aboveboard
http://20six.co.uk/aboveboard
powered by
20six.co.uk
|
|
Who is fooling whom?
The Health Sec, Patricia Hewitt, described 'The Patient Choice
Initiative' which came into force yesterday as a milestone in the
improvement of the NHS. No it's not, it's a con.
She said 'And in the pilots, very expensive pilots' that the government
carried out, people wanted choice. I wonder what questions they were
asked. Should there be choice to improve services? As part of the
modernisation of the NHS, should patients be allowed choice? The
answers have to be Yes. However, the important question 'Will giving
patients the choice of where to be treated improve the NHS?' goes
unanswered.
The NHS is a national service so services provided should be good
throughout the country. The government should concentrate on this and
not play hospitals against each other. I expect all people would like
the area in which they live to have a hospital with a good reputation.
Will those who move from one end of the country to the other be able to
be referred to a hospital in their previous area or will they be
restricted to one of the four nearest to them?
Staff in hospitals who work hard to reduce their waiting lists will be
rewarded with more work which will serve to increase the waiting lists.
They'll end up back where they started from, and risk being penalised.
Is greater choice better? The longer the menu in a restaurant, the more
difficult the choice; often it's made on the price, depending on who's
paying. Increased choice in the NHS will come at a cost.
This web log is like sudoku; it sure wastes a lot of time.
Thought for today
Man is born immortal but everywhere he dies ... The belief is now
general that Man has achieved such mastery over Nature that, if life
turns out to be unfair, human malevolence must be to blame. Death these
days is definitely somebody's fault.
Theodore Dalrymple, Mass Listeria: The Meaning of Health Scares
|
|
|
To date 0 Comment(s)
TrackBack-URL
|