Nine out of ten NHS health trusts failed to meet hygiene standards put in place to reduce hospital infections, according to results of spot checks.

Health trusts fail hygiene tests designed to stop infections
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The Healthcare Commission tested 51 trusts unannounced and found that only five adhered to Government rules. Its sample represents around a third of acute health trusts in England and were part of the largest ever programme of hygiene inspections in the NHS.

While most of the failures did not pose an immediate risk to patient safety, the Commission found almost all acute trusts had more work to do to control the spread of infection.

In the areas where breaches did cause a serious risk, managers were told to take immediate action.

Three trusts were given improvement notices to tackle failures in decontamination processes.

Just over half of the 51 trusts failed to keep all areas clean and well-maintained, the Commission said.

However, it found that most had improved in relation to leadership and ensuring uniforms were clean and fit for purpose."

Damning report on Britain's overcrowded and understaffed maternity services.

Maternity services report: Key points
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Inadequate numbers of midwives to provide one to one care for women in labour and women are left alone too often.

Consultants not present on the wards often enough with a senior doctor available for just 10 hours a week in some units when they should be there for 40 or 60 hours depending on the number of births.

There were too few beds and bathrooms, particularly on labour wards with only one in six having one bath per delivery room and one third having one shower per room."

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.

The Department of Health ignored damning report into an outbreak of Clostridium difficile at a hospital trust in Kent more than five months ago...

Government ignored deadly hospital bug report

Extract from Telegraph account:

"The Department of Health knew of a damning report into an outbreak of Clostridium difficile at a hospital trust in Kent more than five months ago and failed to act, it was claimed last night.

A draft copy of the Healthcare Commission report was first received by the health department on May 3, yet ministers only intervened when the document became public in October, the Tories said.

They are now demanding to know why the Government failed to act immediately on the report, which found that the outbreak had "probably or definitely" killed at least 90 people at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust hospitals.

Drafts, requiring factual accuracy checks on figures, were sent to health officials in May and September. But Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, told Parliament that he only received the report on Oct 9."

NHS superbug board should have been sacked, say Tories - Guardian reports today

NHS superbug board should have been sacked, say Tories - Guardian

Extract:

"Government ministers were last night accused of aggravating the NHS superbug scandal by failing to take charge of the hospitals where 90 people died as soon as the scale of mismanagement became clear.

Andrew Lansley, the Conservative shadow health secretary, last night said the three hospitals of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust should have been brought under direct departmental control.

In a report on Thursday, the Healthcare Commission said scores of patients died from infection by Clostridium difficile bacteria in Britain's worst outbreak of a hospital superbug. It blamed the trust board for a catalogue of safety lapses that caused the death toll between April 2004 and September 2006.

Mr Lansley said the government should have acted to suspend or sack the trust's board as soon as it received an advance copy of the commission's findings in the middle of last week.

Instead, it allowed directors to agree a package worth more than £250,000 for Rose Gibb, the chief executive, who quit her job on Friday last week without any announcement or public explanation.

Mr Lansley said: "This devastating report should have precipitated the immediate removal of those responsible on grounds of gross negligence. Normally employees are entitled to written warnings, but in circumstances of gross misconduct most contracts allow for summary dismissal. I do not know why that did not happen in this case."

The commission accused the trust of "significant failings in infection control". When inspectors went into its hospitals after the C difficile outbreaks were contained, they found patients being provided with bedpans that were visibly dirty with faeces. Bedding and equipment was left on the floor, fire doors were blocked and needle and sharp instrument disposal bins were overflowing on four wards. Staff washed cups in treatment room sinks and stored food in the clinical refrigerators.

Mr Lansley said: "The Department of Health could and should have removed the entire board and any directors with a contribution to make could have been appointed to a new one. The power exists when ministers have no confidence in a board. It is difficult to imagine what might be a graver offence than the one they perpetrated." Sacking the board would have forestalled any payoffs, he added.

After media criticism of the payoff on Thursday, the health secretary, Alan Johnson, instructed the trust to withhold the severance payment, pending legal advice. The department said yesterday its lawyers were still considering the matter."

The national scandal that is the NHS: - the 'Health' service that harms, and even kills, far too many of the people who use and pay for it.

Where to start? - There is such a mass of evidence of appallingly poor hygiene and appallingly poor care amounting, in my opinion, to cruelty, in yesterday's reports that shocked and shamed and horrified our nation...

Healthcare Commission Report

Case studies: Wretched death of C.diff victims - Telegraph


Extract:

"Everything was going well, the hip was fixing, then four days after her operation to mend her hip we were told she had diarrhoea. As far as we knew that's all she had. We were not told that she had C.diff.

"She was left in her own soiled sheets and was sobbing because nobody had cleaned her up. Her treatment was appalling. She was not being fed properly, not being cleaned, and there was only one commode between six patients. She didn't die of a broken hip, she died of hospital neglect."

Mrs Stewart said she was considering suing Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. She said she was "not surprised" by the Healthcare Commission's revelation of so many deaths from C.diff.

"They seemed to be taking bodies away every five minutes," she said."

Superbug boss has record of dirty hospitals - Telegraph

Extract:

"Asked what she intended to do about the filthy wards at her hospital, Rose Gibb insisted she had introduced an "action plan" that would "address the issues" of inadequate cleaning.

This classic piece of management-speak was delivered in March 2001, when Miss Gibb was implicated in the first of a string of hygiene scandals at three separate NHS trusts.

The Daily Telegraph has learned that Miss Gibb, who rose to the £150,000-a-year post of chief executive of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust before she left the job last week, has an unenviable track record of presiding over dirty hospitals where infections have been able to spread.

Despite this, Miss Gibb has been richly rewarded by the NHS, which may yet give her £250,000 in severance pay if the Health Secretary's attempt to block it is ruled illegal."

I hope this woman receives a prison sentence...

Pay-off to superbug hospital chief is blocked - Telegraph

Read what ordinary citizens have to say about these disgraceful matters: - Health Secretary intervenes in superbug row: Have your say: How worried are you about hospital hygiene?

One in four local NHS organisations in England is failing to comply with basic hygiene standards, reports Healthcare Commission.

Quarter of hospitals miss superbug targets - Telegraph

Extracts:

"A Healthcare Commission report shows 99 of 394 healthcare trusts admitted to failing to have adequate infection control, safely decontaminate reusable medical equipment or keep their facilities clean."

"Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "We are killing more people with C. difficile than on our roads. The death toll with MRSA is equivalent to two train crashes every week.

"These are avoidable infections. Every week there is a different priority for the Government. Infection control has never been given a high priority.""

"Compliance with two standards on treating patients with dignity and respect, and privacy and confidentiality, also fell slightly."

"Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "It is shocking that after countless Government initiatives the number of hospitals failing to protect patients from these infections has doubled."

• To view the full report, visit www.healthcarecommission.org.uk"

"Four trusts reported failing to meet any of the three hygiene standards. They were:

• Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust
• Sheffield PCT
• Sutton And Merton PCT
• Wiltshire PCT"

What do you think should be done about this deplorable state of affairs?

Do you fear to go into hospital because of the lack of cleanliness and hygiene there? Or because of the way you are treated there? Dare you remonstrate with a doctor or nurse who hasn't washed their hands when they should have done? - Have you written to your MP about your concerns? Has s/he done anything about the matter?


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

Squabbling consultant surgeons have been compromising cardiac care at the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust hospital.

Surgery unit hobbled by rows between consultants - Independent

Extracts:

"A heart surgery unit with the highest death rate in the country failed to examine why patients were dying, did not tailor systems to cater for high-risk patients and was hobbled by disputes among consultant surgeons, an investigation has found.

In a scathing report with echoes of the Bristol children's heart surgery disaster of the 1990s, the Healthcare Commission, the NHS inspectorate, criticises the Oxford Radcliffe NHS Trust for failing to review the performance of its cardiac care unit and ensure it provided safe and effective care to heart patients over a period of almost a decade.

The investigation is the latest into the unit which was once one of the premier centres in Britain, which pioneered the use of motorised hearts under the leadership of the surgeon Stephen Westaby.

Mr Westaby clashed with another of the surgeons, Ravi Pillai, plunging the unit into disarray. The number of heart operations fell by a third and an inquiry by the NHS South East Regional Office, published in 2000, concluded that the unit was "on its knees" and "riven by internal conflict"."

"Nigel Ellis, the head of investigations at the Healthcare Commission, said: " We are critical of the trust for failing to respond to the previous reports. They have looked at the criticisms and, rather than reflect on their clinical practice, they have complained the data is inaccurate."

Mr Ellis said the findings echoed the Bristol children's heart surgery disaster in the 1990s, which revolutionised the regulation of the medical profession and led to the creation of the Healthcare Commission.

He said: "The whole point of collecting data is to use it to understand what happened ­ which [the Oxford Radcliffe Trust] failed to do. In that respect alone, their failure to reflect on their practice is similar to what happened in Bristol. The surgeons are not working together as a team ­ they need to agree a common way forward and they need to be led by the management of the trust." "

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.)