If NHS Was an Airline 'Planes Would Fall Out of the Sky All The Time', Says Inquiry Chief

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

This is what the Labour liars don't want us to hear about their Nationalised Death Service.

The chairman of the inquiry into the Mid-Staffs hospital scandal has warned that Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is so unsafe they if it were an airline "planes would fall out of the sky all the time."

Robert Francis QC, one of Britain's top lawyers, also said that the public have been given a false impression as to how safe the NHS is thanks to a lack of information and an unwillingness by politicians to criticise it.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, the barrister said Britain's health service needs to make radical changes, and to focus more on making the system fit the patients, rather than vice versa.

He said that those in charge of the nationalised health-care system have been "complacent" for too long about the quality of care for patients, believing that it was fine for some to be badly treated as long as the majority were treated well.

Mr Francis said: "If we ran our airline industry on the same basis, planes would be falling out of the sky all the time. We've just got to change the attitude that because it's provided by the state it's all right for a number of people to be treated badly; well it's not. Airlines would go out of business very quickly if they worked that way."

He went on the praise current Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt for speaking up for patients. He said that politicians had previously been too scared to point out failings in the NHS due to its cult status. Ministers had been too eager to close down debate because they wanted to be seen as the "spokesperson for the NHS", and respected it far too much as an institution.

Mr Francis said: "Mr Hunt, from time to time delivers a view that he's not satisfied with mediocre services of one sort or another and is then criticised for dissing the health service, when actually what he is doing is promoting the views of patients who want better care."

Robert Francis chaired the inquiry into the Mid-Staffs scandal in which hundreds of people died due to "appalling" failings. Patients were left lying in their own faeces for days, forced to drink water from flower vases or given the wrong medication.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/27/If-the-NHS-Were-an-Airline-Planes-Would-be-Cras...

[evoman3957]

If the NHS was an Airline...........one thing's for sure. At the end of a long haul flight, you'd be sick of Curry, Rice and bottled Water.

[electric*mayhem*band]

Arthur, just a small point. Labour aren't the present incumbents, and haven't been for the past four years. It's Dodgy Dave, and his band of equally dodgy cohorts from Bullingdonshire.

[logbox]

Are you saying labour would do a better job?

[electric*mayhem*band]

No, but I think Nigel Farage might. Anyhow where did you spring from ? Did you break free from your 24 hour care again ? No wonder the National Health Service is going down the pan, if they can't even keep an eye on the decrepit and elderly patients in their twilight homes for the bewildered and confused.

[al**bear]

the NHS is being killed by Dodgy Dave for His private health care buddies

massive front line job loses, including staff made redundant, given very large payments then being hired on private contracts for more cash

70% of new health contracts given out since the Toffs took power have went to private companies

profits over people

http://nhap.org/

[joe_bloggs*]

With all these negative stories over the last 4 years being promoted and printed by right whingers you would think they wanted the NHS to fail wouldn't you?

It's probably just a coincidence that many of these running down the NHS have a financial interest to do so,after all,best have an extra few quid in the pocket because thats all that matters isn't it?........

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

Forget the usual loony leftie comments. They'd rather people died, provided that everyone gets the same low standard of treatment.

The only thing that matters is the outcome for the patient.

Remember, thousands died in Labour's NHS. Stafford was only the tip of the iceberg.

Labour was warned of alarmingly high death rates in 25 NHS hospitals and told inspections by health watchdogs appeared ‘fundamentally flawed’, a leaked email reveals today.   

Professor Sir Brian Jarman, a senior Government health adviser, claims more than 20,000 lives could have been saved if ministers and the NHS had paid attention to alerts about higher than average mortality rates.

In an email sent in 2010, seen by the Daily Mail, he gave the then Health Secretary Andy Burnham a list of hospitals where he warned there were alarming numbers of patient deaths.

Several of those hospitals have now been the subject of a Government review into their high mortality ratios, due to be unveiled to MPs today.

NHS medical director Prof Sir Bruce Keogh is set to detail failings at 14 trusts in England thought to have been responsible for up to 13,000 excess deaths going back years.

He is expected to describe poor care, medical errors and management blunders, suggesting that the Stafford hospital scandal was far from a one-off. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2364765/20-000-extra-NHS-deaths-Labours-watch-amid-calls-sit...

[joe_bloggs*]

Poor old Arfur has never forgiven the NHS for the knock back he got on a hair transplant

[electric*mayhem*band]

---

@joe_bloggs* wrote:

Poor old Arfur has never forgiven the NHS for the knock back he got on a hair transplant 

---

Maybe him and Logbox could get a 'two for the price of one' at the Harley Street Transplant Clinic, and forgo the NHS. At present, one looks like a windswept Elton John, and the other a washed out Bruce Forsyth, with those two ridiculous looking wigs.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you to work out which is which, while Arthur rummages through his back numbers of Daily Wails for another link, and Logs continues to weave baskets.

[al**bear]

At the start of this Government over 60 Tory MPs had DIRECT links to private health companies, or consulting , PR firms that help promote them. In the Lords  62 Tory Peers (2012) had financial ties with Private health firms, no idea what the figure are now.

The architect of the present Tory Health strategy was formulated by, at the time, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley (whose biggest financial donor was a private health firm) & who just happens to be married to Sally Low, who's Consulting Companies biggest Client are Care UK, in fact the owners and Bosses of Care UK were Top guests at their Wedding

Care UK - another Tory party 'chum' who have made a nice deal (for them) with HMRC over their Tax avoidance practices

They squeal about Labours ties to Unions (which the Labour party grew out of btw), But the above is an outright disgrace, if not a crime, most certainly a conspiracy

[upthecreekyetagain]

Why is being connected to private health organisations a 'bad thing'?

Of course if it could be shown that patient satisfaction regarding treatment by such institutions was very low then there might be an argument.

Parts of the NHS could learn a lot from the private sector.

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

The loonies don't want us to know that the best NHS hospital in England is run by a private company. 

Best for patients, that is, unlike Labour's Nationalised Death Service, best for the employees and their unions.

http://www.hinchingbrooke.nhs.uk/hinchingbrooke-news/

Hinchingbrooke Hospital named “best Trust in England for quality of care”

Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust has been named the top hospital in England for quality of care at an awards ceremony in London last night.

The 25th annual CHKS Top Hospitals Awards is a prestigious national event that ranks all healthcare providers across the UK. Hinchingbrooke Hospital was the only small hospital to make it into the shortlist for the award and saw off competition from leading national Foundation Trusts such as Chelsea and Westminster and Guy’s and St Thomas’ to be chosen as the winner.

The award for top quality of care was judged by an expert panel based on 12 key medical indicators including: how long patients had to stay in hospital after treatment, mortality rates, cancer waiting times and patient-reported outcomes.

[electric*mayhem*band]

McB, in the case of Arthur & Logs, I'm afraid to say that you're

Dyed in the wool springs to mind.

Spoiler

Logs even has a Margaret Thatcher pillow case and duvet cover.

[rose2008-2008]

The NHS situation is very worrying. You want to know your safe in trained hands if your unwell or need surgery. It does not bode well!!!!.

[al**bear]

So Sir A 

CHKS, a company that helps health care businesses, draw up their statistics to show them in the best light, vote their own clients to the top of their own award tables

And you postulate this as 'Proof'

Even the Daily Mail slam them for gerrymandering 'performance figures' for the Trusts they represent (Private & NHS)

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

It's so sad that all we ever hear from Labour supporters is how they hate private healthcare companies.

Never a word about the outcomes for patients.

That's why 20,000 people died needlessly when Labour was running the NHS.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/16/ignored-nhs-hospital-warning-claims

Or try looking at Wales now, where the NHS is doing so badly with a Labour Welsh government that people travel to England to get decent treatment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26842607

[joe_bloggs*]

How is it that Stafford Hospital is commonly associated with 400 to 1200 deaths?  I instinctively question ranges of 300%. That’s carnage! People must have been dying in droves.No! As expected, the numbers are projections and estimates based on opinion, best scenario-worst scenario arguments and grossly inexpert coding. when coding is corrected and is accurate, the death rate in Stafford during 2005-9 actually falls substantially and is possibly below the national average,The idea that 400-1200 ‘excess’ deaths took place during a period from 2005-2009 has been repeated so often, that in the public consciousness it has become a fact. But it is an idea without any basis in fact.http://tiny.cc/xoclgx

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

---

@joe_bloggs* wrote:

How is it that Stafford Hospital is commonly associated with 400 to 1200 deaths?  I instinctively question ranges of 300%. That’s carnage! People must have been dying in droves.No! As expected, the numbers are projections and estimates based on opinion, best scenario-worst scenario arguments and grossly inexpert coding. when coding is corrected and is accurate, the death rate in Stafford during 2005-9 actually falls substantially and is possibly below the national average,The idea that 400-1200 ‘excess’ deaths took place during a period from 2005-2009 has been repeated so often, that in the public consciousness it has become a fact. But it is an idea without any basis in fact.http://tiny.cc/xoclgx

---

Simple. Look at the independent report from Robert Francis QC. His first report (February 2010) says

the cumulative number of observed deaths, less the expected deaths between 1996/07 and 2007/08, was 1,197. Of that number, the total excess of observed over actual deaths between 2005/06 and 2007/08 was 492

(See pp. 360-361 of http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130107105354/http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/...

It is presumably sloppy media reporting that turns these figures, over different time periods, of 492 and 1197, into 400 to 1200. But you can't believe your quote, from one of the Stafford doctors who was ignoring all these people being killed by his own hospital. It is that attitude that led to the need for independent inquiries.

And note that those figures are from Francis's first report, delivered in February 2010 to Andy Burnham, then the Labour Secretary of State for Health. But he covered them up and took no action, which is why three more independent inquiries were held and Burnham still lies about it.

The doctor whom you quote was presumably one of those whom Francis had in mind when he wrote to Mr Burnham (p.3 of the report cited above) The overwhelming number of accounts given by those affected should surely put to rest the views, still harboured by some, that the Healthcare Commission’s report painted an unfair picture of how the Trust was performing. There can no longer be any excuse for denying the enormity of what has occurred.

[upthecreekyetagain]

If the recent election results are anything to go by then there is a big swing towards the idea of 'privatising' sectors of the NHS  and encouraging people to opt out of the service.

From the last UKIP general election manifesto

"Encourage County Health Boards to put out to tender key NHS services ranging from Long Term Care to local hospitals and GP surgeries. This will be done by franchising key services – run on a fixed budget – to charitable associations, not-for-profit and profit-making private companies, partnerships and individuals. This will bring in private sector efficiency and innovation, while fixed assets, responsibility and direction remain firmly in public hands

· Improve patient choice by introducing ‘Health Credit Vouchers’, which will enable people to opt out of the NHS public healthcare system entirely if they so wish. UK citizens will apply to their GP for vouchers that can be paid to the private health insurer of their choice"