Disgraceful under-usage of NHS operating theatres

See the Daily Telegraph article. Orthopaedics is the biggest offender: "In orthopaedics, the biggest specialty, just 45 per cent of "operating time" was spent on surgery, while 33 per cent of time was lost to late starts and decisions to stop work early."

I wonder if this is the explanation for my having to wait in unremitting agony for nearly a fortnight as an in-patient in the Northern General Hospital in 2007 with a very complicated fracture of the right humerus before the urgently-needed replating operation was done? The unconscionable delay caused me irreparable damage and left me in constant severe pain and in continuing need of home care which I would not otherwise have needed.

Redesigned hospital gowns that preserve modesty are to be introduced into NHS hospitals in England by early 2011.

See BBC News item. Redesigned hospital gowns that preserve modesty and decency are to be introduced into NHS hospitals in England by early 2011. That will certainly remove a huge unnecessary stress from patients. Why on earth has it taken so long to take this measure?

I hope the new designs will be wider/looser in the sleeves to make it easier and less painful for trauma patients with splints/plaster casts on broken arms. I endured excruciating pain in the summer of 2007 in Northern General Hospital because the armholes were so needlessly and thoughtlessly tight.

Prison food is better than food in NHS hospitals

Prison food is better than the food in NHS hospitals, as the BBC reports here. I don't think many hospital patients will be surprised at this research finding by Bournemouth University academics. Many patients get their families to take in food for them as they are not keen on the hospital meals.

I was particularly interested to read that prison food is lower in salt than hospital food. When I spent an appalling month in the Northern General Hospital in 2007 I was shocked at how high in salt the meals were, when you consider that the health service is continually exhorting the public to eat less salt. In addition to the meals being so high in salt (e.g. a ham sandwich: both ham and bread are high in salt and the butter was also salted), tiny individual packets of salt were given out routinely with every meal. You would never guess from those hospital meals that the government and their agencies have a policy aimed at lowering the average consumption of salt. - Policy and practice are not going hand in hand.

As a steroid victim I am extremely sensitive to salt and need to avoid it much more assiduously than most people. Incredibly, only one of the many doctors I encountered in the hospital knew that steroid victims needed to eat food with no added salt, and it proved impossible in practice for me to have meals with no added salt, very largely because of the unhelpfulness of the chief dietician, who persisted in claiming, falsely, that the meals provided were low in salt. Since it is harmful and dangerous for me to eat salty food, and as I had no family to visit and bring me suitable food, I was unable to eat much apart from breakfast, when I was able to choose porridge, a food that does not contain added salt.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - 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.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

NHS: Indefensible incidents of cruelty and neglect, and the harm done by target fixation and uncaring bureaucracy

The Telegraph reports on cruelty, neglect and indefensible incidents in the NHS.

I believe that the treatment patients receive should be the treatment the health workers would feel happy about receiving if they themselves, or their loved ones, were the patients. This, however, is far too often not the treatment vulnerable, ill, suffering patients receive. Too many health workers find it all too easy to disregard the agonising pain of a fellow human being in their care.

The Patients Association, a charity, "has drawn up a dossier detailing failings in health care which it says are suffered by thousands of people each year, with many left to die in pain or stripped of their basic dignity.

More than 5,000 people contacted the Patients Association's helplines last year because they or a relative had experienced poor medical care."

These would be only a small fraction of the many who suffer at the hands of the NHS. Patients are especially at risk if they have no relatives to visit them. Sometimes even with relatives visiting and trying to draw attention to faults and get them remedied, the poor treatment continues, but without relatives visiting, the patient who is being harmed is pretty powerless against the poor treatment. That was my own experience when I had the misfortune to spend a month as an inpatient with a badly broken right elbow 2 years ago in Sheffield's Northern General Hospital. That I was in excruciating pain from the pressure of the splint was effectually disregarded except to try to bully/pressurise me to take powerful painkillers I knew would not help me. The operation to repair the arm should have been done as soon as possible, as the splint was causing extensive nerve damage to my right hand and also massive swelling, but there were inexcusable delays and it was almost a fortnight before the operation was done. This has left me with permanent intense pain and nerve damage and it was months before I was able to use the right hand at all after leaving the hospital. And because of the ulna nerve damage caused by the long-sustained pressure of the splint on my forearm - not even noticed or looked for by the medics for almost a year despite my repeated reports of continuous intensely painful pins and needles all over my hand - that hand is wasting away and is expected to become a hook.

Certainly many of the staff were caring, kind and skilful, but that does not make up for the harm done by ill-informed, arrogant doctors, who know themselves to be, for all practical purposes, safe from censure or sanction, and so the bad practice continues.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been found guilty in a Health and Safety case.

HSE warning follows hospital fall
News Distribution Service for Government and the Public Sector

Extract:

"The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is reminding hospitals and other care providers to ensure the safety of their patients, especially from the dangers of open windows.

The warning follows the prosecution by HSE of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust after an incident at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, when a young man was severely injured after falling from a third floor window.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (formerly Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust) was fined £18,000 plus costs of £15,399.05 at Sheffield Magistrates' Court today, after pleading guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

On 28 May 2004 the young man, a patient on Ward Firth 6 at the Northern General Hospital, was found to have fallen almost 12 metres to the ground from a window that had been fitted with a device intended to limit its opening to no more than 10cm which, because it was poorly maintained, did not restrict the window adequately. The patient survived the fall but suffered a number of fractures and serious internal injuries."

It took a very long time to get to court, didn't it? - Over four and a half years! - Why?

NHS hospitals are suffering from a deterioration in the level of compassion shown to patients by clinical staff, a health thinktank has warned.

NHS hospitals 'suffering from lack of compassion'
article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund, blamed work pressures, shorter stays in hospital and the greater complexity of medical challenges for staff behaving in a less "feeling" way.

He said that compassion should be a key priority for the boards of every NHS hospital."

"Mr Dickson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I have very little doubt that we've seen a deterioration in the level of compassion that is shown by staff to patients.

"The board of every hospital should be looking at this as one of their top priorities - what is it like for someone who's coming in to be treated, and how can we improve that experience?"

He added: "It's to do with staff facing very difficult situations - because patients are sicker and hospital stays are shorter - rather than them all turning into nasty people.

"If we can't get compassion into our healthcare, the system is failing. It's as fundamental as that.""

I certainly agree that there's a lack of compassion in hospitals. I was in hospital last year for 29 nights. I went in with a complicated fracture of the right humerus. My right hand was working OK and there was no pain from the fracture when I fell and broke the arm and rang for an ambulance, and no pain from the fracture when the ambulance men took me into the Northern General Hospital A and E department. The pain started when the splint (backslab) was put on the arm. This was because of the pressure and weight of the splint.

I explained to 'everyone' - doctors, nurses, etc - that I am a steroid victim and that therefore my skin and veins are very thin-walled and very delicate and painful, and that pressure is very damaging and painful to them and that the splint was causing me extreme pain and I needed to have the operation (fixing the pieces of broken bone together) done as soon as possible. - I'd been admitted to the hospital early on a Thursday morning. I was told the operation would be done on the following day, the Friday, the Saturday, the Sunday or - at the very latest - the Monday. - It was not done on any of these days. - In fact, it was almost a fortnight before the operation was done! - while I had had to endure increasing agony because of this awful wait. I was told that the delay was caused because emergencies had to be dealt with before me. - I believe my plight was an emergency. - Because of that excessive delay, serious, extremely painful and permanent damage was done to my right (dominant) hand. For months I was unable to move it at all. Ever since leaving the hospital I have had to have carers every day.

During the wait my hand became a mass of pins and needles and it swelled up really alarmingly - a large blue domed mound appeared on the back of my hand. It was so immensely swollen the pain was exquisite. The skin was extremely thin and overstretched and vulnerable and the veins too. In this highly vulnerable, oedematous state one morning a staff nurse who was to help me to get washed grabbed hold of the hand to pull it - into the sling, if I remember correctly. - GRABBED HOLD OF IT! - I screamed! - How could anyone do that? - How could anyone not realise the terrible agony and harm done by putting extra pressure on a delicate hand already so overstretched? - How could a staff nurse be so stupid/cruel as to do that?

He then started telling me off! - I believe this was for the benefit of anyone within earshot of the scream, to make it appear that he had not just caused me intense extra pain. - We were behind screens for privacy since I was getting washed, so no-one had seen his stupid action.

He should have given me time to ease my hand into the sling; the other nurses did. It was a difficult manoeuvre to accomplish. But he was still impatient and now tried again to save time BY GRABBING THE OTHER END OF MY ARM - THAT IS, THE UPPER ARM CONTAINING THE BROKEN BITS OF BONE - AND PUSHED FROM THAT SIDE TO GET MY ARM INTO THE SLING! - THE BITS OF BONE GROUND TOGETHER OF COURSE AND I INVOLUNTARILY SCREAMED AGAIN.

He went away in a temper after telling me off again and I was left for about 40 minutes, in great distress, with no clothes on though partly covered by a towel or something, having all the time with my delicate left hand to support the broken right arm in its heavy splint, unable to change position at all, unable to summon assistance by ringing the bell because the vulnerable badly broken arm was not supported by the sling and could not support itself, of course, because the bone was in bits... - He clearly had not told anyone of my plight so that I could be 'rescued'. It was just by chance that a nurse came into the ward and put her head round the screens to see why they were round my bed and was then able to help me.

That man should not be a nurse.

NHS hospitals are throwing away as much as half of their food

Hospitals throw away 13m meals

Extract from the Sunday Telegraph:

"Close to 13 million meals were thrown away last year, with 33 hospitals dumping more than a quarter of their food, including two that discarded more than was eaten.

Meanwhile, almost 140,000 patients left hospital malnourished, double the figure a decade ago.

Last year, Ivan Lewis, the health minister, admitted that many elderly people were in effect being starved in hospitals. He said that some were given a single scoop of mashed potato as a meal, while others were "tortured" with trays of food placed beyond their reach and no help with eating.

Now figures uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph show dozens of hospitals in England and Wales throwing away more than a quarter of their meals untouched. At Leeds General Infirmary, 55 per cent of meals are thrown away, while 53 per cent at nearby St James' University Hospital end up in the bin.

Their "cook-chill" convenience food is prepared at a factory in South Wales before being driven 220 miles to be "regenerated" on hospital ward kitchens in Yorkshire."

The meals I had in the Sheffield Northern General Hospital as a patient last year were mostly very poor. And almost all meal choices were high in salt, despite the head dietician's claims to the contrary...)o: As a steroid victim I must avoid salt and salty food. This meant that much of the time in the hospital I had very little to eat. My salt problem was not taken seriously and most of the kitchen staff were unaware that the meals they provided were high in salt.


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.)

Further example of Steroid Victims in the UK - the carer who came to help me this morning.

I developed radial nerve damage and lymphoedema in my right arm and hand last year because after I had broken my arm and it needed an operation to fix it, but at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield I was left for almost a fortnight in a splint, despite my explaining countless times that I am a steroid victim and therefore should not have had the pressure of a splint on my arm because of my skin being so thin and delicate and my veins also being so delicate.

In consequence I have to have carers to come and help me to get washed and dressed. - The one who came this morning was new to me - a relief worker. - She is very, very fat and it must be very tiring and difficult for her to get about at all, let alone work! - I guessed she must be a steroid victim (almost all extremely obese adults have become obese because of taking drugs prescribed for them by doctors who are not properly aware of their salt and water retention side-effects) and so I eventually asked her if she had ever been prescribed steroids and taken them. - Yes, she said, and they had made her put on a lot of weight...

Like every other steroid victim she had been given no warning that the drugs would make her sensitive to salt and would cause sodium and water retention if she were to eat salt while taking the steroids. - Her overweight is caused by this, not by overeating. I explained to her that it is not necessary, or even safe, to diet to lose weight. - She just needs to avoid eating salt and salty food. And she needs to eat plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables and to get plenty of dairy calcium from milk and yoghurt, because salt sensitivity depletes the body of calcium.

She was very interested in this. I am sure that if she ever comes to help me again, she will be able to tell me she has followed my advice and is feeling much better for having lost a lot of weight - easily...(o:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney 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

See FAT RETENTION

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

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

NHS hospital food is so bad that 20 per cent of the staff would be unhappy to eat it and one in four patients asks relatives to bring in meals.

Patients 'revolted' by NHS food

Extract from the Observer article:

"Hospital food is so bad that 20 per cent of the staff would be unhappy to eat it and one in four patients asks relatives to bring in meals, according to a survey by the consumer organisation Which?

The new research reveals that some hospitals are offering many of the 13 million people admitted every year unhealthy food, portions that are too small and cold meals in the evening. Patients' other complaints include being served meals at inconvenient times and failure by hospitals to cater for people with special diets, such as diabetics and the overweight.

Michael Summers, a vice-chairman of the Patients' Association, said the quality of hospital food had improved until many hospitals began running up deficits. 'There had been quite a decent variety of food, people given menus the night before and the temperature of the food was taken. But cutbacks by hospitals have had a terrible effect,' said Summers. 'It's quite common now for hospital food to be sub-standard.'

Some of the 3,000 patients interviewed described the food they had been served as 'repulsive' or 'a disgrace'. One had been given a pie and chips despite struggling to drink because of tonsillitis; another was given sandwiches for dinner.

After interviewing 250 doctors, nurses and other NHS personnel, Which? also found that one in five hospital staff would turn their nose up at food served to patients. 'We are extremely concerned that hospital food is still of such poor quality that just a third of people feel they're getting the food they need to get better, and that one in four thinks it's so bad they have to make alternative arrangements,' said Clare Corbett, a health campaigner with Which?"

I found the meals provided while I was an in-patient in the Northern General Hospital Sheffield in the summer were very poor and I had to get friends to bring me in unsalted protein food and extra fruit. Most of the hospital meals were high in salt despite the Chief Dietician's claims to the contrary...)o:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart, liver and kidney 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.

About my stay in Sheffield's Northern General Hospital (5)

I cannot praise the theatre staff too highly; they were excellent - kind, skilful, painstaking, efficient...

I was very concerned about my feet. - As a steroid victim, my feet are extremely painful all the time, the skin thin and fragile, the grossly swollen, overstretched veins aching, tender and very delicate. - I asked if I could leave my socks on to protect my feet from the pressure of resting on the operating table, but was not surprised when I was told this would not be possible. - What they did instead was put lots of padding around my calves so that my feet were lifted up above the table's surface. - That was such a good idea!

They also put padding everywhere that my delicate skin might otherwise have touched, and all my other concerns they dealt with just as thoughtfully and reliably.


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.)

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

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

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

About my stay in Sheffield's Northern General Hospital (4)

A very good feature of my stay in the NGH was the excellent help I received from Katie, one of the physiotherapists who works with patients on the wards. The exercises she gave me to do on my arm were very helpful, and she has a very friendly, encouraging and positive manner.

This morning I went by ambulance to my first physio appointment in the outpatients dept and was helped by another very friendly, encouraging physio called Rachel.


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!

How to Lose weight!

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.)

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

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

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

About my stay in Sheffield's Northern General Hospital (3)

The operation to fix the broken bits of the bone back together using metal is called Humerus Replating. Mr Royston was the surgeon who performed the op. - He came to see me the day before the op and I must say he exuded confidence and was very reassuring. I did not want to have morphine and that was OK with him.

The theatre staff were amazingly helpful and kind. Because I am a steroid victim, my skin is very thin and fragile. They put padding in various places to protect it. And they protected my painful, delicate feet by putting soft padding around my calves so that my feet were lifted above the surface that they would otherwise have had to rest on.

Mr Royston had said to me that he would not put another splint on after the op and that I would be able to move my arm the same day as the op and that proved to the case. It was extremely painful for a few days but it shows you don't have to have morphine for these operations. - When I had a hysterectomy in 1994 I also refused to have morphine, and that op went very well and I made an excellent recovery from the hysterectomy, which was performed by Professor Cook.


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! How to Lose weight!

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.)

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

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

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

About my stay in Sheffield's Northern General Hospital (2)

The NGH is certainly not one of Britain's dirty hospitals. The ward I was on was cleaned every day and I suppose that other parts of the hospital also were. The cleaners and orderlies impressed me as conscientious and very hard-working.

The staff put a lot of effort into preventing cross infection.


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!
How to Lose weight!

About my stay in Sheffield's Northern General Hospital (1)

I returned home last Friday after 4 weeks and a day as an in-patient in the NGH.

It is difficult and tiring for me to type this because I am having to use my left hand to do it, and I am right--handed.

I had a fall at home very early in the morning of August 30th (middle of the night, really) and broke my right arm and rang 999 and an ambulance came very quickly and took me to the A and E dept. - The 2 ambulance men - George and Steve - were excellent.

The fracture - in the upper arm near to the elbow - was not straightforward, so could not simply be set. I was told that I would need an operation, and so a backslab - a sort of splint - was put on my arm, along with a sling/collar and cuff, and I was given a bed, awaiting my op.

I'll try to write some more about this tomorrow.

Alison Christian, age 36, died two days before Christmas in 2005 at the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield, because of gross failure by the NHS

Doomed by NHS 'gross failure' - Telegraph

Extracts:

"A "gross failure to provide basic medical attention" by NHS staff contributed to the death of a 36-year-old mother of four, an inquest found yesterday.

On two occasions the seriousness of her symptoms should have been recognised when there was time to save her life, the coroner said.

Alison Christian died two days before Christmas in 2005 at the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield, of a naturally occurring duodenal ulcer which had perforated.

When doctors realised how ill she was, her condition was "beyond help", said Christopher Dorries, the coroner for South Yorkshire West."

"Mr Dorries found that her discharge on Dec 20 "without appropriate inquiry or examination" and the failures of the deputising service on the afternoon of Dec 22 "amounted to a gross failure to provide basic medical attention to a person in a dependent condition whose condition was such to show that she obviously needed it".

Ms Christian had four sons, the youngest of whom was six when she died.

Keith Bushnell, managing director of the out-of-hours service Primecare, said the company "acknowledges this consultation fell short of rigorous standards expected in light of the training provided to our triage nurses and therefore was not of the required standard expected of our services. The triage nurse is no longer working with Primecare.""

Alison Christian and her partner will have paid a lot of money into the NHS in their taxes over the years. - Then when they needed help, they didn't get it...)o:

And it looks as though the only sanction applied to that negligent triage nurse has been to lose her job with Primecare! - I wonder if she is now working somewhere else in the NHS...)o: