Flagship NHS now but a sinking ship

THE FRIDAY THING: I THINK it is fair to say most of us not employed by the NHS just now will be well and truly relieved we aren’t.

It used to be a flagship service, but if recent stories are anything to go by, the ship has sunk and lies at the bottom of an ocean of mismanagement, incompetence and greed.

Even the name of a supposedly crucial part of the NHS, the Care Quality Commission, would be a sick joke if it wasn’t so deadly serious, especially for the babies who died in Furness Hospital in Cumbria.

Where was the care? Where was the quality? And what were the commissioners doing while these infants died?

In another hospital, elderly patients were forced to drink water from vases to prevent them dying from thirst and dehydration.

Instead of demonstrating any concern for these lethal lapses, those in charge – the misnamed CQC — apparently tried to wipe evidence of incompetence from the record.

Would any of this have happened, or gone unnoticed for so long, if politicians hadn’t abolished the Community Health Councils, whose members patrolled wards and talked to those who really know what’s going on? They weren’t paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for their efforts, either.

People on the CHCs were solid local folk with a keen interest in the health and welfare of the sick, trusted by patients to ensure shortcomings were remedied.

They achieved their success by simply talking to those at the receiving end of care and those directly delivering it. Would they have drawn a secret veil over a catalogue of failure? Not on your life, nor on the life of the patients in whose interest they patrolled the wards.

They weren’t health experts, but looking at the mess the so-called experts have left us with, the homely concern of the CHC looks a far, far better bet.