Hospital Announcement: A sign of things to come

[brassed off monkey]

I  know its from the Daily Mail, but this kind of thing is obviously happening all around the country.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200339/Damning-truth-A-E-closure-fiasco-Savage-consequences-NHS-cuts-revealed-pensioner-waits-6-hours-ambulance.html

We should count ourselves lucky that we haven`t reached the 6 hour mark yet, but the average 90 minute wait for an ambulance makes a mockery of the "Golden Hour" in the event of someone having a heart attack.

Reading though the article it has all of the spin that we have seen from North Tees & Hartlepool NHS, glossy brochures, experts opinions etc etc, it all adds up to a damming indictment on the way the NHS is being allowed to disintergrate.

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

See that Hartlepool gets a mention as one of the 'lucky' venues to receive this wonderfully enhanced service...

[steveL]

The Daily Mail has a circulation of 1,730,610 and a total readership of 4,275,000, 52% of which are women. It's not to my taste politically but even so, it's a bit silly to dismiss all of those people simply as 'racists and bigots' and sillier still to infer that there is never anything of any worth highlighted in the paper.

My experience is that we should take all Newspaper stories with a pinch of salt, absorb as much information as we can from a variety of sources and then formulate our own opinions accordingly. I would give the same advice to anyone relying on the Morning Star as their main source of information.

http://www.mailclassified.co.uk/circulation-readership/circulation-readership

[mk1]

I merely ask, which paper must the story be published in before we are allowed to believe what we read?

You have got to know the paper.
For instance all of Richard Desmond's titles (Star, Daily Express) are now nothing more than adverts for his TV Channel 5, Adult Porn empire (Television x)and gossip magazines (OK & New). Those papers never print anything that does not reflect well on Des or his interests.
Same with the Murdoch rags. If you only read his papers then you could be forgiven for having missed the phone hacking scandal.
The Daily Mail is the  refuge of the small minded little Englander 'send the buggers home' mob.
All 3 of the above have TV interests so they constantly  criticise the BBC at every opportunity and the deluded BBC haters are unaware they are being manipulated by the BBC's business rivals.
You could do the same with every paper but trying to promote the right-wing rags as unbiased 'tell it as it is' beacons of truth just shows  your naivety!

[JB]

I'm sure people are mostly aware of how the ambulance service works, but just in case not ... ambulance trusts are separate bodies from hospital trusts.  As things stand at the moment,  ambulance services are commissioned by the primary care trusts in collaboration with the emerging Clinical Care Groups (CCGs).  In a few months the CCGs - run mostly by GPs - will be doing this on their own.  If a hospital trust decides to close an A&E department it will have to consult with the local CCGs and amulance trust (and local authorities, the public, staff, etc) but ultimately it can make this decision independently.

In theory, there's no necessary link between speed of ambulance response and the local provision of an A&E department; it's up to the ambulance trust to ensure that it has sufficient vehicles, with the right staff, available to meet the response targets.  Getting to an A&E is a separate matter.

Clinical opinion is generally on the side of those who believe that speedy access to an ambulance with appropriately skilled staff is the key to good emergency care; rapid access to an A&E is obviously important, but not quite as vital as many people think.  In practice, if you choose to get to an A&E by private transport, the first hour will be spent on what the ambulance paramedics would have done anyway.

Having said all that, if the Mail's story is only half true, then it begins to sound as if changes to emergency and accident care are taking place in a rather incoherent way, driven by financial pressure rather than clinical best practice.  Not wholly surprising, given the absurdity of undertaking a vast and deeply resented reform of the NHS while trying to cut a fifth of the budget in just 4 years.

[steveL]

A study by Birmingahm University concluded that the chances of someone surviving a life threatening situation, such as a heart attack, diminish by 1% for every six miles travelled in an ambulance - more so, I would guess, if in private transport.

In Hartlepool, this debate can become irrelevant when long delays are introduced by people going to the One Life Centre in the first instance only to be re-directed to North Tees either immediately or when the seriousness of their condition eventually becomes apparent.

It's a crazy situation when non-medical members of the public are told that they have to diagnose themselves as to the seriousness of their condition before deciding which medical facility they need and we've all read too many examples of when this has gone badly wrong.

[brassed off monkey]

The Daily Mail comment was not intended to suggest that i thought the article was untrue, all newpapers have a politicl bias of one sort or another, & i subscribe to steveL`s train of thought on papers in general.

JB`s reply is yet another example of a politician talking down to the voters, he can come out with all of the "Clinical B******T Opinions that he likes, the simple fact is.

OLC is no substitute for a fully working hospital with an A&E department, the number of comlaints that have appeared in the Hartlepool Council Mail are only a few of the actual incidents that have occured at the OLC.

It is a sticking plaster on a bleeding artery in real terms, there will unfortunately be a fatality at some point in time, because of the views of people like JB.

The reason Hartlepool has lost its Hospital is because of the views of Clinicians & Experts, their opinions are in direct contrast to those of Dr Karzai.

Reading through JB`s reply, i wonder if he actually read the article, but just in case.

A Mail on Sunday investigation into the closure of the A&E department at Newark Hospital in Nottinghamshire – which is typical of the towns and cities affected throughout the UK – revealed:

When an ambulance is called for 'Category A', life-threatening injuries or illnesses, the average time before a Newark patient is handed over to an A&E department is more than 90 minutes. In ten per cent of cases, it takes more than two-and-a-half hours.



Yet sources from the East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EMAS), which covers Nottinghamshire, said the quality of ambulance care is, in fact, deteriorating.

They revealed ambulances answering 999 calls sometimes do not have a qualified paramedic on board. Patients are instead seen by 'emergency care assistants' or technicians – but they can give only the most basic treatment. This practice is being implemented nationally.

[JB]

Dear me, all I said was 'this is what the clinicians usually say', and then I pointed out that the Mail article might be pointing to some underlying truth.  And I hate the Mail. 

But one other thing.  Urgent Care Centres don't have the monopoly on getting things wrong: someone has to do study that compares A&E dept. errors with UCC mistakes.  Otherwise we have no idea of whether one is better or worse than the other, and the anecdotal evidence remains just that - anecdotal.

[steveL]

A bit late now isn't it? Wouldn't it have been a better idea to carry out such a study before closing our A&E?....And I think we've passed the point were the horror stories coming out of the UCC can be described as 'anecdotal'. I don't remember many people describing the A&E as a waste of time and deciding to go straight to North Tees which is what is happening now with the One Life Centre. I'm sure that will suit the hospital trust just fine.

There has been a lot of plain deceipt over the A&E closure coming from the hospital trust and I can remember several Councillors at the time telling us that the services offered at the A&E were simply relocating to the OLC. We now know that staff at the UCC are legally not allowed to treat anything but the most minor of cases to the point when we may as well have just put a portakabin in the middle of the Shopping Centre and called it a First Aid Centre.

I too think you should read the Mail article again and would point out the following quote:

Carolyn White, deputy chief executive of the Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Newark and King's Mill, said in the 'rare event' that patients had to wait a long time for an ambulance, 'patients at Newark Hospital can be assured that their continued care and wellbeing will be our utmost priority'.

She added: 'High quality patient care remains the Trust's top priority, and is evidenced by some of the best patient outcomes for trauma injuries in the  country. We are successfully managing the increased demand and remain totally focused on maintaining the highest care quality standards.'

For Carolyn White, you can simply substitute the name of the North Tees Trust mouthpiece who I believe has now done a runner and imposed her talents on someone else. These people are robotic clones using the same language from the same mantra  and every one of them has lost all contact with their own humanity.

[Vincent]

Just for balance has anyone got any good tales to tell of the OLC?

I hve been a few times now for an split head and a couple of xrays and found the experiance quick and efficient

[Vincent]

Hope Mrs Perseus was OK in the end

Did you know that during long haul flights the human body is exposed to massive doses of x-rays?

[steveL]

. . . and probably the best guarantee of getting one in Hartlepool by the sound of it 

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

Complaints rise...platitudes remain?

http://health-and-fitness.icnetwork.co.uk/north-east-health-and-fitness-news/2012/09/05/complaints-from-patients-across-two-teesside-hospital-trusts-up-84229-31770316/

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

Glad Mrs. P. is OK - it is distinctly scary when you realise just how vulnerable the town's residents are should an emergency occur and they need speedy and effective medical treatment.  Bearing in mind the types of industry (or what is left of it) are located not too far from the town, I do also wonder what would happen should a major incident with multiple and serious casualties occur (e.g. somewhere like Seal Sands...remember Flixborough?).

[fred c]

There was a 5 car pile up on the A689 at Wolviston this morning, what are your chances if you happened to be in the back of an ambulance in such a situation

How would JB`s clinicians explain away that kind of episode, would they consider the extra time taken to get you to a Hospital A&E to be a bit of a "Jolly"......