The Daily Telegraph investigation exposes corrupt practices in the metal on metal medical devices saga

Journalists from the Telegraph have been investigating the scandal of the faulty 'metal on metal' hip implants. These implants have caused increased pain and disability for patients, some of whose experiences are highlighted in this article. All too often the agencies that the public looks to to safeguard our health and well-being turn out, as in this case, to do the opposite - at great cost in personal suffering to the patients involved and in financial cost to the NHS and the wider economy. In this article we read:

 

"The European system of regulation has prompted widespread concern over whether medical experts are really at the vanguard of deciding which devices can be implanted in patients. 

 The Daily Telegraph and the British Medical Journal therefore decided to investigate the rigour of the licensing process, amid allegations that dozens of private companies are competing with one another to offer licences for medically questionable devices. Was profit being put before patient safety?"

And of course when you read the article you cannot but conclude that profit is indeed being put before patient safety. This is but one of the many undesirable consequences of our present membership of the EU, notorious as it is for corruption and waste. The Telegraph carries an analysis of the flawed regulatory system, written by Carl Heneghan. I urge you to read it, and to put yourself in the place of the innocent victims of this chicanery.

£Millions lavished on boosts to hospital doctors' salaries are the latest gravy train

See Telegraph article

Fancy a regular yearly bonus of up to £75,000? - This is well over twice the average yearly pay of British workers!

Massive spending on NHS bureaucracy is widely condemned

I urge you to read the full Telegraph article about this "bureaucratic black hole" which costs the taxpayer such vast, unmerited sums and fails to deliver anything remotely approaching value for money. The NHS is certainly not a national health service; it is a national disgrace - and an extremely expensive one.

The NHS is wasting £2.1 billion a year through poor procurement procedures, a report says.

NHS wasting £2.1 billion a year in procurement inefficiencies
report in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"The study uncovered huge inefficiencies, with procedures for buying goods and services little changed since the 1950s.

It found no common item codes or descriptions used by the NHS or its suppliers, while in some trusts orders are placed without any tendering process, often without an agreed contract price.

The method of buying goods and services varied hugely from trust to trust and different departments within the same trust used numerous systems.

Vast quantities of paper-based invoices were being generated, requiring huge numbers of permanent employees in accounts departments to match invoices to orders.

The report, published today by the think tank Policy Exchange, also found that dozens of health service projects and innovations are abandoned before they have any impact on care.

Of the £2.7 billion spent on the creation of ideas within the NHS, only a small proportion, £153 million, is actually spent on spreading the innovations down to patient level.

By spending nearly 16 times more on invention rather than diffusion, millions of pounds is being wasted in generating ideas that are never implemented."

Hundreds of thousands of pounds is being spent every year translating the NHS Direct telephone service into 160 languages...

NHS Direct pays to translate services into Laotian and Cherokee
Article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"The languages include Laotian, which is spoken by just one work permit holder in the UK, and Burmese with two permit holders, according to the Conservatives.

There are also also only 20 people from Tajikistan registered to work in the UK and 30 from Samoa, despite the NHS providing translation services for their native tongues

Other languages included such as Cherokee, Akan, Homa and Cebuano have not even been recorded as having been spoken by a single child in full time education across the country.

NHS Direct also helpfully translates into "international" language Esperanto which was invented in 1887 and has less than 2,000 native speakers worldwide.

Others such as Kashmiri, Samoan, Tibetan, Assamese and Basque are only recorded as being spoken in one educational authority in England."

There is no end to folly and waste in the NHS...)o:

NHS is wasting money by using costly locations for junior doctor job interviews.

NHS waste thousands on doctor interviews

Extract:

"The NHS is spending thousands of pounds to hold job interviews with junior doctors in luxury hotels, football stadiums and even at a racecourse.

Despite the health service having a deficit of more than £500 million at the end of the last financial year, meeting rooms in hospitals have been shunned in favour of expensive external locations which include the Reebok Stadium, home to Bolton Wanderers, and Newmarket Racecourse."

This is disgraceful - and would still be disgraceful even if the NHS were not strapped for cash.

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.)