Politicians interfere Too Much In Health Care
Not me that said that, but the view of Dame Ruth Carnall in this article about stroke care in London. This is an extract.
She went on to criticise politicians for interfering too much in health changes.
She said: “Politicians too often reduce complex medical arguments to soundbites.
“Compromise is a mistake but is hard to resist. There is a political aversion to major changes as we’ve seen with the debate over A&Es.”
But then politicians love to interfere and the sooner we get more politicians who are caring people first and politicians second, the better.
The trouble with healthcare is that for serious problems, there just isn’t the money to have super-duper unit for that problem at every hospital. So especially in places like London, cutting the number of units for each speciality is a good thing.
I would also say do we want to go back to the 1950s and 1960s, where there were loads of local general hospitals, which did everything and usually did it in a less than perfect way. I can’t remember anyone in those days, who was totally pleased with the service they got from the local hospitals in Barnet and Enfield. I, myself, have a gammy arm, which may well have been caused by substandard treatment when it was broken by the school bully.
Surely, the wonderful outcome of the Fabrice Muamba case, should be a lesson to everybody. He was probably saved by the absolutely top-class emergency treatment he revived on the pitch by a cardiologist who happened to be in the crowd and a swift removal to a cardiac hospital.
According to Dame Ruth, London now has eight major stroke units and the political delays cost seven hundred lives.
The Anonymous Widower 
I agree. We have the crazy situation where politicians dictate that people with certain conditions must be seen within a certain time period. What the healthcare system should do is prioritise those who need urgent care above those that don’t regardless of the name of their condition. Also scoring hospitals on certain parameters just leads to healthcare managers working to improve their scores regardless of whether or not it is in the best interests of the patients. These things are done for political point scoring and not for the benefit of the public.
Comment by John Wright | October 12, 2012 |
The classic change is that East Anglia is now becoming a one hospital region, with anything really serious going straight to Addenbrooke’s. The smaller hospitals at Ipswich, BSE, Colchester are getting downgraded. The people don’t seem to mind too much, but the politicians can always find problems. They will always say children’s healthcare was better when there was a specialist hospital in Norwich for example. I’ve no idea, but it’s a good soundbite. I do think though that the Fabrice Muamba case will be a turning point for the NHS.
Comment by AnonW | October 12, 2012 |