Whistleblowers in hospitals are still being ignored.

The Telegraph reports that hospitals are still disregarding whistleblowing members of staff with concerns for the safety of their patients. "More than one in five (21 per cent) said that they had been actively persuaded not to report problems."

It is a similar situation for patients who draw attention to problems - i.e. people who make a justifiable complaint about the way they are treated or have been treated. They often experience, or fear that they will experience, victimisation or reprisals.

Publish Post

When I was speaking to the orthopaedic surgeon earlier this year at my final meeting with him after an operation on my arm that had resulted in a worsening of the problems it had been expected to remediate, I asked him if it would do any good for me to write a letter of complaint to the manager of the hospital. It was a little difficult to get him to commit himself to an answer, but he did eventually say that in his opinion it would do no good whatsoever and would result in no change.

Infection rates in British hospitals are ten times higher than those in other countries

British hospitals 'worst for superbugs'

Extracts from the Sunday Telegraph:

"Infection rates in British hospitals are 10 times higher than those in other countries, according to a damning report.

The report, from a panel of government advisers, warns of "a fifty-fold increase since 1990", with one in five cases of the killer bug Clostridium difficile now affecting patients below the age of 65.

A leading infection expert, Prof Richard James, director of the Centre for Healthcare Associated Infections, said the figures meant Britain's death rate from the bug was likely to dwarf those of other countries. The unpublished report, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, urges hospitals to improve hygiene, testing and isolation procedures to slow the spread of the infection, which was caught by more than 50,000 people last year."

"A television programme tonight warns that C. difficile infection is becoming increasingly resistant to treatment.

• 'Panorama: How Safe is Your Hospital?', BBC1 10.20pm, Sunday April 27th."

You can improve your resistance to infection by eating less salt/sodium and salty food.

Damning indictment of Britain's frequently lousy health service

NHS patients face humiliating treatment

From the Telegraph:

"Hospitals are still failing to treat people with dignity and respect as complaints reveal patients left unwashed, in soiled bedding and in humiliating open-backed gowns, the Healthcare Commission has said.

A third of complaints about the NHS relate to dignity, respect and nutrition in hospitals, the commission's 2007 "state of healthcare" report found.

Mixed-sex wards are still a major problem, despite Labour's manifesto pledges in 1997 and 2001 to abolish them.

The report also said that one in five patients who wanted help with eating did not get it, and others complained that food or drink was placed out of reach.

Examples of complaints over dignity included a lack of regular baths or showers, gowns that failed to protect patients' modesty and curtains being opened while a patient is receiving intimate care.

The 136-page report also called for improvements in care for children, action on hospital superbugs, better service planning and promotion of patient safety.

The report said one in 10 hospitals in England did not meet standards on patient privacy and confidentiality.

Half of patients in mental health wards and almost three in five with learning disabilities were treated in mixed-sex accommodation.

A third of patients admitted to hospital as an emergency were sleeping in mixed-sex areas and 30 per cent of in-patients had to share bathroom or shower areas with the opposite sex."

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Health tourism: - more and more British patients are going abroad for treatment.

Fears and frustrations driving patients abroad

Extract from Sunday Telegraph article:

"The threat of contracting a fatal superbug, and despair over hospital waiting times are fuelling a boom in health tourism, with Britons turning to overseas hospitals in growing numbers.

A survey – as new figures are about to be published on MRSA and Clostridium difficile – reveals that a third do so because of rising hospital infections.

Figures this week are expected to show a continued rise in outbreaks of the superbugs. And experts warn that the latest statistics would represent "the tip of the iceberg" with hundreds of thousands of cases going undetected."

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

It is claimed in a report funded by Roche, the drug company, that Britain is falling down in its provision of drugs for cancer.

Britain is sick man of Europe for providing cancer drugs - Independent

Extract:

"British patients are being denied access to life-saving cancer drugs that are widely available in the rest of Europe and the developed world, according to a report.

The NHS's "penny-pinching" attitude to new treatments and "excessive bureaucracy" surrounding their assessment is condemning cancer sufferers in Britain to an early death, it says.

A review of the availability of 67 new cancer drugs in 25 countries has found that Britain languishes close to the bottom of the league. along with Poland, the Czech Republic, South Africa and New Zealand.

The authors, from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, say research in the US, which has the highest use of new cancer drugs, has shown that new treatments have significantly increased the chances of surviving cancer.

A separate study of 20 countries showed that nearly a third of the improvement in cancer survival between 1995 and 2003 could be attributed to new drugs.

In Europe, the UK has the lowest survival rates and the lowest use of new drugs compared with the major Western countries of France, Spain, Germany and Italy. In all four countries, more than half of cancer patients were being treated with drugs launched since 1985, but in the UK only 40 per cent were.

The report, funded by the Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Roche, is an update of an earlier review published two years ago. Although Roche had no control of the report or its findings, the conclusions will help the drugs industry highlight inequalities in access to cancer drugs and so widen its market.

Paying for the new drugs, which cost up to £100,000 a year per patient, is putting pressure on health budgets in all countries. "

I consider it significant that the report was funded by a drug company...)o:

A non-drug way to reduce your risk of getting cancer is to minimise your intake of salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Further extract:

"Cancer drugs

Herceptin (trastuzumab)
Breast cancer - approved by Nice in 2006 for use on the NHS.

Mabthera (rituximab)
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma - approved in 2004.

Glivec (imatinib)
Chronic myeloid leukaemia - approved in 2003.

Erbitux (cetuximab)
Bowel cancer - refused approval in January 2007. Awaiting appraisal for head and neck cancer (expected June 2007).

Avastin (bevacizumab)
Bowel cancer - refused approval January 2007. Awaiting appraisal for lung cancer (expected January 2008), advanced breast cancer and advanced kidney cancer.

Tarceva (erlotinib)
Lung cancer - awaiting appraisal.

Sutent (sunitinib)
Kidney cancer - not referred for appraisal by Department of Health.

Nexavar (sorafenib)
Kidney cancer - awaiting referral by Department of Health for appraisal.

Velcade (bortezomib)
Multiple myeloma - awaiting appraisal. "

Reduce obesity, protruding stomach, red face, high blood pressure, pain, headache, fatigue, swollen feet and many other health problems by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)