'Momentous day' for NHS as the first Constitution ends the era of doctor knows best with list of rights and responsibilities for patients and staff.

Gordon Brown signs first NHS constitution
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The document explains clearly a collection of legal rights, pledges and responsibilities for both patients and staff for the next ten years.

Gordon Brown signed the Constitution at a ceremony in Downing Street saying it was a 'momentous day' for the health service in its 61st year however the Conservatives said it was 'toothless' and a missed opportunity."

I don't believe it will make much difference. - I wonder what is the exact meaning of the word 'legal' in this context? - Take these two 'legal rights' of patients:

To be treated with dignity and respect.

To refuse treatment.

If the patient is not treated with dignity and respect, what's going to be done about it? - If anything at all is done, I suggest it will be months later and that it may be on the lines of, "We are sorry that you feel that you were not treated with the respect to which you felt you were entitled. "

Right to refuse treatment. - When I refuse pain-killers because they do not work on me it is almost automatic for doctors to disregard my wishes and to try to persuade or bully me into taking them and then to blame me for being in pain because I won't take them...)o: They refuse to accept the fact that painkillers do not work on me...)o:

And this 'legal right' of patients:

To have complaints dealt with efficiently.

Not until herds of pigs are flying overhead, I reckon...)o: - NHS Complaints Procedures are notoriously partisan and do not help the complainants in any way whatsover, routinely wasting their time and energy and adding to their problems. There isn't going to be a seismic change, you can be sure. - To say that complaints will be dealt with efficiently - those are mere words.

See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2008/11/uselessness-and-cruelty-of-nhs.html

See also The appalling way Andrea Carey has been treated by our "caring professions" and how NOTHING AT ALL has been done to help her! - The main purpose of a Complaints Procedure should be to take the complaint seriously and help the complainant as much as possible. - This is NOT what happens with the NHS complaints! Readers of this blog may like to write to the Healthcare Commission about Andrea Carey and try to get somebody to help her.

Healthcare Commission Report finds three in four British hospitals fail children. I find Healthcare Commission fails patients harmed by the NHS.

Report finds three in four hospitals fail children

Extracts:

"Three quarters of hospitals in England are failing to meet standards of quality and safety in the care they provide for children, a damning report has found.

The investigation by the Healthcare Commission, the health services regulator, today says that 70 per cent of 157 trusts scored only "fair" and five per cent scored "weak" when measured against national standards set by the Government, three years ago.

Only four per cent had services that were "excellent".

Nearly one hospital in five failed to provide sufficient emergency life support systems for children at night and, across the board, too few staff were trained in pain management of children.

Lack of training of staff, from nurses through to surgeons and anaesthetists, in communicating with children was a common criticism."

"The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said it was "dismayed" by the findings. "It starkly demonstrates that NHS hospitals have made poor progress in meeting the needs of children and young people," said Dr Patricia Hamilton, the college president.

It was unacceptable but "not surprising" that 75 per cent of hospitals were rated as fair or weak. She said: "Children's services have long been under-resourced and have not been given the priority they deserve.""

Well I suppose the Healthcare Commissions reports may do a bit of good. - A bit. - But what is overwhelmingly needed is some help and support for the individual victims of the NHS system, the victims of medical negligence, ignorance, incompetence and couldn't-care-lessness, all too common in this huge, badly run, employee-oriented, politically manipulated business in which patients get a lot of lip-service and fancy rhetoric from politicians and NHS bureaucrats but precious little real care. - If there were to be prompt and appropriately severe sanctions against personnel who treat patients badly, carelessly, negligently, incompetently - sometimes downright cruelly (which at present happens far too often - because they know they can get away with it) - then there would quickly be an improvement in service and consequent improvement in the nation's health, happiness and wellbeing.

Nothing gets done about the horror of the suffering endured by steroid victims; they continue to be given the wrong advice about their morbid obesity - which is the direct consequence of the medical profession's negligence and which could be lessened if they were to be clearly and directly told that calorie restriction is damaging and they must cut out all avoidable sodium from what they eat. - I feel this blog entry could be better worded but I am so tired and ill that I can't spare the energy to work on the wording or to add more points that cry out to be made. I know that my website and my blog have had many visitors from hospitals, medical centres, universities and other academic institutions from all over the world, visitors from the Houses of Parliament, the BBC, drug companies, etc. etc. and maybe some doctors are at last warning their patients to avoid eating salt while taking dangerous drugs like prednisolone, like HRT, etc, - but WHEN ARE EXISTING STEROID VICTIMS GOING TO BE TOLD THE TRUTH? - When Hell freezes over, I suspect, if the guilty can get away with it.

If and when sodium retention and salt sensitivity are finally, inescapably, recognised as the primary cause of obesity, then I feel confident that the cover-up position will be that it is caused partly by sodium retention, but mainly by over-eating, and the destructive calorie reduction advice will continue as an adjunct to the sodium advice....)o: - BUT THE CALORIE EXPLANATION WILL STILL NOT BE TRUE AND THE STEROID VICTIMS AND OTHER OVERWEIGHT PEOPLE WILL CONTINUE TO BE DAMAGED FURTHER BECAUSE THE SPIN CULTURE DEMANDS THAT POWERFUL PEOPLE BE PROTECTED FROM DAMAGE TO THEIR REPUTATIONS.

My emails to the Healthcare Commission did not even get to them because there are gatekeepers who protect them from unimportant messages like those of damaged citizens...

Health professionals are even allowed to refuse to give evidence at the inquest into the death of a patient whose care was their responsibility and whose death resulted from their error! - see http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2007/02/police-to-review-case-of-fatal-calcium.html

Maybe one day I'll write in this blog about the way the 'caring professions' in the NHS destroyed my own health and happiness so needlessly and with such long, sustained cruelty - for years - in complete confidence that no-one would do anything at all about it! - Meanwhile I invite you to read about Andrea Carey's experience of the NHS and its 'aftercare' of patients in these two blog entries:

http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2007/02/healthcare-commission-reports-nhs.html and http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2007/01/operation-ordeal-that-will-haunt-me.html and also to read a little of my experience in http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html and my Mensa article

If anyone has the concern and the courage to want to help me in my mission, I can be emailed from my website.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Healthcare Commission reports NHS complaints show serious safety fears.

NHS complaints show serious safety fears

Extract:

"More than one in five complaints referred to the health watchdog involves serious concerns about patient safety in the NHS, according to a report out today.

Hospitals, family doctors and dentists all have lessons to learn from more than 16,000 complaints reflecting the “raw feelings of patients”, the Healthcare Commission said.

About 100,000 complaints are made against the health service every year and 8,000 are sent for the commission to review if a patient is dissatisfied with the outcome. The number of complaints sent have trebled since the watchdog took on the role in 2004. In the first report of its kind, the commission says that 22 per cent of complaints it had handled over two years were about safety, such as accidents, falls or children being given the wrong injections.

Others concerned the poor care of dying relatives, bereaved families being treated in an abrasive or unsympathetic manner, and patients being discharged at inappropriate times of day. Poor quality meals, inadequate nursing care and dirty wards were also high on the list of complaints.

The commission said that many concerns focused on the “basic elements of healthcare”. It is now publishing a list of the worst ten NHS trusts for dealing with complaints that should have been resolved at a local level. "

I suggest that people interested in how complaints are dealt with visit the http://www.avma.org.uk/index.asp website (Action against medical accidents). You'll need to register, I think, and log in, then click on 'Share experience' in the links on the left and go to the forums. - I suggest you will gain there a better and more insightful idea of the atrocious way many patients are treated in the NHS and you will see that, in the main, nothing at all is done about it!

See also The appalling way Andrea Carey has been treated by our "caring professions" and how NOTHING AT ALL has been done to help her! - The main purpose of a Complaints Procedure should be to take the complaint seriously and help the complainant as much as possible. - This is NOT what happens with the NHS complaints! Readers of this blog may like to write to the Healthcare Commission about Andrea Carey and try to get somebody to help her.

I see that Blair calls British doctors 'the best in Europe'

I don't share his opinion...)o:

Operation ordeal that will haunt me forever - the appalling experience of Andrea Carey at Darlington Memorial Hospital, County Durham, England

Op ordeal that will haunt me forever

Extracts:

"Ms Carey, 33, from Houghton Road, Darlington, underwent what she thought would be a harmless diagnostic procedure in January 2003."

"During the procedure, which involved passing a camera-tipped tube into her stomach, a major artery was severed.
For four hours, doctors and nurses did not realise she was bleeding internally."

"She underwent five operations as surgeons fought to stop the bleeding.
This involved a massive incision in her stomach, which had to stay open for many hours.

To add to her misery Ms Carey's deep wound was infected with the superbug MRSA.

Now, nearly four years later, Ms Carey has appealed to the County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to recognise the distress caused by her experience.

But a trust spokesman said that, although it acknowledged her distress, there were risks with all surgical procedures and it did not believe there was any negligence."

"I had a baby at the time, which I was unable to look after," she said.
It also meant she had to give up her work as a nursing assistant."

On the AvMA (http://www.avma.org.uk/) forum, Andrea says, "THE SURGEON ASKED ME IF I'D SAVED MYSELF A PLACE IN HEAVEN !! AND TOLD ME GOD WAS TESTING ME !!!"

If you read other entries on the AvMA forum pages you will see other examples of the deplorable way in which British victims of medical negligence have the physical and psychological distress already caused by the negligence, compounded by the shamefully inutile complaints procedures and legal avenues they try to battle through, adding financial stress and many other burdens. - Is there anyone reading this who can help Andrea in any way?