The Political Thread

[Old Tankie]

Glad to see your Mum's okay, Shark.  God bless the NHS, indeed.  Bearing in mind previous conversations on this thread about the NHS, it's interesting to see that you now have first-hand experience of wasted resources within the system.  Wonder if anybody suffered because of the skilled ambulance crew just "waiting around with nothing to do", don't tell me that that can't be improved.

Leave it out, Emps, no one is denied emergency treatment in the States!

[House of Usher]

I think what they should do is use agency ambulance crew instead, and ring round when they have an emergency to see who is available, instead of paying them for a full shift when there might be nothing for them to do. Then whoever is willing to take the call could rush down to the ambulance station, clock in, deal with the emergency, clock out and go home again until they're needed. There must surely be a saving in there somewhere.

[Old Tankie]

No need for sarcasm, Ush! 

[Mikey]

Glad your mum's ok Sharky - I'm sure it was a frightening experience. Best wishes to her and your family.

Regarding the ambo crew waiting; was the hospital she went to set up for cranial surgery? A bleed out or a second, larger stroke is always possilble in these cases, so perhaps it's a standard practice in case the patient needs urgent transport to a surgical theatre. I think I've mentioned before that my father in law had a massive stroke last year - he had to be transferred to a surgical hospital to drain the ongoing bleed, but i've no idea if the ambulance was waiting until that decision was made.

By the way, I'm now expecting the US to invade Ireland. There seems to be some sort of terrorist activity in the country, not that it ever went away! 

Aye maybe, but we've no oil, very little coal and a lot of what's left of the peat is of high conservation value! They'll only take that from my cold, dead hands   

M.

[TordelBack]

Aye maybe, but we've no oil, very little coal and a lot of what's left of the peat is of high conservation value! They'll only take that from my cold, dead hands  

Plenty of natural gas, though.  Oh wait, they already got that.  Who needs cruise missiles when you have manilla envelopes?

As to conservation of  peat... maybe you shouldn't visit Shannonbridge or Lough Ree.  Or most of Connacht, for that matter.

Good to hear your Mum was okay, TLS.

[The Legendary Shark]

Thanks all for your kind wishes

"Regarding the ambo crew waiting; was the hospital she went to set up for cranial surgery?" Unfortunately, it wasn't the case that the ambulance crew were waiting "just in case." They have to wait like that for every patient - including drunks etc who really didn't need an ambulance to start with. I got the impression that it's due to patients having to wait in corridors because all the doctors and nurses are busy. An ass-covering insurance thing, probably. Disgraceful, I thought.

[Dandontdare]

This is correct - until a doctor sees the patient they are still under the care of the paramedics (with all the legal responsibilities that implies). if she'd had another stroke in the waiting room, you wouldn't want the receptionist to be in clinical charge would you? We could get all the ambulances back out isntantly, but that would involve hiring many more doctors to take the patients the second they arrive.

An example of how "targets" that determine budgets have unforeseen consequences came in with labour's pledge for everyone in A&E to be seen by a doctor within a certain time from arrival, or the hospital would lose funds. A&E depts did not have enough staff to achieve this, so patients ended up waiting hours in ambulances in the car park as they hadn't technically "arrived" in that case.

Leave it out, Emps, no one is denied emergency treatment in the States!

No, but theys often get a huge bill afterwards and need to sell their homes or take out massive loans to pay it. People also avoid seeking emergency treatment for this reason. True "free" emergency treatment is piecemeal and usually provided by charities.


PS - All the best to Mrs Shark

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I think you'll find that many, many, many items in our hospitals are donated by charities and I think some wards are as well.

[House of Usher]

An example of how "targets" that determine budgets have unforeseen consequences came in with labour's pledge for everyone in A&E to be seen by a doctor within a certain time from arrival, or the hospital would lose funds.

It's the perverse outcome of performance optimization theories developed by right wing economists. You give people targets to meet all the time and they lose sight of the job they were originally employed to do, because they are judged to have done a good or bad job depending on whether or not they have met the targets. Performance targets are the tail that ends up wagging the dog.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

And New Labour loved them!

[Richmond Clements]

And New Labour loved them!

Exactly what he said- right wing.

[House of Usher]

And New Labour loved them!

Exactly what he said- right wing.

Yep - what Rich said I said!

Here's a link to an hour long BBC documentary if you like:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=6075374506314368402#

You only need the first 10 minutes to get the gist, but it tells a pretty compelling story.

[Old Tankie]

I know that cutting out waste within the system, so that the savings could be redirected towards patient care, would seem radical to left wing economists, but, hey, these are radical times.  Remember, as George says, we're all in this together.

[House of Usher]

Having hospital staff diverted from treating patients to act instead as greeters in order to meet targets for speed of patients being seen, as a consequence of an imperative to generate statistics for audit purposes, doesn't cut out any waste within the system, but comes from exactly the same accounting mindset that insists everything must be timed and measured so you know how the service is performing. Far more resources are wasted counting, timing and documenting everything than are wasted by people standing around doing nothing, except that sometimes they are standing around doing nothing because that's what is required to meet some performance criterion or other.

[Old Tankie]

So, when the next person dies, because an ambulance didn't turn up quick enough as the crew was sitting in a hospital corridor with their previous patient, the decease's family will just have to accept that left wing economic dogma killed their loved one.  I'm sure they'll understand.