

Missing from Lord Darzi's big business plan for the NHS in England, was any hint of what to do about the billions of pounds wasted on bureaucracy, top heavy management and, in particular, the disasterous £12.7 billion NHS IT system. The Review, announced yesterday, was a wasted opportunity, with no mention of how to put money saved into better treatment for patients.

The NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer system, launched in 2002 in the heyday of New Labour, is the biggest non-military IT computer project in the world, costing a staggering £12.7 billion and four years behind schedule.

Last month, the head of the NHS, chief executive David Nicholson, told MPs on the public accounts committee he'd rejected calls by 23 leading academics for an independent review of the scheme.

The IT industry's magazine, Computer Weekly, notes that: "Nicholson's arguments against a review of the programme were similar to those put by National Air Traffic Services when its board fought a call for an independent assessment of delayed software to support a new air traffic control centre in Hampshire."

Conservative critics say the government's attempts to "ram through a top-down, centralised, one-size-fits-all central NHS computer system" has come "crashing down around their ears." 

As noted here, billions of pounds of tax-payers' money is just going down the drain and into the pockets of the IT consultants, leaving doctors and hospital chiefs trying to get to grips with an unworkable IT system, instead of looking after the welfare of patients.

The last decade of the New Labour government has seen many the big IT projects crash and burn, with huge IT projects at the MoD and department of work and pensions ending up as embarrassing financial fiascos.

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Darzi Takes The Knife To The NHS

Surgeon turned health minister, Lord Darzi, takes the knife to the NHS today, with plans to supersize and sell off the Service and do nothing about the billions of pounds wasted on bureaucracy, top heavy management and a disasterous IT system. 

Cutting through the NewLabourSpeak and getting to the heart of the matter, the plan aims to concentrate services in massive medical clusters and then sell them off to the private heath business. 

What people want is to just cut back on the wasteful  bureaucracy and put the money into better treatment.

The scheme is well advanced, with the 'polyclinics' at the forefront - up to 25 GPs in a huge building, no doubt all run and owned by private health care companies.

The British Medical Association recently handed in a petition to Downing Street signed by over a million people objecting to the 'threat to close' their local GPs' surgeries and replace them with super-surgeries.

And, in the Darzi review, published today, scores of hospital departments including maternity units and cancer clinics will be closed or merged across the country.

This review, the brain-child of one of Brown's GOATS, Prof Lord Sir Baron Ari Darzi of Denham, has nothing to do with patient care and everything to do with big business. 

Lord Darzi has pledged that hospital units would not close before new ones opened. But this is just another huge, top-down reorganisation of the NHS, with smaller hospitals already losing specialist services to big regional centres.

Meanwhile hospital chiefs are left obsessed with balancing the books, trying to pay off the crippling PFI debt, chasing unrealistric hospital targets and getting to grips with an unworkable IT system, rather than looking after the welfare of patients. 

The shake-up, on the 60th anniversary of the NHS, marks the final nail in the coffin for the NHS,  once the envy of the world.

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Private Pickle Over Polyclinics

Health secretary, Alan Johnson, has been keeping his head down, since his empty promise to 'Deep Clean' hospitals and get rid of those nasty super bugs. Now he's in a pickle over poly-clinics, facing the wrath of doctors and patients over New Labour's plans for private super-surgeries.

Johnson, the former postie, is just delivering the message. The privatisation plan is the brain-child of one of Brown's GOATS, Prof Lord Sir Baron Ari Darzi of Denham, (no kidding), the surgeon-turned-health minister who's now taken the knife to the NHS.

The British Medical Association is due to hand in a petition to Downing Street today signed by hundreds of thousands of patients (over a million according to the BBC/Telegraph) objecting to the 'threat to close' their local GPs' surgeries.

There's something reasuring about popping down to your cosy GP surgery when you're not well and having a chat with a doctor who knows you and your family history. It makes you feel better already.

Not so with this latest Big Idea. These are mega-clinics - up to 25 GPs in a huge building - and no doubt all run and owned by private health care companies.

When will it all end? Will Brown ever listen to the warning signs or is he just in self-destruct mode?

After the 10p tax fiasco and the 42 days detention debacle, Brown is now set to do battle with the doctors and more importantly the patients.

Picture: Tim Sanders

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