1-1banner
 
medpundit
 

 
Commentary on medical news by a practicing physician.
 

 
Google
  • Epocrates MedSearch Drug Lookup




  • MASTER BLOGS





    "When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov




    ''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.''
    -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.




    "Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel



    email: medpundit-at-ameritech.net

    or if that doesn't work try:

    medpundit-at-en.com



    Medpundit RSS


    Quirky Museums and Fun Stuff


    Who is medpundit?


    Tech Central Station Columns



    Book Reviews:
    Read the Review

    Read the Review

    Read the Review

    More Reviews

    Second Hand Book Reviews

    Review


    Medical Blogs

    rangelMD

    DB's Medical Rants

    Family Medicine Notes

    Grunt Doc

    richard[WINTERS]

    code:theWebSocket

    Psychscape

    Code Blog: Tales of a Nurse

    Feet First

    Tales of Hoffman

    The Eyes Have It

    medmusings

    SOAP Notes

    Obels

    Cut-to -Cure

    Black Triangle

    CodeBlueBlog

    Medlogs

    Kevin, M.D

    The Lingual Nerve

    Galen's Log

    EchoJournal

    Shrinkette

    Doctor Mental

    Blogborygmi

    JournalClub

    Finestkind Clinic and Fish Market

    The Examining Room of Dr. Charles

    Chronicles of a Medical Mad House

    .PARALLEL UNIVERSES.

    SoundPractice

    Medgadget
    Health Facts and Fears

    Health Policy Blogs

    The Health Care Blog

    HealthLawProf Blog

    Facts & Fears

    Personal Favorites

    The Glittering Eye

    Day by Day

    BioEdge

    The Business Word Inc.

    Point of Law

    In the Pipeline

    Cronaca

    Tim Blair

    Jane Galt

    The Truth Laid Bear

    Jim Miller

    No Watermelons Allowed

    Winds of Change

    Science Blog

    A Chequer-Board of Night and Days

    Arts & Letters Daily

    Tech Central Station

    Blogcritics

    Overlawyered.com

    Quackwatch

    Junkscience

    The Skeptic's Dictionary



    Recommended Reading

    The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams


    Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth Fenn


    Intoxicated by My Illness by Anatole Broyard


    Raising the Dead by Richard Selzer


    Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy


    The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks


    The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo


    A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich




    MEDICAL LINKS

    familydoctor.org

    American Academy of Pediatrics

    General Health Info

    Travel Advice from the CDC

    NIH Medical Library Info

     



    button

    Friday, February 21, 2003

    The Wonderful World of Government Run Medicine: From
    Numbers Watch, a British web site:

    Everyone (except the Chancer) knows someone who works in the NHS and is well aware of the demoralisation and despair that afflicts these dedicated people. In the NHS there are now eight managers for every ten nurses. No need to ask what they all do. They collect statistics and develop new and more creatively fraudulent ways of trying to demonstrate that Government targets are being met. [emphasis mine]

    It’s been my experience that, at least in medicine, the more managers (or administrators) there are, the higher the cost of doing business, and the less efficient the practice. Ask any doctor who’s had his practice bought by a hospital. Most describe their new practice as "hospital ruined".

    But governments interfere even more, at least in Britain. It seems that Welsh and English patients are treated differently, even when they attend the same hospital:

    Different waiting list targets set in London and Cardiff mean that the maximum waiting times for English and Welsh patients are different. In Wales, the target is that no one should wait more than 18 months for an orthopaedic operation. In England the target is currently 15 months and will drop to 12 months in March.

    In true bureaucratic form, those maximum waiting times are taken as the standard, rather than the limit:

    "The consequence is that routine Welsh patients are less likely to get their operation within a year than are patients in England. It is a big problem for us and we are desperately trying to get things resolved so the target times are the same. There is lot of goodwill and we are hopeful."

    Not surprisingly, the Welsh patients are none too happy:

    "We pay as much as our English counterparts towards the health service so we deserve parity. I think it is a disgrace I have to wait 18 months in pain for an operation while people in England attending the same hospital as me only have to wait about 12 months. I’m being discriminated against."
     

    posted by Sydney on 2/21/2003 05:50:00 AM 0 comments

    0 Comments:

    Post a Comment

    This page is powered by Blogger, the easy way to update your web site.

    Main Page

    Ads

    Home   |   Archives

    Copyright 2006