Saturday, March 7, 2009

UK NHS

Whenever I travel across to England to teach on a course, or attend a conference, I inevitably hear all about the problems in the NHS over there. We're lucky on the Isle of Man that we don't have the same level of political or management interference as they do over there.

Here's an example. The 18 week rule was brought in to ensure everyone gets quick treatment. However, what they don't advertise is that if someone 'breaches', then a miss is as good as a mile. A patient was recently listed for a hip replacement at a large Mersey region hospital. A manager there found he was after the 18 week limit, and promptly cancelled his admission so that another patient could be done in his place who hadn't breached. As far as the rules are concerned once he's waited 18 weeks and a day, he may as well wait for 3 years - the figures look equally bad once collated as required by the government. I find it unbelievable that clinical priorities and fairness can be distorted in this way.

There are many other examples involving the 'choose and book' system, or the 'pre-appointment physio triage' system. I'm glad we don't have these set-ups here.

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