They Thought Health Care Was Free

Only “government approved” care is free. The rest costs, or is rationed in other ways that weren’t immediately apparent. NHS price list sparks outrage as patients charged up to £8,000 for operations.

One Pound Sterling, is about $1.25 at today’s rate.

In response to the criticisms, Mel Pickup, chief executive of the Trust, said: “The Trust does not charge NHS patients for NHS funded procedures. Not all healthcare services are funded by the NHS.

So in other words, if you have a problem with NHS payment schedules, you should take them up with NHS. Which is the .gov, and that means you might not get too far.

Welcome to the Real World™

Does a .gov Agency Have an Incentive to Change?

It would seem the answer to that question is, “Not always.” Exclusive: NHS England ‘buried’ concerns over child cancer services.

NHS England covered up serious problems with paediatric cancer care in London – which had seen children dying in “terrible agony” – and has “buried” attempts to overhaul the services, an HSJ investigation has established.

The study was complete in 2015. It was only just published. In 2016 there are emails talking about a “supposed cover-up,” and warnings that it could blow up in their faces. Worries that there are powerful people involved were also expressed. In short, health care in the UK is in the hands of politicians.

Because protecting turf might come at the expense of children’s lives, but how do you expect politics to work? (Or not work.) After all, parents can’t research “which hospital is best for my child” because they have no choice. They go where the government tells them to go for care.

What Happens When No One Wants to Work in Health Care?

Great plans to have universal health care, require people to actually provide health care. NHS forced to prioritise staff wellbeing to tackle escalating crisis.

70 or more years of government control of health care in England, and things are not going great. There are 100,000 vacancies, shortages of both doctors and nurses.

Problems such as bullying and poor work-life balance are not new to the NHS. But “the sheer scale of the current workforce shortage is making organisations think more creatively about how to keep staff happy and motivated”, adds Bailey.

They are trying for more flexible work hours, and doing some small stuff. (The lack of yoga classes are probably not the issue, but maybe they will help with stress.) But unpaid overtime, stress-related illness, working under “unrealistic” time pressures, and more are the real problems.

Those issues from staff were highlighted in a survey from February of this year. NHS England survey reveals ‘alarming downturn’ in staff wellbeing

Other key findings include:

• A majority (51%) are thinking about leaving their current role and 21% want to quit the NHS altogether.
• More than three-quarters (78%) feel under unrealistic time pressures some or all of the time.
• Nearly six in 10 (58%) say they do unpaid overtime every week, though that number is falling.
• Nearly 28% have suffered back pain in the last year as a direct result of their work, up two percentage points since 2017.
• Fewer than three in 10 (28.6%) feel their trust takes positive action to improve staff health and wellbeing.

And those 100,000 vacancies have real consequences for care. Record numbers of NHS cancer patients face ‘agonising wait’ to see specialist. “Waiting” in cancer treatment can be a death-sentence, depending on the type of cancer.

In April alone nearly 20,000 people missed the 14-day target to meet with an oncologist

Can’t you just wait for the Socialists to take over medicine in this country?

There’s an Old Saying About Putting a Guard on the Picket Line After the Horses Have Been Stolen

The UK’s NHS knew that they had outdated hardware. They were warned. But they ignored the warning because those damn IT folks are always asking for something. Cyber threats could cost lives unless NHS improves security

Yesterday ministers pledged to spend an extra £21m on NHS cyber security, and to adopt a series of security measures which were recommended a year ago – before the worst attack in the history of the health service.

So they knew for at least a year that they were vulnerable and did nothing. And I would wager that they were warned about the phase out of XP support when Microsoft announced the schedule for discontinuing updates. But executives always view these kinds of warnings from IT as a smoke screen. Those damn IT folks just want new technology to play with. They can’t possibly understand what it means to the business to spend money on upgraded computers.

Even after WannaCry shut down the NHS for a couple of days, and was on every major newscast and in every paper, I bet there are still organizations who haven’t upgraded all of their XP boxes. I mean be fair, Microsoft fixed THAT problem, so the risk is gone, right? Not so much.

The moral of the story is – you can lead a horse to water, but executives are never going to spend money to mitigate risks that they don’t understand. And the one constant in the universe is that executives are mostly too arrogant to admit that there are risks they don’t understand. So the only thing the lowly schlubs in IT can do, is to document their recommendations and how they were turned down – otherwise it will be their fault for not keeping management apprised of risks. Either that or get out of IT all together.

What Happens When Doctors Become Just Another Group of Government Employees? They go on strike.

The success of socialized medicine in the UK has be so “good” that doctors are considering a campaign to keep people out of the profession. Junior doctors could go on indefinite walk-out after strike, leaked emails reveal

The bulk of the story is about a 2-day strike scheduled for the near future, and the possibility of a longer strike starting in June.

But the thing that caught my attention is that there seems to be real dissatisfaction of the class of folks known as “junior doctors.”

Other options include a mass resignation of trainees; recommending doctors seek alternative employment; recommending careers outside medicine, and “alternative forms of permanent action”.

The UK already has something of a doctor shortage. There have been cases of non-English-speaking doctors causing death because they can’t communicate with their patients. The current set of strikes is about a mandatory increase in hours and not paying for the time. The doctors are a union since they are just another class of government worker.

Ain’t socialism grand.

What Happens When the Bean-counters Are in Charge of Health Care?

Cut costs enough, and you won’t have the staff or facilities you require to the get the job done. The UK is finding that out. ‘If you’re not dying, go home’, overwhelmed A&E staff tell waiting patients over tannoy

So you go the Emergency Room (Accident & Emergency Ward in the parlance of the UK), only to be told to go home if you aren’t dying. Does that mean if my leg is broken I am supposed to crawl home and come back another day? Probably.

The extraordinary situation unfolded at the North Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton, North London on Friday night. It has struggled to cope for two years since an A&E unit the Prime Minister pledged to stay open closed.

The NHS is usually (though not always) held up as an example of the great care we could have if only we would sign up for socialized medicine. In reality they don’t have the doctors and nurses they need – because really, if you are smart enough to be doctor, do you really want to work for a government bureaucrat? Things are so bad that the doctors went on strike last month.

And they have “post-code lotteries.” Which means you can only get certain drugs (hey, they are expensive!) if you live in certain areas. Yeah, that would work really well in the USA.

But anyway, they couldn’t handle the influx on a Friday night. And they were forced to admit it.

UK’s NHS Causes Death by Dehydration

The hospital trust has issued an apology. (That is the only thing that will happen.) Grandmother died of THIRST on Maidstone hospital NHS ward | Daily Mail Online

Her family raised concerns about her dehydration with an agency nurse but they refused to give her a drink in case she wet the bed

Not an isolated incident.

The trust’s apology comes the same week as a coroner called for changes when a patient died after being denied a CT scan at Tunbridge Wells Hospital – because it was the weekend.

(Hat tip Samizdata.)

UK “Junior” Doctors Are on Strike

Since I am no longer connected to the 24 hour news cycle, except via the internet, I have no idea if the current state of health care in the UK has made the new in the US. Let’s imagine an alternative to the NHS in this best of all possible worlds | Libertarian Home

First let’s deal with the myth of the “Junior Doctor.” They aren’t so junior. “To summarise: ‘junior’ doctors includes all doctors who are not consultants, from early 20s to late 30s and above”

The UK’s National Health Service is trying to increase their hours and reduce their pay. The NHS is going broke, and this is an obvious way to kick the can down the road.

junior doctors have little choice of employer as there is an NHS monopoly on training; the market has shown the pay and conditions are too low, with dangerously understaffed rotas, rising emigration and increasing locum rates. The government’s proposals would reduce staff pay for an equivalent rota over time, thus hoping to delay the inevitable financial collapse of the NHS on their watch.

The NHS has been around since before WWII. The bureaucracy is ingrained to the point where there are not enough British college students opting to go into medicine, and of those that do, a fair number emigrate to places where they can make a better living.

Thus the result of the “single payer” health care system so loved by the Left. Go read the whole thing. [Hat tip to Samizdata.]

What Happens When Health Care Becomes the National Cause?

In the UK, it almost became a national religion. NHS on brink of crisis because it became 'too powerful' to criticise – Telegraph.

It became too powerful to criticise,” [David Prior, the chairman of the Care Quality Commission,] said. “When things were going wrong people didn’t say anything. If you criticised the NHS [National Health Service] – the attitude was how dare you?

I suppose we are in for the same thing. The Democrats are already screaming that anyone – mostly Republicans – who want to fix the problems with Obamacare really want to take away your health insurance. No debate. Not dealing with the problems. That is exactly what got the UK in the mess they are in today.

Speaking of Socialized Medicine… The UK’s NHS

The state of the NHS in the United Kingdom. It isn’t good. 'Disturbingly poor care is too common in NHS', says chairman of Mid-Staffs inquiry – Telegraph.

Brain tumors ignored. Anorexics starving to death. A blind woman left without food or water.

This is what happens when you the bureaucrats in charge of health care.

Death Panels in the UK

The UK had this “end of life” protocol known as The Liverpool Care Pathway. It resulted in thousands of people dieing of thirst, or starving. It seems it is back, with a twist. Liverpool Care Pathway being ‘rebranded’ not axed – Telegraph.

Under the new proposals, any patients unable to swallow could be denied food and fluids by tubes unless a hospital team decides it is in their “best interests” to have them.

So a team (or panel) from the hospital will decide if it is in your best interest to die of dehydration. Or starve. Lovely.

But then is what happens when you put the government in charge of health care.

The Joys of Socialized Medicine

I can’t wait for socialized medicine to come to American. Half of families suffer in hospital, study finds – Telegraph.

Almost half of Britons say they or their families have experienced poor care and neglect at the hands of the NHS, a new study has found.

So what is it the makes people think the folks responsible for the department of motor vehicles can provide decent healthcare?

David Prior, head of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), recently said almost half of hospitals providing care was either poor or “not terribly” good. The CQC identified about 45 hospitals which have had serious problems