Can you trust your doctor?

Maybe, like me, you missed this investigative programme on Channel 4 last week. If so, you may like to view it here, as I have done tonight. "GPs are among the most trusted and respected of all professions. They are our first port of call for most NHS treatment with 800,000 people visiting surgeries every day. But Dispatches reveals that failing doctors routinely slip through the system."

The programme shows very clearly that many GPs lack basic diagnostic competence, even with potentially very serious conditions like bowel cancer, breast cancer and angina. Although they are very highly paid and are accorded high status in our country, there are examples of doctors not following diagnostic guidelines in cases in which prompt diagnosis can mean the difference between life and premature death. Britain has one of the lowest cancer survival rates in Europe.

Even when two health professionals, a practice nurse and a doctor, turned whistleblowers about a GP who had fallen well behind with important patient results - blood tests and the like - the PCT (Primary Care Trust) concerned did not properly inform the patients concerned. The PCT's concern was clearly not patient safety.

Nor was the GMC's concern patient safety. (The GMC is the General Medical Council.) But then when is patient safety ever the GMC's concern? Regular readers of this blog will know that the GMC is a worse-than-useless 'regulator' and that in my opinion we would be better served by abolishing it than by attempting to reform such a travesty of a regulator. I think Trading Standards or Consumer Protection would be more appropriate, since these bodies have some concern for public safety, while the GMC is only concerned about the safety of doctors. If you click on the label GMC beneath this post, you will hopefully find on your screen a clutch of blogposts I have written over the years disparaging the GMC.

However serious the incidents of professional negligence, however many patients suffer and die before their time because of lousy doctors, nothing ever improves. I sometimes think of this as the proud motto of the NHS: We will never willingly improve. - Why don't you try to get something done about our flawed healthcare system and what is, effectively, the unaccountability of doctors? - After all, you, or someone you love, could be the next victim...

Lord Crisp, the Dept of Health, NHS hospital errors and political pressures

If you wear rose-coloured spectacles or blinkers when viewing the NHS, and if you think governments give a toss about NHS patients in any capacity other than as voters, then read this recent Telegraph article, the content of which should be electrifying. It informs us that Lord Crisp "David Cameron's new health advisor attempted to cover up a hospital scandal in which nine women died giving birth." Furthermore, "When he was permanent secretary at the Department of Health (DoH), Lord Crisp put pressure on NHS regulators to wait until after a General Election to ban the hospital from carrying out caesarean sections." This evidence was given to a public enquiry by Sir Ian Kennedy, former chairman of the Healthcare Commission. I urge you to read the whole of the article and to be shocked by it, because until people other than the actual victims become informed and seek reform of the evil system that sustains the NHS's lack of concern for patient safety, nothing effective will be done to correct it.

Patients at risk from inadequately trained doctors

See Daily Express article.

NHS Trusts put patient safety at risk by failing to implement safety alerts in over 1000 instances

BBC News carries this report. As you will see, the regulatory bodies respond with their usual complacency, but "There can be no excuse for trusts continuing to put lives at unnecessary risk," said chief executive of the charity, Action Against Medical Accidents, Peter Walsh.

I suggest that the highest-paid member of the NHS Trust management team be made specifically responsible for the Patient Safety Alerts being implemented, and implemented on time, with a clause in his/her contract of employment that they will be sacked without pension/testimonial/reference/right of appeal the first time they fail to do this. This, I think, would ensure that an appropriate level of importance and urgency be accorded to this measure upon which, after all, patient lives depend.

Timely article by Andrew Gilligan, criticising our ever-worsening NHS

Telegraph article by Andrew Gilligan drawing attention to increasing deterioration in NHS standards, mainly attributable to overpaid, self-serving bureaucrats who don't care about the well-being of patients.

It's well worth reading the comments beneath the article. Almost all of them are scathing in their criticism of the NHS and desire for it to shed managers and quangos and such, and cut staff and costs in general. It would be difficult to find among these comments much support for the general political view of the NHS as a much-beloved/respected sacred cow that must be protected for the good of the nation.

My personal view, having had my health comprehensively and systematically destroyed by the NHS, is that it should not be reformed. It should be scrapped ASAP because it does far, far, FAR more harm than good. Our tax money would do more good as funding insurance for private provision with emphasis on nutritional testing and provision of suitable supplements where indicated.

But OVERWHELMINGLY we need legal and effective sanctions against culpable negligence by healthcare staff. Without accountability we have no protection from the damage they carelessly inflict on us. And I'm not talking about fines; I'm talking about criminal court cases.

See My Mensa article about NHS negligence and the uselessness of making a complaint.

Most NHS trusts are endangering patients' lives by not implementing patient safety alerts

BBC News reports that the charity, AvMA, Action Against Medical Accidents, made Freedom of Information requests to NHS hospital trusts and found that 300 (75%) of them had not complied with at least one patient safety alert despite the deadline passing.

Radio 4's File on 4 programme this evening was an investigation into this matter and I listened to it. As a victim of many years of NHS blunders and knowing only too well the futility of expecting any lessons to be learned or remedial action taken, the horrors related in the programme held no surprise or shock for me. But if you are unfamiliar with the routine lack of importance accorded patient safety in NHS hospitals (compounded as they are by the uselessness of the Complaints Procedures) then I suggest you listen to the programme when it is repeated on Sunday, 21 February, at 1700 GMT. Or you can listen via the BBC iPlayer or download the podcast.

Leicester Royal Infirmary's inexcusable delay over Dr Andrew Holton's wrong treatment that led to suffering and death for 3 year old Ryan Pitcher

BBC News reports that Leicester Royal Infirmary took years to apologise and admit responsibility for the death of 3 year old Ryan Pitcher. Dr Andrew Holton, a consultant paediatrician, misdiagnosed hundreds of children over 10 years at the hospital and was responsible for the "incorrect treatment" for epilepsy that Ryan received. His parents described Ryan as "like a zombie" on the medication he was prescribed.

Ryan died in 1997. Since then, we read in thisisleicestershire.co.uk, his "devastated family has told of a 12-year battle to find out why their young son died," and that, "Since then, an investigation has found Dr Holton had misdiagnosed 618 cases and put 500 children on the wrong doses of drugs."

"Compensation of around £3m has been paid by the trust to children wrongly diagnosed with epilepsy by Dr Holton."

I hope you will click on the links and read the articles. Severe and avoidable suffering was inflicted on hundreds of children because of the customary failure of the NHS to take complaints seriously and to act appropriately to save other patients from harm when grave medical mistakes are made. This shocking case reaffirms the low priority the NHS accords to patient safety. It routinely protects negligent/incompetent/ill-informed and frankly dangerous doctors, rather than protecting their innocent, suffering patients/victims.

This matter is a national scandal of which the NHS should be deeply ashamed.

(The drug that caused most damage to Ryan was sodium valproate, aka Epilim. Beware of this drug! Doctors do not seem to be very well-informed about its harmful side-effects.)

One million patients a year are put at risk by hospital blunders and near misses, official figures have revealed.

One million patients at risk in NHS, official figures find
article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"However experts warned many more are being swept under the carpet as healthcare staff and managers fail to report incidents.

Data on the number of incidents relating to patient safety, the type and the level of harm occurring in each NHS organisation in England and Wales has been published for the first time."

"Anna Walker, Chief Executive of the Healthcare Commission, said: "We know that a significant gap exists between the number of incidents that are reported by the NHS and the number that happen in reality. We welcome the publication of information from individual NHS trusts and increases in reporting because they bring us closer to the true picture of safety and allow a critical and honest assessment of where improvements need to be made. This is a vital part of improving the safety of patients.""

To the best of my knowledge none of the massive amount of medical negligence I have myself experienced has ever been reported by staff, and my own attempts to report it and get anything done have been stonewalled and no action taken to improve the system or the health professionals' behaviour or performance. I was even threatened with libel action if I continued to complain about the appalling treatment I had received...)o:

The number of hospital patients killed by mistakes has risen by 60 per cent in two years, official figures show.

Deaths caused by hospital mistakes 'up 60 per cent in two years'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"NHS records show that 3,645 people died as a result of "patient safety incidents" - including botched operations and the outbreak of infections - between April 2007 and March 2008. The figure was 1,370 higher than two years earlier.

Patient groups have warned that the true toll is likely to be higher because some hospitals do not record all incidents."

Let's have a guess what, if anything, was done about these avoidable deaths...

Anyone sacked? - Anyone sent to prison for manslaughter? - Anyone at all?

Patients are being put in danger because of a backlog of hundreds of millions of pounds of urgent repairs at hospitals.

Patient safety at risk as NHS repairs ignored
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"More than half of hospital trusts have a backlog of repairs which the NHS says need to be urgently completed to ensure patient safety.

The NHS defines the work is so pressing that it “must be addressed with urgent priority in order to prevent catastrophic failure, major disruption to clinical services or deficiencies in safety liable to cause serious injury and/or prosecution”.

Yet despite the urgency of the work, the new figures show that the level of outstanding urgent repairs rose last year, by £11 million to £310 million.

Crumbling buildings and failings in the infrastructure of hospitals have been repeatedly linked to risks to patient safety.

Last year, the official investigation into Britain’s deadliest outbreak of the infection Clostridium Difficile, which killed more than 90 patients at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals cited its high maintenance backlog as a contributing factor in the spread of the disease."

Sir Richard Branson criticised "horrific" hospital infection rates, accusing politicians and health bosses of "tinkering" with the problem.

Sir Richard Branson accuses politicians of failing over hospital superbugs
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The Virgin tycoon, who was recently appointed vice-president of the Patients Association, called for all hospital staff to be screened for the superbug MRSA and receive immediate treatment if infected.

He has also said managers at failing NHS trusts should be fired.

Infection rates for MRSA are falling across the UK with the most recent quarterly figures showing a 33 per cent drop year on year, but Sir Richard is calling for more to be done.

The entrepreneur - whose daughter Holly is a doctor - told the BBC: "There have been some improvements, but the facts speak for themselves - and the facts are still horrific.

"It feels like they have tinkered with the problem rather than really got to the heart of the problem. The hospitals are there to cure people. They are not there to kill people."

He said the NHS could learn from the airline industry about how to avoid mistakes and improve.

"In the airline industry if we had that kind of track record we would have been grounded years ago," he said.

"In the airline industry if there is an adverse event that information is sent out to every airline in the world.

"And every airline makes absolutely certain that that adverse event doesn't happen twice."

Sir Richard is helping to organise an international conference on infection control and patient safety early next year."

I'm pleased he is not afraid of speaking out about these important matters. He sounds as though he is an appropriate person to be vice-president of the Patients Association.