GARGLEBLASTER Loc: Spain

70 years ago today the 5th of July, the NHS was founded. Here are some images through the years:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-44613043

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

Thanks for posting.

FloydF2

Thanks. That was quite interesting.

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

Brilliant concept..and it works.

repleo Loc: Boston

'Call the Midwife' which traces the early years of the NHS is one of my favorite TV shows. I can't understand why there is so much resistance to a proper public health service in the U.S.

G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

Because it costs so much money. It is so beaurocratic that there are many more managers than medical staff. We have what are called NHS holiday makers....they come over here and claim medical interventions then dissappear without paying.

Too many people 'rig' the system claiming mental health issues in order to get cosmetic surgery or stomache stitching to lose weight. Drunks clog up Accident and Emergency departments as do those who 'cannot be bothered' to take time off work to see their GP. OR dissagree with their doctors advice and try to get treatment that is usually not necessary...(antibiotics etc for minor ailments)

Most GP's are self employed as are consultants...Their fees come out of the same budget which ensures that 'staff wages' remain low. Building and equipment budgets remain low etc.

Pharmacies cannot sell most prescription drugs. Yet they fill prescriptions and charge a fraction of their cost to the patient. The true cost is 'made up' by the NHS. There are millions on free prescription drugs etc that are actually quite cheap and easily available (Asprin Paracetemol, dressings and ointments etc)

There is little health education. Private Health Care is very costly and 'picks up' a lot of the excess patient care that the NHS cannot fulfill. (yet another high cost).

Government sets targets and budgets NOT Doctors and real Health Professionals.
Every few years they 'try' something 'New'. except it is usually a Uturn to make the Statistics look like a saving.

And so the list goes on,and on, and on......

It needs a rethink in so many ways....but it always gets fudged.

God Bless the doctors and nurses....They keep working throughout. It is just a shame that they are not the ones in charge! Most Hospital Staff haven't had a real pay rise in a decade!!! No other Industry would put up with the hours they work.

repleo Loc: Boston

All systems have their flaws and abusers. At least you British don't have to worry that a a case of tonsillitis or appendicitis will push you into bankruptcy or foreclosure. There was a case earlier this week of a woman trapped between a train and the platform. She begged the onlookers not to call emergency services because she was afraid she couldn't afford an ambulance.

John N Loc: HP14 3QF Stokenchurch, UK

The previous Prime Minister, one David Cameron (remember him?), came to power decrying top down reorganisations of the NHS, then instigated two himself. The whole system, of which I'm in favour of needs one more top down re-organisation - run by the people who have got to work it for the benefit of those that need it within a budget paid for by a ring fenced tax. If either party asked for a ring fenced tax specifically for the NHS I'm sure it wouldn't do them any harm - but even now, just months after suggesting this possibility the Conservatives are backing away from this idea preferring a tax hike on fuel - which means the extra money could be spent anywhere.

I'm reminded of the telco system here where the accounts like to see a high utilisation figure leaving little spare capacity. It's the same for the NHS, nothing spare as we find out every Winter. I used to do work on the U.S.A.F networks on several bases. Want a line in that old outhouse over there, 20 pairs should do it. 19 more than they needed but no further costly interventions to the system, EVER!

DaveC1 Loc: South East US

Cykdelic Loc: Now outside of Chiraq & Santa Fe, NM

You have a sad view of what works......

British “free” healthcare

British hospital managers covered up the unlawful killing of as many as 650 patients, a report finds.

By Rupert Darwall
July 4, 2018 12:51 p.m. ET



National Health Service jingoism is an abiding feature of British politics. “This is the model of health care that reflects our values as a people,” Prime Minister Theresa May declared last month. It is so precious, Mrs. May said, that it should remain in public hands—not for the next 70 years, but forever. Mrs. May proceeded to promise a budget-busting increase in NHS spending of nearly 20% over the next five years. “Taxpayers will have to contribute a bit more in a fair and balanced way,” she said, sugar-coating the pill of large tax increases in the autumn budget.

Two days after this speech, an independent report revealed a different way in which the NHS is world-class. NHS managers covered up the unlawful killing of up to 650 patients at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital on the English south coast.

The NHS is not a stranger to mass medical malpractice. Three years ago, a report revealed the deaths of 19 mothers and infants at Morecambe Bay Hospital due to clinical incompetence. In 2015 the Francis Report into Mid-Staffs Hospital found “appalling and unnecessary suffering of hundreds of people” and warned of “highly concerning” reports of similar experiences elsewhere.

Last week’s report lifts the lid on the most horrifying NHS scandal. On Aug. 17, 1998, 91-year-old Gladys Richards was readmitted to Gosport for rehabilitation after surgery and treatment for hip dislocation at another nearby hospital. Although Richards didn’t mention any pain, Jane Barton wrote a prescription for high-dosage opioids and gave Richards a subcutaneous infusion. Dr. Barton explained that using a syringe driver was the kindest treatment available, and she continued, “the next thing will be a chest infection.”

Dr. Barton understood what she was doing. Richards’s death certificate records the cause, four days later, as bronchopneumonia, even though this was not the underlying cause of death. According to the report, mis-certifying deaths due to bronchopneumonia was linked to opioid usage without appropriate clinical indication. The report also found that bronchopneumonia-certified deaths rose at the hospital starting in 1993 and peaked in 1998—the same year Richards was admitted.

Richards’s two daughters reported her death to the local police, who started the first of three bungled investigations. “The doctor fully explained the procedure of placing a syringe driver in place and the eventual outcome,” one detective wrote, complaining to a colleague that he had no idea why “these two women are so out to stir up trouble.”

The investigations uncovered evidence of criminality, but it was difficult to call to account those responsible. When officials in London tried to find out what had been happening, local NHS managers complained of “headquarters interference.” Twelve clinicians wrote to Sir Liam Donaldson, the Department of Health’s chief medical officer, to say that Dr. Barton was being made a scapegoat: “Senior colleagues were not only aware of these practices, but had similar prescribing practices.”

One nurse told the police that the regime at the Daedalus Ward—“Dead Loss,” the staff called it—was geared toward euthanasia. Upon admission, one elderly woman was immediately put on a syringe drive. Her family insisted she be allowed to die naturally. She recovered sufficiently to be taken home. Brian Livesley, a physician at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, was brought in by the police to review the evidence. He said he would support allegations of manslaughter, assault and actual bodily harm.

The most damning evidence was that nurses had raised concerns in 1991 about indiscriminate use of opioids and syringe drivers. Eleven years later, the meeting notes resurfaced. “When I read the minutes, I felt sick,” a senior nurse recalled.

A handful of people within the system tried to broaden the investigation and publicize what was going on. Mr. Donaldson pressed for urgent action, telling ministers that a great deal of pressure had to be exerted from the center. At virtually every turn, the system beat them. The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, eventually had to overrule official advice against holding an independent inquiry.

The report explains the almost identical dismissal of relatives’ concerns as a result of the “coincidence of interests” rather than conspiracy. When the state is a monopoly provider of health care, there is a political interest in suppressing bad news. In discussing whether to prosecute, one police officer noted the “perceived plight” of the NHS ahead of the 2001 general election. At a pivotal meeting of prosecutors closer to polling day, a government lawyer attacked Dr. Livesley and sabotaged the emerging prosecution case.


Proponents of socialized medicine condemn profit in health care, but a for-profit hospital does not have a financial interest in killing its patients. In the NHS, patients are a cost and troublesome ones can be put on a syringe driver, something a nurse told the police happened at Gosport.

“The NHS is drowning in bureaucracy,” a report noted in 2015. NHS bureaucracy drowned evidence of Gosport’s culture of euthanasia. Fifteen years ago, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered a landmark speech arguing for pluralism in the delivery of public services. “Our aim is to open up the system,” he declared, specifically calling for private sector provision.

A January 2018 poll found 64% of respondents agreeing with Mr. Blair that it shouldn’t matter whether hospitals are run by the government or by the private sector and 58% agreeing that the NHS needs reform more than it needs extra money. By spending without reform and ruling out pluralism, Theresa May is out of step with a majority of voters. In doing so, she is taking health-care policy in Britain back to a darker age.

Cykdelic Loc: Now outside of Chiraq & Santa Fe, NM

From the Washington Post:

“The New England Journal of Medicine published a new estimate done by a team of health and labor economists.

Their method is considerably more robust than the one adopted by Warren et al., who looked at the presence of medical bills in bankruptcy filings. The problem with doing that is that bankruptcy tends to be multi-causal. If you have a half-million-dollar house, three luxury cars, a boat — and also a heart attack — which of these things “caused” your bankruptcy?

So Carlos Dobkin, Amy Finkelstein, Raymond Kluender and Matthew J. Notowidigdo did what’s called an “event study.” Instead of looking at bankruptcies to see how many involved medical bills, they started with the illness, and asked how much more likely people were to declare bankruptcy after they got sick. That’s a much better way to tease out causation than asking whether someone who just went through a financially ruinous divorce also owed his or her dermatologist thousands of dollars.


The answer they came up with will surprise even critics of Warren et al.: The fraction of bankruptcies caused by medical events is just 4 percent.

And even among those bankruptcies, it seems that medical bills may be less of a problem than the other things associated with an illness, such as lost labor income.

In other words: Medical bankruptcy probably wasn’t nearly as big a problem as people thought when we were passing our giant new health-care program. And to the extent that it was a problem, Obamacare probably didn’t do much to fix it.”

repleo Loc: Boston

Get sick - loose your job. Loose your job - loose your insurance. Loose you insurance - loose your house.
MAGA ??

Alan1729 Loc: England UK, now New York State.

Gosport inquiry: GP 'responsible' for practice of lethal opiate prescribing which may have killed up to 650 patients at NHS hospital, inquiry finds.

The truth to this story if you look, is not dissimilar to the problem here in the US. Only we have thousands. The opiate sickness is the responsibility of the drug companies not ether healthcare system.

As someone said all healthcare systems have their problems. Maybe it is better for the poor to be turned away because they can't afford their medicaitons, so they can die quietly at home or wherever they fall.


[quote=Cykdelic]You have a sad view of what works......

British “free” healthcare

British hospital managers covered up the unlawful killing of as many as 650 patients, a report finds.

By Rupert Darwall
July 4, 2018 12:51 p.m. ET

rfmaude41 Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)

Very simple: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

rfmaude41 Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)

Oboozo Care just made it worse. Remember it was supposed to "reduce" the insurance premiums by $2500, you can keep your Doctor, choose your "specialists, etc..

And WAPO is not part of the "fake news" society.


SURE !!!!!