JOINED UP THINKING

I have been thinking, in a rather small way, about the NHS. Given that I work for them I do a bit of this.

The NHS is run, now, by PFI's. They build smaller hospitals and charge us a fortune for running them resulting in NHS owned hospitals being closed down. Smaller hospitals are justified on the basis that more people will be treated at home, ignoring an ageing population that results in larger numbers of people needing hospitalisation.

This done the government removes the requirement for GP's to provide out of hours cover. Now, I could be wrong, but this must significantly reduce the man hours that doctors provide. Who is there to treat patients at home given that the hospitals are shrinking in both size and number?

NHS Direct/24. You cant diagnose people over the phone, at least NHS direct cant. I would not like to say that there incompitent - because they wont be, but my god!! I guess that they have a time limit for keeping jobs "live" because they pass cases on to us Ambos that we should never be going near, never mind on lights and sirens. More on this later.

Paramedic Practitioners. Good men and women but the ambulance services dont know what to do with them and, afterall, while doing the Practitioner stuff their not even working for the service but rather the Hospital trust. This training is, in my opinion the way forward for paramedics, but we are not doctors. Knowing that management will hang you out to dry should a mistake happen, and they do, is no position to be in.

I dont know what the solution is. Possibly if the NHS built its own suitable hospitals and provided the appropriate medical professionals to treat people at home, should that be appropriate, things would work. But maybe thats taking a step back in time to when things worked. The Government must know that their killing the NHS off in a deliberate way. I know they are and that when i retire I'll need private health care.

What a mess!