I made the mistake, today, of watching Ms Dugdale's nyah, nyah, nyah statements to Ms Sturgeon.
All I learned was apparently Ms Dugdale was still in nappies when the SNP formed their minority government in 2007 and since then the short fall Ms Dugdale suffered in rusk provision, lack of disposable nappies and other health issues were all Ms Sturgeon's fault as were the few patients in Scottish A&E's who waited longer than four hours to be treated and the need for hospitals to cancel planned operations to deal with the increased seasonal work load from excesses of all sorts and ward closures due to Nova-virus outbreaks. As someone who has worked in the NHS, across the UK, since 1985 I was left banging my head in frustration as Ms Dugdale time and time again missed the important issue - there is only so much any dedicated NHS team can do in any 24 hour period.
It is a pity Ms Dugdale had not read this article in the Gruniad before launching her mindless attack over a small beer spillage. A real A&E Registrar, working in a teaching hospital, pointing up just what Labour's NHS England, competitive internal market policy taken to the next level by Labour's Conservative chums, actually means in terms of A&E workload in NHS England:
"As I’m leaving, I see a man arriving with a blocked urinary catheter. The district nurse is meant to change it, which would solve the problem, but there weren’t any district nurses available this morning. So, like everyone else, his fallback plan is to come to A&E. It’s unfair on him – much better for him that he be treated at home – and it places even more pressure on our department, with too few senior staff, not enough space to see patients, and no beds for people if they need a hospital stay.
The day shift is short of nurses. Maybe that’s because half the senior charge nurses in our department have resigned in the last year or so. They’ve gone to find less stressful work in other specialities – or even other countries.
As well as too few nurses, there are two unfilled consultant shifts and three unfilled junior doctor shifts. Nobody wants to do A&E. I’m starting to see why."
The bottom line in NHS England is A&E are also having to take up the burden of collapsing NHS GP provision and, as are A&E in Scotland, cursed with unrealistic expectations on the NHS in general by the general public, created by idiot politicians like Ms Dugdale whose Labour party first thought up the NHS 24 scam while failing to ensure it was properly resourced or thought through. This point would also be wasted on Ms Dugdale as she was at school at the time, "so wisnae ma faut!"
The problem is simple; there is only a finite amount which any society can afford to use to fund health care. This has always been the NHS Achilles Heel since it first took wing in 1948 there was never going to be enough funding to meet the expectations raised by the Labour Government of the day amongst the UK electorate. The GP based NHS envisaged by Beveridge with its focus on prevention coupled with housing, dietary and educational improvements was killed at birth by Bevin and his sell out to the BMA Consultants Group in 1947 which ensured the NHS funding was and has remained hospital biased.
NHS Scotland has, so far, been feather bedded from the worst of the destruction wrought on its NHS England counterpart by use of shifting the Scottish Budget around, a budget which has reduced in value by around 5%, year on year, since 2007. If you want to understand what Labour would have done if they had retained power in Scotland have a read of the Gruniad article which I have already highlighted.
A handful of operations cancelled and a few non-urgent cases waiting more than four hours in A&E does not a disaster make. There is a discussion needed on what NHS Scotland should be, funded and how care is provided to key patient groups across Scotland but short time, political, whining of the sort coming from Ms Dugdale is no basis for this vital discussion. There are more drastic budget cuts on the way whether the red or blue Tories get their arses into Number 10 - their neo-liberal company sponsors require it of them as does securing their own personal wealth and future big money jobs for the boys and girls. We, the idiot electorate, are going to continue to pay through the nose to protect these leeches way of life and privilege.
Welcome to the Noh play.
All I learned was apparently Ms Dugdale was still in nappies when the SNP formed their minority government in 2007 and since then the short fall Ms Dugdale suffered in rusk provision, lack of disposable nappies and other health issues were all Ms Sturgeon's fault as were the few patients in Scottish A&E's who waited longer than four hours to be treated and the need for hospitals to cancel planned operations to deal with the increased seasonal work load from excesses of all sorts and ward closures due to Nova-virus outbreaks. As someone who has worked in the NHS, across the UK, since 1985 I was left banging my head in frustration as Ms Dugdale time and time again missed the important issue - there is only so much any dedicated NHS team can do in any 24 hour period.
It is a pity Ms Dugdale had not read this article in the Gruniad before launching her mindless attack over a small beer spillage. A real A&E Registrar, working in a teaching hospital, pointing up just what Labour's NHS England, competitive internal market policy taken to the next level by Labour's Conservative chums, actually means in terms of A&E workload in NHS England:
"As I’m leaving, I see a man arriving with a blocked urinary catheter. The district nurse is meant to change it, which would solve the problem, but there weren’t any district nurses available this morning. So, like everyone else, his fallback plan is to come to A&E. It’s unfair on him – much better for him that he be treated at home – and it places even more pressure on our department, with too few senior staff, not enough space to see patients, and no beds for people if they need a hospital stay.
The day shift is short of nurses. Maybe that’s because half the senior charge nurses in our department have resigned in the last year or so. They’ve gone to find less stressful work in other specialities – or even other countries.
As well as too few nurses, there are two unfilled consultant shifts and three unfilled junior doctor shifts. Nobody wants to do A&E. I’m starting to see why."
The bottom line in NHS England is A&E are also having to take up the burden of collapsing NHS GP provision and, as are A&E in Scotland, cursed with unrealistic expectations on the NHS in general by the general public, created by idiot politicians like Ms Dugdale whose Labour party first thought up the NHS 24 scam while failing to ensure it was properly resourced or thought through. This point would also be wasted on Ms Dugdale as she was at school at the time, "so wisnae ma faut!"
The problem is simple; there is only a finite amount which any society can afford to use to fund health care. This has always been the NHS Achilles Heel since it first took wing in 1948 there was never going to be enough funding to meet the expectations raised by the Labour Government of the day amongst the UK electorate. The GP based NHS envisaged by Beveridge with its focus on prevention coupled with housing, dietary and educational improvements was killed at birth by Bevin and his sell out to the BMA Consultants Group in 1947 which ensured the NHS funding was and has remained hospital biased.
NHS Scotland has, so far, been feather bedded from the worst of the destruction wrought on its NHS England counterpart by use of shifting the Scottish Budget around, a budget which has reduced in value by around 5%, year on year, since 2007. If you want to understand what Labour would have done if they had retained power in Scotland have a read of the Gruniad article which I have already highlighted.
A handful of operations cancelled and a few non-urgent cases waiting more than four hours in A&E does not a disaster make. There is a discussion needed on what NHS Scotland should be, funded and how care is provided to key patient groups across Scotland but short time, political, whining of the sort coming from Ms Dugdale is no basis for this vital discussion. There are more drastic budget cuts on the way whether the red or blue Tories get their arses into Number 10 - their neo-liberal company sponsors require it of them as does securing their own personal wealth and future big money jobs for the boys and girls. We, the idiot electorate, are going to continue to pay through the nose to protect these leeches way of life and privilege.
Welcome to the Noh play.
Great post. It puts Dugdale's moaning inot perspective.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is, I fear Dugdale has, like so many others in politics, absolutely no experience of life outside university and the Labour party.
I wouldn't want to restrict anyone getting involved in politics, but I can't help feeling that parties should at least chose their leadership and front benches from people who have actually done something in life and gained some real experience of how things are.