Those who manage our National Health Service and have been tasked to preform the largest reorgansiation since the NHS began are failing. In the Manor Hospital we hear that the hospital is £1.3M overspent this year mainly due to £1/2M alone in agency fees for temporary staff: reports by a whistle blower of total incompetence.. which earned him the sack after 18 months and now granted leave to appeal .. and this person of consultant status: reports that the death rates for patients with respiratory complaints is much higher than the national average; reports that we are failing to ensure patients get a proper fliud intake ( I suffered this one myself as an inpatient follwoing an operation, having the cleaner eventually bringing me the water) .. and so the list goes on... well organised and scrutiny by a team of well informed independents is urgently needed to look in depth at waht is happening... we are handing over most of the commisioning of the budget for our NHS to consortia of GPs who are being paid and employed by the very NHS that they are administering.... how can they act independently and if they are, they need high quality and robust scrutiny and a very strong health and well being board to look over them and a strong robust joint needs assessment to control where the are going... we will hope that those of us who can do this will be really active to save our NHS from I fear either a move to privatisation or a two or three tier standard service.
I am very proud to have served the NHS for over 40 years, but never have I so much feared for th efuture of what is in my opinion , the best method of delivering health care without fear of the cost to every patient.
Ian Robertson
