Hospitals' Dirty Secrets Uncovered

The dirty underbelly lurking beneath New Labour's shiny new temples to the NHS has been laid bare in a shocking indictment of patient care riddled with Third World filth and neglect.

The NHS may well be "world-class" when it comes to treatment but when it comes to standards of care, it's down there with the dross.

An urgent review of basic hospital care is being demanded by a leading patient lobby group after a major report exposed "appalling" NHS standards.

Relatives told the Patients Association how patients, often the elderly, were left lying in faeces and urine and were not helped to eat.

The horrifying report focused on 16 harrowing accounts of basic nursing and domiciliary care which the association says are just a tip of the iceberg. 2% of patients surveyed felt that their care was unacceptable.

Government-blessed nursing bosses and quango kids were quick on the defensive, arguing the NHS treats millions of people every day and the vast majority of patients experience "good quality, safe and effective care".

Never mind the vast majority - what about the silent minority? The proportions still represent hundreds of thousands of patients. Even two per cent is too many.

The hospital standards watchdog reckons its surveys show just 93% of patients rate their overall care as 'good or excellent'. So that means 7% are not happy with the service.

Every patient deserved to be treated with dignity. But relatives told of problems getting help from nurses and how patients were left with sandwiches or drinks in packaging which they could not open.

Treatment at the hands of some nurses was tantamount to cruelty.

Grave lapses in standards of care were highlighted earlier this year at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust which families described as "Third World" conditions, with some patients drinking water from vases and lying for hours in soiled bedding.

That kind of appalling treatment could be found across the NHS.

The group's president, ex-nurse Claire Rayner, called for "bad, cruel nurses" to be struck off. Fat chance.

Using the tired old excuse, nursing bureaucrats have repeated the bullsh*t mantra that the report may undermine public confidence in the "world-class" (sic) care and dampen staff morale.

The Orange Party is sure where the blame lies and it is not at the feet of the nursing profession.

Hospitals are bogged down with a management structure obsessed with targets and obsessed with making ends meet to pay for the legacy of a PFI build.

Something has to give and that's patient care, cleaning and the basic standard of care one would expect from the NHS.

Politicians were quick to fall over themselves professing their undying love for the dear old NHS as it was dragged into the US healthcare civil war. At a stroke that stifled the need for a proper debate over the future of the NHS and health care. The NHS has lost its way.

Once a byword for "free" medical care for all at the point of delivery, billions of pounds are now squandered on useless PR health puffs. Cash which should be going into patent care is being used to prop up and massage the egos of government ministers and quango cronies playing politics with the NHS and people's lives.

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Scrap NHS IT Waste, Save £12.7bn

The biggest non-military IT project in the world is crashing down around the government's ears, yet ministers are steadfastly squandering billions of pounds of taxpayers cash on the useless NHS white-elephant. 

The government is happy to write a blank cheque for this enormous disaster, as time and again the commons watchdog warns of delays after delays. 

The NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer system, has been dogged by problems since its launch in 2002 in the heyday of New Labour. The biggest non-military IT computer project in the world costs a staggering £12.7 billion and is already more than five years behind schedule. 

The whole project was born during chancellor Brown's boom years, when mesmerised ministers were quite happy to be strung along by slick IT salesman and consultants who promised the earth and delivered nothing. 

The government was hoodwinked by the promise of a revolution using the white heat of information technology and time and again the chickens came home to roost, as many of the big IT projects crashed and burned, ending up as embarrassing financial fiascos. 

Now MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC) have thrown fresh doubts on even a 2015 deadline for the disastrous NHS computer project. 

Its chairman said that even in trusts already using parts of the system, staff were unimpressed and the cost to the NHS was uncertain.

Both the Tories and Labour's left have seized on the project as another example of government waste and have called for the whole project to be scrapped, as minister's attempts to ram through a top-down, centralised, one-size-fits-all central NHS computer system come crashing down around their ears. 

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.

PAC MPs heard that two out of the four companies producing the NHS system have pulled out and some hospitals have been forced to bring in their own software as they struggle with 'Choose and Book' and '18-week targets'.

Not a single trust in the North, Midlands and East had begun using software for 'care records'  as of the end of last year. Essential systems are late and estimates of local costs are still very unreliable. 

The Orange Party and others have flagged up the NHS computer project as one the most shameful examples of how the government has squandered away public cash. None are more vociferous than David Craig in his detailed financial analysis of government waste - Squandered.

With the country deep in recession, now is the time to take tough decisions on the future of this £12.7 billion waste.

Instead of wandering around in a bemused daze, wasting time launching yet another 'heathstyle initiative', health secretary, Alan Johnson, could do well to get off his backside and get to grips with the problem. 

If he doesn't the Tories will and use it as yet another example of the fine mess the government has got us all into. And who could blame them?

UPDATE 11.19am: Too late for the health secretary. The BBC reports the Conservatives are considering plans for a £100m cap on government IT contracts to prevent "white elephants" such as the NHS computer system.

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Filthy Hospitals A National Disgrace

Filthy conditions of NHS hospitals in England are under attack again, this time by an invasions of rats, fleas, bedbugs, flies and cockroaches. The sorry state of hospital cleanliness is just the latest disgrace that exposes the unhealthy National Health Service.

Figures released by the Conservatives, show that vermin was found in wards, clinics and even operating theatres. 

Rats in a maternity unit, wasps in operating theatres, a children's A&E infested with flies and wards crawling with mice, silverfish, biting insects and beetles.

If the superbugs and hospital food don't make you ill - the vermin will. 

The much-vaunted government plans to 'Deep Clean' hospitals was a total waste of money. Even cleverly changing the reporting methods, couldn't hide the rise of the superbug menace. 

It's all down to cleanliness. And cash. 

The government has created a hospital culture which is more concerned with balancing the books, chasing targets and trying to pay off the crippling PFI debt, than getting on top of the cleaning. 

Contracting out services to the highest bidder just results in a shoddy service. 

Appalling hospital food is another area that suffers but has been brushed under the carpet of government complacency and hype. 

Cleanliness is low down on the list of priorities. Patient health suffers. 

Commenting on this latest hygiene scandal, a Patients Association spokesman said: "How can patients be safe amid bedbugs, fleas and rats? These findings reveal what happens when money is taken away from where patients expect to see it spent."

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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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