The BBC elevates the NHS to the position of unassailable criticism. I suppose there is something about this anachronistic monolith that absorbs vast amounts of cash that appeals to the State Broadcaster and all who work within it. This morning, David Cameron was on the Today programme for an interview concerning the planned changes he wants to make to the monolith. The BBC had already set the mood music for the interview by running interviews with all those interested parties with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. One could have been forgiven for thinking that Cameron was seeking to..PRIVATISE the monolith, rather than simply devolve power from the top to closer to the patient. You should listen to the interview if you get the chance. Cameron plays the BBC game by telling us how wonderful the NHS is and then tries to glance aside the fusillade of criticism from John Humphrys. I’d love some Conservative to find the courage to just once tackle the BBC’s pro NHS bias – here is where the data lies that merits such criticism. But instead, this was all about Cameron being seen to be nice and caring and seeking a better socialised healthcare system.
AN ARTICLE OF BBC FAITH
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The more I read about the bBC the more I despise the tax. They have no vested interest in reporting the truth, their soul objective is to push for more state control, global warming and greater left thinking.
Even this mornings bBC breakfast business review was a veiled attack on the coalition.
The sooner the bBC come out and openly say they are a left leaning biased broadcaster the better for everyone, all this impartiality bullshit doesn’t wash any more.
The BBC have openly admitted their bias.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308215/Yes-BBC-biased-Mark-Thompson-admits-massive-lean-Left.html
The three questions the BBC should be asking are :-
1. “Which health services in Europe and N. America are worse than the NHS ? “.
2. “Which ones are overall, per capita, more expensive ? “.
3. “Which ones are less efficient ? ”
4. “Which ones give a lower level of service ? “
Where did you study maths? 😉
Let me guess, University of East Anglia?
UEA computer modelling definitely confirms there are at least four numbers between nought and three. You adjust for counting bias and then introduce a counting tax to bring the number back down to three, thereby saving the Planet from bad arithmetic.
Span,
I didn’t !
I had 3 questions, added a fourth and forgot !
Just as the bbc should be privatised, so should the NHS.
The BBC’s coverage of the politics of the NHS is laughable. It often consists of interviewing NHS employees who tell us how wonderful it is and how it needs more money – which will end up in their already generous paypackets of course.
I had to wait in a hospital once, a bit like a shopping centre, where do all those people come from.
People in white coats walking along a corridor with a clipboard then 35 minutes later walking back, to what purpose! But lots of people like this apparently.
They are badly designed, usually. Impossible or difficult to isolate people with serious infections.
I’m sure they can be improved.
I once spent about four hours in a casualty department observing this constant stream of doctors and others walking back and forth along a corridor, back and forth endlessly. It was simply astonishing to me. Where is your time and motion man when you need him? I did wonder about all those managers that I keep hearing about. Have any of them ever sat down and observed this and thought about it?
This reminds me of Gerry Robinson saying that the NHS needs more management, not less. I know his comment goes against received wisdom about the problem with the NHS but I see his point. Some of the way the NHS operates looks like aimless, random, inefficient wandering about.
Casualty is the only thing many otherwise healthy people see. Its the place where you put many of the sickest patients to be seen by the most inexperienced doctors in training – mostly future GP’s. It is not a good place to be, especially if you are ill.
When I’m ill I will go into the garden and quietly Die. Hospitals depress me.
Ah-ha, though ! What if you live in a tower block then, eh ? No gardens for REAL people to die in are there now, Mr La-di-da “I’ve got an actual shrubbery to expire in” ? Plus, it might be raining mightn’t it ?
That’s why you need the NHS, so that salt of the earth folk have a nice dry place to shuffle off the mortal stump in.
🙂
Buggy
Depends if you want a slow death or a very fat death.
fast.
Well, on the NHS you’ve a fine chance of an INTERESTING death: who knows what microbe or virus previously unknown to science might finish off your immune system ? It’s like a high end game of high-stakes roulette for proletarian folk: Aspinall’s with white coats if you like.
But if you’re fine sitting in a garden, getting rained on and lokking at shrubs through your rheumy eyes instead of exploring the exciting world of lethal viruses kindly laid on for you by our beloved NHS (Gawd bless it !), then Well ! I just think you’re being more than a little ungrateful is all.
🙁
Charlie,
Ninewells Hospital in Dundee is worth a visit, if you are a fan of airports. It reminds me of my favourite airport, Gatwick, but without the friendly ambience.
They even have loudspeakers outside with a Dalek-type voice telling you that you can only smoke in the designated smoking areas.
It reminds me very much of the cult TV series, “The Prisoner”. Beeboids would love it, so long as they didn’t actually have to be patients.
Lorraine Kelly was born in Dundee.
Possibly in Ninewells Hospital.
The staff have thus spent the ensuing forty plus years scrubbing and cleaning with industrial disinfectant to wipe out any trace of this horrible event in Dundonian history.
Thus the airport-like ambience.
Does it have any murals painted by kiddies ? I love those.
Buggy,
I didn’t notice any murals, but they did have scribblings by kids on bits of paper stuck on the walls in very strange places.
Maybe Gatwick could take a leaf out of Ninewells’ book.
PS. Careful what you say about Lorraine, she may come from Dundee, but she is a national treasure.
Beeboid loves this bit of ‘research’ by congenial social scientists.
Classic. What about de Obamessiah, I hear you ask? Surely he is there among the great US Presidents?.
Bit too early to pass judgement. But, wait. No. He get’s a mention. After all this is Planet Beeboid. Guess what, he up with the best. GWB is consigned to the basement.
Any surprise there?
“Franklin D Roosevelt has topped the first ever UK academic poll rating the performance of 40 US presidents since George Washington.
Barack Obama was not included in the survey, but interim assessments indicate that he would have made the top 10 of the rankings. George W Bush was in 31st place, putting him in the bottom 10.”
And look who they think is the greatest?
FDR.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12195111
The author of that piece Iwan Morgan gave Barack Obama a good review on the BBC website after his 100 days – 4 stars on the economy, 5 stars for Guantanamo, 4 stars for climate change (“The bar was set low after George Bush but Obama has got off to a good start”) and 3 stars for healthcare (“largely for intent”).
He co-authored a book about the legacy of George W. Bush which someone writing in praise of it describes, approvingly, as “discouraging”. His co-author Philip John Davies was one of the historians who helped give Bush the thumbs down in this BBC-approved survey.
Note that the only recent president to get into the top 10 was Ronald Reagan, that must have hurt the BBC who always portrayed him as a senile fool…
Can someone remind me which party FDR was in ? I am surprised JFK wasn’t in the top 10.
I would assume Democrats would do well as most academics are left-wing and it is confirmed by Jimmy Carter coming in at No. 18 !
I mean, really, Jimmy Carter, is someone taking the p*** ?
Grant, FDR was a Democrat.
Craig,
Woops, sorry, I was being a little tongue-in-cheek there !
Perhaps, the point is that we couldn’t have a Repiblican as number one , could we ?
JFK doesn’t make the top 10 because he only had one term, and so just couldn’t have the same kind of legacy as the others. Lincoln obviously gets a pass in that area.
One of those ‘interested parties’ David refers to was BBC regular “Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the leading health think tank The King’s Fund”. Yet again a BBC interviewer failed to remind listeners that Mr Hams advised the last Labour government over its health reforms.
How hard was it for John Humphrys to say, “Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the health think tank The King’s Fund and a former Labour advisor”?
That way if he criticised the coalition (as he did) listeners might have known where he was coming from.<!– S ILIN –>
As on Sunday when Harry Cole was introduced as ‘the right wing commentator’, it is only the non left-wing who need the modifier to their job description; it is as if ‘left-wing’ is the norm.
The BBC betrays us all here. Certainly Cameron should be held to account for authorising this reorganisation of the NHS. This is not that the NHS doesn’t need reorganising, it’s that the apparent extent and type of reorganisation was either not mentioned in the runup to the election or was lost in the shouting about financial ring-fencing of this money pit.
Accordingly, it’s fair enough to have Humphrys cross question Cameron. It would have been nice though to hear Cameron finish a sentence – or even a phrase – without Humphrys interrupting. The trouble is BBC bias. Were the BBC impartial, both sides would get a chance to put their case and the BBC’s questioning would attempt to elicit (as far as possible) exactly what is intended and exactly why the possible effects of these intentions are so dangerous.
Unfortunately the BBC is not impartial. For instance, it sets the agenda for discussion by headling in the “news” this morning not the intentions of reorganisation or the structure of the reorganisation, but the adverse reaction. Thus, before we got to any analysis, the unchallenged background “fact” was that the reorganisation will be dangerous and everything proceeded from there.
Cameron (why Cameron BTW? – Lansley is the one supposedly in charge of the NHS) started on the backfoot and the interview went downhill from there. Actually the point made by the objectors that management will be more concerned with reorganising than running the NHS is a good one. However, this presupposes (correctly I suspect) that NHS managers cannot walk and chew gum at the same time: the “danger” warning is a criticsm of management as much as a criticism of the government.
One of the points – probably the most important point about the NHS – which the BBC didn’t want to explore and Cameron would rather not discuss is the crap management of the NHS before, during and after any reorganisation. And this doesn’t even go into the amount of taxpayers’money wasted (and to be wasted) as a result of bad management. Accordingly,I can predict that, whatever happens after this circus, the present crap managers will still be in place (either employed directly by the NHS or in nice little earners in the dependent quasi-private sector).
Part of the solution to bad management is not to change the organisation it’s to change the managers. If left to themselves – as it will be – no management is going to either change itself or, God forbid, take a cut in pay. This will be musical chairs on a massive scale except, unlike the children’s game, everyone will have a chair at the end and no-one will be left standing. But don’t expect the BBC to tell you this.
The BBC would have you believe the Tories have a (badly-hidden) agenda to privatise the NHS. Because that is Standard Labour Lie No. 1, designed to frighten people to voting Labour “who invented the NHS” So natch attack-line for the BBC.
Cameron does himself no favours because he’s been spouting standard BMA nonsense about how “targets distort clinical priorities” (Not if you had a diagnosis of suspected cancer they don’t)
and the anti-management bandwagon, as manager bashing is “popular” – if you were to believe, as in “Casualty”, managers are nasty men in suits trying to cut budgets. As usual, political propaganda smears against Tories dressed up as Soap.
Humphries constantly talked over Cameron’s answers so it was difficult to hear what he was trying to say. Unfortunately Cameron took this without objection and quite frankly came over as pathetically defensive.
I’m afraid that as long as Cameron and his colleagues accept this sort of treatment it will just get worse. Why don’t they (Government officials) be more vocal and point out that they (the Interviewers) are blatantly pushing the Labour Party line.
I am afraid that these Beboids and Lefties consider politeness to be a weakness and in the absence of any challenge to their position and in particular the validity of their impartiality, will continue their blatant attacks on the Government.
Don’t forget that David Cameron was the BBC’s choice as Conservative leader, in preference to David Davis. The BBC wanted a more pliable, softer figure but also one that they could attack for being a ‘posh old-Etonian’; David Davis would have been harder to attack from that angle.
I think Cameron speaks clearly and decisively giving speeches and particul;arly at PMQ’s. For some reason he lies down when interviewed by BBC.
I think he is normally far more impressive than David Davis.
John Humphries could not run a dairy farm and had to give it up, he said it was very hard work. Yet he tends to lecture Cameron on how to run the NHS, the third biggest organization in the world.
It is a given, that a Labour government could completely wreck the NHS and get away with it.
The Conservatives only have to mention reform of the NHS and what do you get BBC news reports all bloody day, listing all the reasons it wont work. Its a given.
BBC 5Live have been pushing the story that David Cameron described the NHS as second-rate this morning. Whether he did or he didn’t, the excuse is it was a slip of the tongue. I don’t remember the BBC reporting similar slips of the tongue so enthusiastically when from Barack ’57 states’ Obama, Alan Johnson or Ed Miliband recently.
The BBC NEVER reported Postie Pat’s screw up over the rate on NI.
…except that they did.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12149908
“At his press conference Mr Miliband also defended shadow chancellor Alan Johnson after he appeared not to know the rate of National Insurance paid.
On Sky News on Sunday Mr Johnson said the “secondary class one-rate [National Insurance contributions] for employers” would have gone up 1% to 21% had Labour won the general election. But he was later reminded that the current rate was 12.8%.”
Scott,
Buried near the bottom of the article !
If a Tory had made that gaffe it would have been headline news on the BBC and they would have been reminding us ever since.
I love Ed Miliband’s comment “Alan knows what he is talking about”.
Hilarious, you couldn’t make it up !
Grant,
Martin said they never covered it. Actually, given his use of block caps, he was most emphatic about it.
He was wrong. I appreciate that Biased BBC regards goalpost-moving as something of a national pastime, but can’t we all agree what “NEVER” means?
Scott,
Well I am not disagreeing with you. Just proves that one should never say never !
But, I still feel if a Tory had displayed such ignorance as Johnson, the BBC would make more of it , instead of hiding it away near the bottom of a report.
Either way , it is a total disgrace that the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer doesn’t even understand the basics. An impartial broadcaster should be shouting it from the rooftops to alert the public to the man’s ignorance.
Scot yep they said it that we know ! but I your defence fails to explain why Cameron’s miss speak is top news full time prime time and Johnny’s and Eddies are dropped in the dark corners of forgotten web pages and don’t say ‘he’s PM ‘ cause the BBC still thinks Gordian is the boss !.
One of the biggest scandals in the NHS is the failure to eliminate mixed wards. I know from personal experience in my family of the distress that this inhumane practice causes.
Can anyone tell me if other “developed” countries have mixed wards ?
Maybe, David P. can comment about the US and some expatriates about the countries they live in.
I honestly don’t know as, apart from the UK, I have spent most of my time in “under-developed ” countries.
I agree with you about the mixed wards. A blooming disgrace. It’s one of a couple of major things that make the prospect of going into an NHS hospital something to dread. The government has made some noise about it but I can’t remember the details. I have hopes that the current government will see an end to them.
I’ve never seen a hospital with a mixed ward. In fact, apart from ICU or Emergency Rooms (Casualty) set-ups, there aren’t really any large open-planning wards in the US. It’s mostly corridors of rooms, each with two or three people of the same gender. (I believe some children’s wards are more communal, but that’s a different psychological deal.) As far as I’m aware, this is true even in government-run (i.e. free health care for those who can’t afford insurance) facilities such as Bellevue in New York, and similar. Some of those obivously will have a shortage of beds, and people end up getting stuck in the hallway, etc. But it’s far from the norm.
Pretty much all hospitals in the US these days are built with hotel-sytle accomodations in mind for all.
Of course, this is obviously due to the modern tradition of private health care where the patient is considered a client, not an object, and facilites are not run by lowest common denominator government management.
Shamefully, Veteran’s Administration hospitals in the US have traditionally been utter crap in this regard, and tend to have open wards. I expect this is due to the assumption that military types are used to barrack-style accomodation and don’t expect more.
David P,
Thanks for that. I assumed from the BBC that our American cousins are mostly barbarians, seems not. But, you admit to be guilty of sex discrimination ?
Yes, Grant, we’re still Puritans deep down. 😀
The NHS is like the BBC, it even has a three letter name. both are full of useless leftie twats, both are inefficient and both should be pensioned off.
Why is it no one else in the world has wanted to copy the NHS model or the BBC , that really says it all.
The reporting of the NHS is utterly abysmal from all sides. The unions shout for their self-interest (BMA, RCN, Unite) whilst not a single “health correspondent” in the media seems to have a clue how things work. Add in the think tanks (“A new report today said…”) and lefty-infested university departments (“a new study today found..) “Instead of reporting, the media play ringmaster to a circus of factional interests.
It was a Labour target to get rid of “mixed sex wards” – they haven’t been a “normal” way of organising NHS care for years so I am suspicious why this has come up now. The few cases of operationally-run mixed sex wards were wards which were scheduled for closure and demolition to make way for a new-build hospital, and no-one had money to refurbish what they would be shortly knocked down.
Cameron is poorly advised. Seems to think flying in to save the day, superhero style, over the head of his ministers, boosts his image. He just looks like a lousy football manager, trying to score all the goals himself.
Now here is an astonishing bit of bad news that will never get anywhere on the BBC – The national debt exceeded £1,000,000,000,000.00 today
http://www.debtbombshell.com/
– from Guido
Recent personal experience of the incompetence of the local NHS trust hospital has convinced me that Cameron’ plan is worth a shot. MY wife’s GP has been excellent but the hospital has been woeful. Not so much the treatment but the fact that it seems incapable of getting appointments right or even contact details and following up a setback with any degree of efficiency. I got the very definite impression that consultants are kept in the dark by a succession of useless secretaries and managers.
Let the GPs take charge it cannot be worse.
I don’t think the BBC will agree judging by R4 PM tonight.
dave s,
That’s exactly the same experience I have had.
My wife had to have some blood samples taken, so she organised time off work to do so.
Two weeks later she arrived at the GP’s only to be told they had gone astray.
The GP was most apologetic, but she still had to go through the whole damn experience again, time off work etc.
It just does not work well if you are working full time. Thats the main problem experienced by lots of people I know who have busy lives.
We’ve had the same experience. Members of the public do not generally deal with the higher levels of management within the NHS and, to a large extent, we have to rely on what we’re told. At the lower end, however, we experience directly the mistakes, incompetence, delays, rudeness, duplication and waste. Sometimes staff are so bad one wonders if they can actually read and do basic arithmetic. Furthermore, there’s never any sense of shame or embarrassment – only entitlement.
Doctors are generally better and mean well but seem unable or unprepared to insist upon decent standards from their support staff. Goes against the ‘non judgemental’ culture, I suppose.
Thanks a million for the link to National Death Service 🙂
Barry,
I had a dispute with the NHS some years ago when my late father was was inhospital dying at the age of 92. The managers wanted to discharge him to a care home despite the fact he was in no state to leave hospital. They failed to follow the law and their own guidelines.
I repeatedly challenged them in emails and meetings.
One of them actually said to me “but he is bed-blocking and messing up our targets “.
I have never met a more arrogant , ignorant, insensitve group of people as these NHS managers. most of them were illiterate as I pointed out to them.
Almost all the doctors and nurses were very supportive of me. But , one of them said “we have to do what the managers tell us or we lose our jobs ” !
My Dad had the last laugh as he passed away in hospital.
NHS, “envy of the world ” ? Pull the other one.
PS. Sadly my Dad never saw this website . He would have loved it. He hated the BBC even more than I do !!
I sometimes think animals are treated better.
Grant: I’m surprised he actually said that. However, it reminds me of something else.
I once had an argument with my wife’s aunt, a former nurse and lifelong Labour voter. She said that people in the public sector are “nicer” than people in the private sector. Now I’m not suggesting that everyone in the private sector is a saint, far from it, but some people in the public sector have their own particular brand of nastiness – a smug, self righteous, arrogant, bullying, condescending brand of nastiness which can be difficult to take. We see it in the BBC all the time.
And since I’m in the mood for a rant, the Probate office in London seems to have lost a codicil to my father in law’s will and is refusing to reply to letters, one of the three income tax offices I am dealing with has decided at the last minute that they need a tax return (2 weeks to go) and another seems to think that my wife has just died. All in a couple of weeks.
Rant over.
Barry,
None of this surprises me. I deal with HMRC regularly on a professional basis and they are useless. I know that is no consolation.
My late father had an investment with AXA. After he died, they sent me a standard letter asking for a “coroners’ report ” I wrote to them asking why and they quietly dropped the subject without giving any reason.
They were also unaware that Scots Law terminology is different from English Law. I could go on …
Best of luck anyway !
Oh dear, BBC-NUJ-Labour disapproves of Coalition proposals on NHS, so BBC-NUJ-Labour uses the violent language and illustrations of exploding time-bombs.
Pot and kettle again, ‘Newsnight’ (M.Frei, 19 Jan).