The NHS's "unacceptable practices"- Oh Matron!

NHS Trolley Dollys involved in "unacceptable practices"

Well that’s a relief then!

The good news this week is that there is no humanitarian crisis at our beloved NHS and that such talk by the Red Cross is all “overblown”.

The PM thankfully also reassures us that “there have only been a small number of instances where unacceptable practices have taken place” which must be great news for the 52,769 people who waited more than 4 hours on a trolley last year.

Last time I went to hospital you had to wait on a horrible hard seat so a nice comfy trolley is a marvellous luxurious step in the right direction

Lifestyle related illness and the NHS

There are ever louder calls for the NHS’s coat to be cut according to its cloth and to restrict care for those who have self- inflicted ailments.

First it will be irresponsible drunks in A&E, the obese who carelessly ate fatty fast food on the hoof so that they could work the 60 hours a week needed to keep the wolf from the door,

If you have ever smoked, secondary smoked, known or kissed someone who smoked, then you are in trouble.

But why stop there, if you own or have ever owned or even breathed in emissions from a diesel car, have inadvertently chafed yourself on a pig's head, or have smelt and have heavily inhaled a methane filled fart (yours or anyone else’s) then you can forget about that life saving operation.

On the other hand, the powers that be will soon argue that if you have lived on a diet of organic quails eggs and caviar you should be given priority treatment.

The NHS Health Tourist Agency

Health Tourism is often blamed for NHS problems and you can see why: Johnny Foreigner has a bit of tummy trouble and decides to travel to wonderful Blighty for a 10 hour Trolley wait in the hope that he will get an admission.

This will include being tucked up snugly in a hospital bed with Hattie Jacques as Matron, regrettably the corridors are full and he is left in a storage cupboard for 2 weeks, has a heart attack and only survives by consuming his own personal supply of raw garlic, sausages and urine.

Unfortunately, close analysis of statistics show that Health Tourism only totals about 0.3% of the annual NHS budget. (3)

Anti Social Care

For many years Care Homes Providers went round neighbourhoods with large nets, knowing that every dribbly or slightly nutty old person they could round up would send profits through the roof.

But with £4.6bn cuts in Social Care from 2010-2015 this has increased bed blocking by 42% year on year (2). November 2016 saw the NHS lose 193,680 days in just one month due to blocked beds at an average cost of £400 per day, that’s £77m in one month (3)

The old and infirm need to seriously up their game and make themselves a far more attractive proposition. Unless the dribbly start wearing bibs, the incontinent use corks and those with mental health issues start self-prescribing mogadon, then we are in for a rough ride, as most local authorities providing elderly care have seen social care or providers close, cease trading or hand back unprofitable contracts to a provider. (4)

In my humble opinion I would suggest that if the government has a problem with an internal blockage they should go and see a doctor.

Sleazy private healthcare

On the plus side all of these delays and blocked beds have help increase the revenue stream for Private Healthcare companies.

I for one am reassured that whilst I endure pain and embarrassment as another doctor lubricates my ample rear end for a colonoscopy, that I can bring a smile to the face of a shareholder of an offshore hedge fund whilst they have to sit on their yacht in the Caribbean.

It’s only right that such philanthropy in our health should be justly rewarded with a pound of flesh, even if it may have gone off a bit whilst sitting on a trolley for 10 hours.

I am also pleased to see that wonderful people with the best interests of the Nation’s health should freely give away their money to oil the wheels of democracy (5).

The Tories have received over 744 brown envelopes containing over £20m from Healthcare companies since 2001 and privatised NHS work has doubled since 2010 from 4% to 8% or £8.7bn pa (6).

Over a Billion pounds of these private NHS contracts have gone to companies with links to Tories (7). Quite right too, those MPs having worked their arses off in parliament to ensure that these companies were awarded these lucrative contracts.

Save money on Bunk-Ups

So now you are thinking, well… what is your solution to this problem, at which point I need to remind you of a Nursery Rhyme.

It goes “there were ten in a bed and the little one said roll-over, so they all rolled over and one fell out….”.

And this is precisely our problem, with the NHS. Beds are down 56% since 1987, mental health beds are down 70%, whilst hospital admissions have doubled.

So, if you are not prepared to increase funding for more beds, and you have already optimised your efficiency, then you must do more with what you have.

The nursery rhyme takes me back to family holidays during my childhood, when 2 to a bed, top to tail, would be common practice.

So let’s see more patients in each bed and get Doctors cracking on some decent cloning, if they start replicating themselves and give their other-selves nice "affordable" Junior Doctor Contracts then the NHS and the nation will truly start laughing again.

1) http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-much-health-tourism-actually-9307953
2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35481849
3) https://data.gov.uk/data-request/nhs-hospital-stay
4) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/26/nhs-elderly-care-close-to-collapse    
5) http://www.nhsforsale.info/database/impact-database/conflict-of-interest/GOVERNMENT-POLITICIANS.html
6) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/15/creeping-privatisation-nhs-official-data-owen-smith-outsourcing
7)  https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/03/healthcare-companies-links-tories-nhs-contracts