The NHS Blame and Shame Game

The View of an ‘expert’ patient

If the NHS in Wales is – “ON THE BRINK”, there is only one port of call for the Ship of Shame ( and the crew that are to blame ) – those who are supposed to be in control and their own abysmal mismanagement and incompetent planning for the future of OUR health service.

Make no mistake about this situation – it has been brought about by thirteen years of mismanagement when community hospitals have been closed, over 800 beds have been deliberately cut, and consultations for change were blatantly fiddled, ignoring public opinion.  The Welsh government must take the blame, along with their compliant subordinates and supposedly ‘Independent Advisers’ – all government funded to do their bidding in bringing the current situation about.

Dr Phil Banfield is the only true expert when he says “This is all about money – all we see is cut, cut, cut”.  The changes - made by incompetent Health Ministers and inept Health Boards - have all been calculated to rationalise and centralise services in direct conflict with the rising health needs of our growing population.  We have lost good nurses, to agencies who make a fortune selling them back to the NHS.  We haven’t replaced nurses – specialised and otherwise – or doctors because replacement has been put on hold to the extent that few or no advertisements have ever been made for replacements or new clinical staff.  There has been absolutely no Needs Assessment conducted anywhere in Wales, nor any epidemiological study that would highlight the areas of health care most in need of resources.

Professor Marcus Longley cowardly denies that he was scripted to write the ‘Case for Change Report’ by Leslie Griffiths and her team of cut-purses. Not satisfied with having sold his soul by supporting changes that he has previously stated are not sensible, he is now worsening his betrayal of patients by trying to divert attention away to ‘prevention and enhanced community services’ as being two of the main changes needed.  Putting the problems of sick loved ones back onto their families is not a solution, nor is the undefined Care in the Community the way to deal with those of us who suffer from chronic illnesses. He quotes ‘Together in Health’ – pages of empty rhetoric with no ‘who?’, ‘what ?’ ‘where ?’ ‘when?’ being offered to us, the dumb plebeians.

 However, there are plenty of ‘why’s offered by the so-called expert academic, most of which are to correct the ill-thought-out changes previously made by other Jobs worth bureaucrats. Underlying these patch-pasting ideas is the latest excuse – that we the populace are to blame, for getting ill in the first place, daring to expect health care in the second, and for bringing about the need for change by getting predictable seasonal flu, or sickness and diarrhoea, and for bringing the hospital-acquired infections into being ( as though we were terrorists specialising in germ warfare ).

Finally Marcus Long-nose has the unmitigated gall to ‘clipboard’ the areas that are the principle reasons for urgent, painful change – every single one of them attributable to the incompetence of our government and NHS Wales, who refuse to tell us what the budgets were and are, and why the hospitals and GPs have been ( apparently ) allowed to ignore these business plans, by frittering public money away on doing their jobs ( helping the sick and the deprived ).  He dare not blame his paymasters, as is the custom amongst the fawning independent advisors – such as the Community Health Councils, whose members have one foot in the grave and both hands in the public purse.

Finally, I agree that change is the only remedy, starting with the sacking of every incompetent manager in the NHS and all those in government who know absolutely damn -all about the health service, yet who think that they can role-play with our money and our lives !  R. W.