Do We Have Too Many Breast Cancer Charities?
That may be a controversial thing to say, but these posters for a new breast cancer charity have been appearing everywhere in London.
Do We Have Too Many Breast Cancer Charities?
Now C successfully survived breast cancer, so it is not a subject I know nothing about.
But I think now, that some of the most promising cancer research, like looking at the genetics, is very expensive and covers the whole spectrum of cancers.
So surely, this is where we should give our money. I incidentally subscribe to three different cancer charities, none of which are directly linked to breast cancer.
Although, Cancer Research UK, which I support, does support research into breast cancer.
Hope For Sufferers Of Cystic Fibrosis?
This morning, the BBC is showing this report entitled Gene therapy stabilises lungs of cystic fibrosis patients.
It is encouraging news, but also I suspect that it is very interesting technologically.
The genes are actually give to the patient through an inhaler, in a much simpler treatment regime.
Could Britain Become The World’s Health Hub?
Matt Ridley in The Times yesterday has an article entitled Britain has the chance to be the world’s doctor. This is an extract.
A new report commissioned by three parliamentarians, Meg Hillier, MP, Lord Crisp (former chief executive of the NHS) and the surgeon Lord Kakkar, and written by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, makes the case that Britain is well placed to become the world’s “health hub”. Just as the City of London is the world’s financial centre and Wimbledon is the centre of tennis, so Britain is already a surprisingly dominant player in research, practice, policy and regulation when it comes to health, and widely emulated around the world. There is an opportunity here.
I have been privileged in my life and have had insight in London, Cambridge and Liverpool into substantial developments and research that are going to make the world a healthier place.
It is our pre-eminence in health research and the related fields like information, that is driving the world’s health forwards.
Ridley gives some surprising facts, like that even the much-criticised NICE has an international offshoot that gives advice to countries with limited health funding.
It is an article that gives a positive outlook on the future and finishes with this statement.
If America is the world’s soldier, Germany its engineer, Brazil its farmer, China its manufacturer and India its service provider, then Britain can be the world’s doctor.
Everybody worried about the future of healthcare, should read this article.
Do We Featherbed Groups In Society?
I got my monthly State Pension today and at £677.16, that will do me for my day-to-day expenses for the next month. It doesn’t cover trips out of London, but it does allow me the odd light lunch in a restaurant.
But I also get other benefits just because of my circumstances, as a 67-year-old man, who lives alone.
I get a Council Tax discount because I live alone. But is that right as I live in a family house with a garage in a desirable part of London? If I didn’t get it, I’d still live here as that would be my choice, but I am blocking someone more worthy than me of buying this house.
I have a highly-insulated house with an efficient boiler, but should I get a winter fuel allowance? It would be better if the money was not paid at all, but used to improve our housing stock’s energy efficiency, so that those on a pension actually saved the money all through the year.
I have a Freedom Pass, which gives me free transport on buses, Underground, Overground and trains within the Central London area. This is one of the reasons I moved to Dalston. But is it too generous on the one hand and not universal enough on the other? Surely, a better system, would be one where you nominated your bank card as your transport pass and in the free areas, the system didn’t charge you. The advantage of this would be that London could enter into reciprocal arrangements with areas like Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, so that we could use each other’s concessionary area at a discount. Would this encourage more of us to travel to explore the country and perhaps spend money in attractions, cafes and shops, we wouldn’t dream of visiting now?
This morning according to this report on the BBC, the Liberal Democrats are saying that those who have a second house they use in a beautiful area, should pay double Council Tax on their second home. Here! Here!
I live in Central London and I am starting to resent the traffic. Not because I drive, but because of the pollution and noise often put out by cars used as glorified shopping trolleys and baby buggies. We let all drivers get off too lightly with the problems they cause in cities and if they got the message, we may see more cycling and walking, and better air quality. We might even see better delivery systems for goods, where transmissions were hybrid or electric, like London’s newer buses.
It will happen eventually, that all cars pay road charges based on mileage, fuel used and congestion. But I doubt we’ll see it soon, as there are no votes in it. It’ll probably be introduced in London first, as cycling gets more common and Crossrail shows everybody what real railways can be like.
But would a city like Birmingham, where the car is king, and pedestrians are targets to hit when crossing the road, accept charging to pay for the updating of the numerous railways and more trams in the city?
And then there’s lifestyle, fitness and health!
Many people drink, eat and smoke too much and governments don’t really discourage it forcefully. It would be an interesting exercise for a town or city to declare a city centre non-smoking and see what happens. I can remember, when ahead of the smoking ban the landlord of my local pub in Suffolk declared it a smoke-free zone. He got some moans, but not from his bank manager.
The NHS is in crisis, but this is mainly a problem of the irresponsible patients making. So if we can get people back to the straight and narrow, we might help the dear old NHS out.
For a start, I would like to see a law, that no-one could stand for elected office or sit on the board of an NHS body, if they were a smoker!
I could go on a lot more. But we must all change our lifestyle, if we want this country to be a place, that is really worth living in.
Hospital Closure Protests
Yesterday’s BBC London local news led with a story about how the hospitals of Epsom and St. Helier NHS Trust will be redeveloped.
They currently have three hospitals at Epsom, St. Helier and Sutton and consultants overhead on a train, are saying that a new hospital will be developed on one of the sites.
From what the report said, the locals want to keep all hospitals, which may not be the most economic or practical solutions.
I have looked at Google Earth images and the details on how you get to these hospitals and I suspect that the only practical way to get to these hospitals is by car or taxi. But as they probably charge an arm and a leg for parking, this is probably something that gets protested about all the time.
If they do build a new hospital it must be easily accessible by public transport. At present all sites need a long walk to all except Epsom, which is obviously a policy designed to discourage poorly and elderly patients and visitors without their own transport. There have been plans to link St. Helier hospital on the Tramlink, but nothing seems to be happening in that area. This is the Google Earth image for the hospital.
St. Helier Hospital
Surely, if you are going to create a new super-hospital it must have first-class public transport links. This article in the Local Guardian shows the route of the proposed Tramlink extension.
St. Helier Tramlink
I would assume that the loop to St. Helier Hospital includes street running or goes through Rose Hill Park. This a Google Earth image of the area.
St. Helier Tramlink Detail
The roundabout at the top left is Rosehill roundabout, which is planned to have a tram stop and the hospital is at the bottom right.
It would seem feasible to run the Tramlink to the hospital, but would the street running and/or possible loss of green space, create a lot of opposition?
A survey on the Merton Council web site is very supportive of Tramlink going to the hospital.
An interesting fact is that there is a frequent train service, that takes just ten minutes between Epsom and Sutton stations, so if a super-hospital was built on the St. Helier site, getting there from Epsom wouldn’t be difficult, provided of course the Tramlink extension was built.
If we look at Epsom Hospital becoming the super-hospital, then here is a Google Earth image that shows both Epsom station and the hospital.
Epsom Station And Hospital
The station is at the top and the hospital is indicated by the red arrow at the bottom.
From experience of the area years ago, it is not an easy walk and should a super-hospital be served by buses alone?
The other site is to build it on the old Sutton Hospital. But this is only served by buses from Sutton station, as is the nearby world-class Royal Marsden Hospital. This Google Earth image shows the two hospitals and the nearest rail station at Belmont.
Sutton Hospitals And Belmont Station
There could be possibilities to sort out the transport links in some way to Belmont station, but it only has an infrequent service with nothing on a Sunday.
I have a feeling that if the Tramlink extension is built between Wimbledon and Sutton stations, that if tram-trains were used they could extend down the Epsom Downs branch, with perhaps a loop to serve the developing Health Campus based on the Royal Marsden and perhaps a super-hospital built at Sutton.
Avoiding The Real Issues In The NHS
All the political parties seem to be promising more and more to the NHS in this election, be it money, drugs, doctors, nurses or midwives.
Money could be the least of the problems, as it will probably come from improvements to the economy or some tax-the-rich measure, depending on your political point of view.
As drugs are not really a drug problem, but usually a money one, we are left with where to we get the tens of thousands of staff we need to provide health-care.
The trouble is that being a health professional, is a skill you can use anywhere in the world, as all human beings are the same under the skin, even if they come in various colours, speak different languages and have certain different diseases governed by genetics or environment. So just as we can recruit paramedics from the Antipodes, nurses from the Philippines and doctors from virtually everywhere, other countries can entice our health professionals away.
We live in an increasingly global society, and working abroad for a few years is often in many peoples desired career profile, be it in health care or not. Healthcare like certain other professions is one of those that gives you a passport to a lot of interesting places.
All manpower planning in the NHS seems to believe that those trained here, will stay here. But all good training does is hand everybody that passport to travel.
To make matters worse, good training for some professions, is an excellent grounding to starting a business or working in the private sector.
So the first issue we must face, is this one of where do we get the staff. The NHS has shown itself to be not very innovative in this area.
Some have suggested in the past, that anybody trained in the NHS must contract to work for the service for so many years. This is just cloud-cuckoo thinking.
The one positive thing that can be done to help staff is to provide better working conditions and rewards for those working in the NHS. Most of the NHS buildings, I’ve seen in the last ten years have been pretty sound, with perhaps the odd exception, so we must look at the problems of staff with respect to organisation, management, pay and pensions.
What I do find interesting is that all of the Practice Nurses I’ve met in GPs surgeries seem to be so much happier in their work than those in hospitals. It’s only a small survey, but it does say something about the difference between GP’s surgeries and hospitals.
When I’ve spent time in hospital in the past few years, it has been been twice in good NHS hospitals and once in an expensive private one in Hong Kong. There was little difference in the equipment or methods used, but as an IT professional of some years experience, I don’t believe that hospital systems are what an engineer or manager would accept if they worked in say a modern car factory in the UK.
So we must get hospital and GP health systems to the levels that patients and staff expect in their personal life.
Where is an on-line copy of my health record, that I can read to get to the bottom of my problems, that seem to occur seasonally in the Spring?
But things are changing and we must create a health communication and information system, that is an order of magnitude better than what we have today.
No political party is saying they’ll fix this important gap in the NHS.
Everything in our lives is going on to our computers or phones, but healthcare in the NHS hasn’t changed that much since I was born in 1947.
Some people rightly worry about such a computer system. But at its best it would only be like an on-line shopping system, where if you don’t see what you need on-line at your favourite store, you go and look at a physical one.
In all the politicians posturing on health, they very much ignore the users of the NHS and what they can do to improve the service and its efficiency.
I would be interested to see an analysis of how much the average patient costs the NHS. I suspect that because of the lack of a fully joined-up computer system, if I had complete access and wanted to find out how much I cost the NHS last year, no accurate value could be calculated.
Many people calculate their motoring costs to the last penny, but even if they wanted to, it’s probably impossible with healthcare, even though all the data is there.
Eventually, everybody will have this figure, as it could be a powerful tool for a GP to classify and better treat their patients and as a motivator to patients to improve their lifestyle. You’ll never change some patients, but many could be nudged in the right direction.
We must also do more to ease our load on the NHS. On a personal level, I look after my INR, by doing my own tests. A Committee of MPs has stated that all NHS patients who can, should do their own testing to save the NHS a lot of money.
How many other measurements can be taken by patients to ease the load? And are we doing enough to encourage more and better devices?
In no political party’s pontifications on the NHS, can I find anything about bringing the patient more into his or her own healthcare. But many doctors and nurses have said to me that we should take more responsibility for our own health.
After all, many of us now carry a tablet or phone, that has more computing and information accessing capability than existed anywhere ten years ago. Is this being used to give us better healthcare? Not really!
Political parties are not tackling the problems caused by our poor diet, lifestyle and environment.
Where I live, there are more unhealthy takeaways than you need to try a new one every week of the year. Not one sells any gluten-free food, so their chances of seducing me with their crap is non-existent.
Even the Sainsburys Local that I use is not a store,where you can always get the staples you need to create a healthy meal. Yesterday, I needed a couple of haddock fillets for supper, but except for some very bedraggled and unappetising cod, there was no uncoated fish. So I had to take a bus to the Angel to get some from Waitrose. Does a lack of healthy food locally mean that many don’t eat as healthily as I do? I am out and about in London most days using my Freedom Pass, so it is not difficult for me to pick up what I need on the go. But a young mother with an infant in a buggy doesn’t have that luxury. It’s not the shops’ fault, as they only stock what the shop sells!
The only positive thing government can do in this area, is to give local authorities more power to decide what shops they allow in their area.
I haven’t seen anything like this in any manifesto.
We should also do things to curb air pollution, which can get bad at times. All city centre transport, should either be electric or very low emission vehicles.
But again, no-one wants to annoy people, except the Greens, who won’t win anyway.
I suppose smoking comes into this area. Any candidate for London Mayor, who decides to ban it in public parks, squares and in the vicinity of bus stops gets my vote next time.
Perhaps candidates for the election, should have to declare if they smoke or not and what car they drive on the ballot paper!
Do we also give our children an education that will help them get through the minefield that is health? We give sex education in schools, but surely health education is just as, if not more important!
We need to think radically, about how we deliver healthcare and before we throw money at it, we should sort out the details on how it is delivered, how it interacts with patients and the fasctors that affect it.
Conservative 1940s thinking has failed and we must bring the NHS into the twenty-first century.
The World-Changing Invention Of The Decade
I heard about Stablepharma on the BBC 5 Live Science program.
The delivery of vaccines to isolated places all over the world is very worthwhile and extremely expensive because it needs a lot of refrigeration for the journey.
But read about the technology being developed by Stablepharma.
If this can be made to work, healthcare will never be the same again!
The UK’s Unhealthiest High Streets And Gluten Free Food
In this report on the BBC, they published a list of the healthiest and unhealthiest High Streets. This is the unhealthiest list.
1. Preston
2. Middlesbrough
3. Coventry
4. Blackpool
5. Northampton
6. Wolverhampton
7. Grimsby
8. Huddersfield
9. Stoke-on-Trent
10. Eastbourne
Of these I have only ever been looking for gluten-free food in the first four and Wolverhampton.
In the first four, I drew a blank even in Marks and Spencer on getting anything tasty, except for a gluten-free quiche in Middlesbrough. Although, I did get a gluten-free pizza in Pizza Express in Preston and a Polish gluten-free pastie using a cabbage leaf in Wolverhampton.
What makes things worse in these places, is that none has a Marks and Spencer Simply Food at the station. Preston is so bad at the station, that when I got stuck there once after football in Blackpool, I went home via Piccadilly, so that I could have supper in the Carluccio’s there.
It would be interesting to see how many coeliacs have been diagnosed in these towns.
Will We See A Station At Addenbrooke’s?
Addenbrooke’s is the major hospital in Cambridge and it is starting to be surrounded by the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and a cluster of innovative medical companies.
Will We See A Station At Addenbrooke’s?
The picture shows the hospital sitting like a medical Ship of the Fens in the Cambridgeshire countryside.
Public transport between the hospital and the centre of Cambridge and the Science Park relies on the Guided Bus, but as a station is being developed at the latter, it was no surprise that David Cameron suggested that there should be a station at Addenbrooke’s.
If Cambridge continues to develop, then the rail lines that fan out from the city will need to be developed, if only to allow more commuting into a crowded city. Cambridge may have a very good Park and Ride System, but getting from Cambridge Science Park station station to Bury St. Edmunds or Ipswich would mean a change of train at either Cambridge or Ely.
As all the lines in the area are either electrified or are being studied for possible electrification, I suspect we’ll see some extra lines, junctions and curves around Cambridge to improve transport routes, especially to improve links to the East West Rail Link.
The only certainty is that in a dozen years the Cambridge rail system will be unrecognisable from that we have today.
Greater Manchester To Control Local Health Budget
\This report on the BBC entitled Greater Manchester Councils ‘to control £6bn NHS budget’, is surely the way for healthcare to go in the UK, as I suspect that health needs in various parts of the country can be very different.
Manchester is getting increasingly like London with an elected mayor responsible for various issues. Some of these issues are related, like the provision of good public transport to and from hospitals, so it is only right that they are dealt with locally. I am lucky in that my three local hospitals; the Royal London, Homerton and University College are all an easy bus ride or train journey away, but what proportion of the UK population, need to get a car or taxi to their local hospital?
The Anonymous Widower 