NHS Reality Check

Our local NHS Trust is constantly in the news, it is basically useless. The Independent, hardly a ranting right-wing free market advocating newspaper, gives an idea how bad it is in this article.  Then you can read about the killing of patients at Stepping Hill hospital in this BBC report. Also on the BBC website is this report about the tragic death of Emma Stones at Tameside Hospital.

I could go on listing the litany of abuse, avoidable deaths and sheer incompetence recorded in the National Health Service on a daily basis. I have personal experience of the filthy state of my local hospital and the poor standard of care provided by the nursing staff. My mother-in-law has been housebound for five years due to mistreatment at an NHS hospital. Virtually every person I know has experienced varying degrees of incompetence in the NHS.

Until we take a calm dispassionate look at the NHS the horror stories will continue to appear on an almost daily basis. We need to stop talking about NHS staff as if they are martys, they are not. They are doing a job, some highly motivated and competent some not, like in any other field.

Danny Boyle’s opening Olympics ceremony was stunning. But why the soviet style propoganda glorification of the NHS? There should have been a minute’s silence in memory of the Israeli athletes murdered by Palestians in Munich forty years ago. Maybe Danny Boyle should have included a tribute to those who have died needlessly in the NHS too.