NHS IN CRISIS

The National Health Service is in crisis again! Nothing new there! Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt’s plan to save money is for some patients with serious conditions like asthma and heart disease to be treated at home by community nurses rather than in hospital.

Only one problem there, there aren’t enough community nurses and most are struggling to cope with their existing workload, so more nurses would have to be employed and paid a wage to look after these patients. Unless the government is prepared to put more money back into the community to fund this, it’s the patients that will be the sufferers. Ms Hewitt has done her sums and reckons that by all accounts the homecare system would save the NHS more than £400million a year. Very astute! but what about the poor patients? They, it seems come bottom of Ms Hewitt’s list of priorities. Her only concern is the savings that can be achieved by offering them substandard care!

Tony Blair had surgery for an irregular heartbeat a couple of years ago. If he has any further problems, I wonder if one of the local community nurses will be going round to see him. Somehow I very much doubt it.