So many snippets of information over the last few days; so little time to do something with it.

First up
We’ve got the bastards worried [1].

What is the big breakthrough, in terms of politics, on the web in the last few years? It’s basically blogs which are, generally speaking, hostile and, generally speaking, basically see their job as every day exposing how venal, stupid, mendacious politicians are.

(Matthew Taylor, Tony Blair’s outgoing chief strategy adviser).

..and the problem with that is?

This leads nicely to another episode of NHS doubletalk.

The No Delays Team is supporting NHS staff to provide a healthcare system in which no patient waits unnecessarily for any service. Delays will only occur where patients choose to wait for their treatment or where a medical reason for waiting would produce the best outcome.

(NHS Institute for Innovation & Improvement)

Full article here

Meanwhile to save money our PCT has told us to delay the treatment of their patients and aim for 5 months turnaround.

If nothing else this seems pretty mendacious and stupid (and as for venal we only have to go to the Alan Milburn posting).

Now moving swiftly on to the announcement [2] that

The Department of Health is expected to publish a code of practice allowing hospitals to market their services under the era of choice.

(HSJ, 20/11/06)

The other day I made this statement .

I’d like to add to this by saying “I think every penny spent by an NHS institution an advertising solely for the purpose of luring patients away from another NHS institution is morally wrong.”

If competition was intended to improve the NHS this is a strange way to go about things.
We are being advised how to spend tax-payers money advertising our services to avoid these service being taken over by the private sector. We are spending tax-payers money to attract patients from one tax-pyaer funded hospital to another tax-payer funded hospital.

NHS hospitals will have no option but to invest in marketing tactics, such as advertising, if they are to survive against private firms who will already have large marketing budgets and considerable expertise in selling themselves.

It is a sad indictment of government policy to consider spending public money on advertising NHS services when hospitals are having to make cutbacks in patient care and compulsory redundancies in order to save money.

(Dr Jonathan Fielden, chair BMA’s consultants’ committee)

Voters are overwhelmingly againt this. According to a survey conducted by YouGov for the NHS Together alliance of health unions in a poll of more than 2,000. Thirty nine per cent strongly disagreed and thirty four per cent disagreed with the proposition that ‘I want to see competition in the NHS with doctors and hospitals competing for my custom, such as spending and advertising’. (HSJ, 20/11/06)

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Radio 4 was entertaining this morning with Patsy wriggling like a fish dodging answering questions on single sex wards and spouting the usual diatribe about how well they’re doing. My daughter couldn’t understand my growing irritation with the woman. I don’t suppose me shouting “Just answer the bloody question” at the radio is the sort of behaviour I should be subjecting her to at that time in the morning.

The Huwitt woman, like a wild animal in a cage, tore off in any direction except an answer to the question. John Humphry’s patience was only equalled by her determination to equivocate.

(akaProfessor from Today Program message board)

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And finally after my previous posts regarding ‘Lorenzo’ I find an article in the HSJ form 02/11/06 telling me that “CSC used iSoft’s existing iPM software in it’s implementations and will upgrade to Lorenzo later”.
Great. So we experienced all these problems with an existing system. Heaven knows what new bugs will come to the surface when Lorenzo does arrive.

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[1] Well big fish like Dr Crippin, Wat Tyler, Guido & the Devil – not little fish like me.

[2] I know this is a couple of days old now, but I just had to say something and this is the first chance I got.