So he would mistake the below for scenes from Devon or Inverness would he?




Oooo-kaaaay.

The daily mail would take those pictures get actors/model who are white and middle class and probably a little well off and reenact them with the title "Middle Class Life in Brown's Britain".

NHS staff made 2,221 'avoidable' errors which left patients dead, injured and in pain... and they're just the ones Trust chiefs will admit to

*sigh* within the fist line they bump the figure up to 4,000 and then explain..



so presumably that other half you added on where the mistakes that didn't result in anything happening.
of course of the remaining 2,221 we get various anecdotes about errors that lead to deaths, but no breakdown of how many of this number were deaths, and how many injuries (i'd say the difference between thoughs two is pretty significant) and of thoughs how many were permanent.
there is a nod to the actual story here that there is currently no (or at least a fairly inadiqute) system for gathering the data on mistakes but the mail is more keen on peddling the story of the nhs as an error ridden death hole, and that any mistakes are systematic of a flailing system, not the fact that the nhs is staffed by people, and you can't really expect mistakes to never be made.

comments are pretty much as expected, with linda from brum leading the "wtf?" charge...




both green, wonder how i'll do.

I wonder if Linda has any stats on how many lives terrorists have saved in the UK?

Absolute bullshit. Absolute twisted thinking.



Operating on the wrong person or wrong organ is not forgiveable in my opinion. This could easily be reduced by checking patient identities and thoroughly checking patient notes and good communication between members of the healthcare team. Incorrect diagnoses are a tricky one- diseases or conditions can give different symptoms in different people and can often mimic several other conditions. Prescribing procedures need to be looked at.



Easily done, IMO. A tube could be inserted in the correct way but just become dislodged somehow.



It's not easy diagnosing things. In the early stages, meningitis could look like other illnesses too.



Notice the operative word there- 'could'. The Mail is presenting speculation as news again.

From that graphic thing:



No test for diagnosing diseases is ever 100% successful. With any good diagnostic test, you will always get some patients who should have tested positive, coming up negative instead. Likewise, you will get some patients testing positive when they will in fact be free of whatever disease you're testing for. Okay, if the test shows that the disease should have been spotted and would have been by 99% of the doctors interpreting the results, then you have your scandal; but this isn't the case on most occasions.

It's easy being a journalist. Make mistakes in that job, and the paper might print a retraction; it might just ignore the mistake and hope for the best; only in rare cases does the newspaper end up in court. If us health professionals make mistakes though, it can lead to serious harm or death. Twits like Jenny Hope (the author of this pile of trash) should bear that in mind.

'Hospital blunders meant my baby bled to death': Father's grief as NHS staff ignore plea to treat nine-day-old son

These sort of stories really get on my nerves. Okay, it's tragic for the family to lose their son but what we need is a thorough, logical investigation of what happened- the last thing we need is for people to get emotionally involved with it.

Now, I'm not a doctor and I have no idea whether he could have been saved or not.



It sounds to me like he was seen by a doctor who decided that antibiotics weren't the course of action to take at this stage. I'm sure giving antibiotics to a premature baby isn't something you want to do unless you really have to.



I'm sure there have been many times when a child's parents have suspected some ailment and turned out to be completely wrong.





So the child was given antibiotics once it became clear what was happening but unfortunately died a week later. He may well have died even if he had been given antibiotics sooner.



A lot of the armchair experts reading this article will jump on this fact!

I don't mean to sound like a heartless bastard but this sort of article- emotionally charged, very one sided- is completely unhelpful. Maybe the doctors did fail the baby but, given the Mail's record of artistic licence I wouldn't like to make any judgements of my own from this story. Better to wait for the official report that's no doubt forthcoming.

No doubt the comments will be the usual sort, about 'failing NHS', 'I don't trust doctors blah blah blah' and that sort of thing.

EDIT: After reading elsewhere on internet some findings in the investigation it would appear that there were some mistakes made and standard practice not followed. Even so the emotional reaction that the Mail readers will shortly be spewng out of their mouths will be completely non-constructive.

This could have been on the foreigners thread but seeing as most comments are attacking the NHS...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ghter.html

A GP who was flown in to provide out of hours care cocked up due to tiredness from overwork and travelling here and then going straight to work. Which is very sad but doesn't deserve the vitriol poured on him and the NHS.



What Beverley said:



TBH I can't speak for most of the country but living in S London I still find it easy to understand my doctor and the locums. Ask them to write it down if you're really having trouble!! Also what good would bringing back matrons do in a case like this? Interestingly the article notes that



And our old mate Jacqui 'Polska' Weems weighs in...



I think there's a massive difference between premeditated murder and an honest if tragic mistake.



Being knackered from back to back shifts is precisely why this kind of thing happens!!! I imagine Paula in Leeds is just the sort of person my mum (a retired A&E nurse) dreaded seeing come through the doors.

Question:

1) As I understand it, matrons ARE still in hopsitals, correct?
2) Why are matrons held up as the scourge of all evil?

and 3) what the fuck have matrons in hospitals got to do with locum GPs anyway?

Don't know the answer to 2, but while look at the NHS job site earlier i noticed a few matron positions available. Not sure why the commentators keep acting they aren't there.

Because of comments like "BRING BACK MATRONS!" they have tried putting matrons at my trust in high vis uniforms. Not worked though.

wasn't sure weather to put this into mail v education, gay bashing, or here, the options are many...



nice to see the mail relying on the same trusted medical institutions as they ever do.

oddly this was slipped into the otherwise barely related news that chers daughter is undergoing a sex change (comments being a confusing mix of equally uprated empathy and cuntery).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205113/NHS-pays-16-year-olds-run-swine-flu-hotline.html#comments

Another non story and another example of a sensationalist headline being totally inaccurate.

Run by 16 years olds? What you mean the manager of the call center is 16? Well no, but it turns out some of the staff are 16. Apparently working somewhere is the same as running it. Confused? Me too!

Apparently this is a matter of grave importance to the Mail, though for the life of me I can't work out why. After all the job requires no specialist knowledge and is essentially reading from a script, so a 16 year old can be just as qualified to do the job as as a 46 year old.

You would think the Mail would be happy to see youngsters working over summer and doing their bit during a health crisis. Teenagers just just can't win in the eyes of this fucking rag.

The fact they're 16 means they can be paid less. Since they're being paid by the taxpayer you'd think people would be happy.