Lord Mancroft was right.

[KateBush]

Here is his speech in full:

I have always been lucky to enjoy very good health until last year. I was taken ill shortly after the Recess started, and in the latter half of last year and at the beginning of this year I became an expert in being cared for in a variety of different hospitals, so I shall now give the House my observations as the person at the other end.

When I was taken ill, I was taken to an accident and emergency department in a hospital not in London but in the West Country. I can tell your Lordships only that it is a miracle that I am still alive. It was exactly as the noble Baroness described the hospital down in Maidstone in Kent. I will not tell your Lordships which hospital I was in, but the wards were filthy. Underneath the bed next to me was a piece of dirty cotton wool, and there it remained for seven days; the ward was never cleaned. It was a gastroenterology ward, with lots of people with very unpleasant infectious diseases. The ward, the tables, the beds and the bathrooms were not cleaned. I was extremely infectious at that time and no precautions were taken with me at all. The staff were furious when my wife wanted my bed cleaned when it clearly needed cleaning. I was just lying there, a pathetic person. It was appalling.

The nurses, who probably are the most important people in this complex area, were what I would describe as an accurate reflection of many young women in Britain today. What do I mean by that? I shall now break your Lordships’ rules and read the next bit, because I thought very hard before I wrote it. The nurses who looked after me—not all of them; we should never generalise and there were one or two wonderful ones—were mostly grubby, with dirty fingernails and hair. They were slipshod, lazy and, worst of all, drunken and promiscuous. How do I know that? If you are a patient, lying in a bed and being nursed from either side, the nurses talk across you as if you are not there. I know exactly what they got up to the night before. I know how much they drank and what they were planning to do the next night, and it was pretty horrifying.

My bed was next door to the nurses’ station, so you could see how the whole place was being run. Actually, you could not: I have seen lots of things being run, but after a week, I could not tell you who was in charge. I had absolutely no idea who was telling who to do what. My view is that nobody was telling anybody.

The man opposite me was dying. I imagine he died two or three days after I left. I do not know what he was dying of because he was not doing a lot of talking. But I do know that he virtually died alone. The nurses thought that he was a nuisance. They changed his bottle, gave him his pills, occasionally fed him and propped him up. But basically this man died alone in a British hospital in the 21st century, and I had to watch him do it, which was pretty unpleasant.

28 Feb 2008 : Column 826



I was saved from that and I have a happy ending to this story. My wife very kindly kidnapped me and put me in an ambulance, on the advice of my London consultant. I was brought up to London to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, which is where the story changes. I went to the Thomas Macaulay ward, which was completely incredible. The nurses, of every nationality, size, shape and colour, were wonderful. I was discharged from the country hospital. When I arrived in London I had two operations in 24 hours. I am quite certain—as were all the staff, although they would not say it—that if I had not had them I would have died. The hospital in London was wonderful. The nurses were marvellous. I do not know how, but it worked like clockwork. It was spotlessly clean. It was everything that it should be or could be anywhere.

But some things apply to both places. I have queued in many departments and met many consultants over the past six months. It is perfectly clear that there is far too much paper. Everywhere is swamped with paper. Everyone asks the same questions and fills in forms. Every department is covered in completely pointless paper. Last week, I saw one of my consultants. As I was leaving, he said, “By the way, what do you weigh”? I said, “What on earth do you mean, what do I weigh? Why do you want to know”? He said, “I do not want to know, but I’ve got to tick the box on this form or they will make you come for another appointment and weigh you. I run an outside clinic twice a week and 60 of my patients twice a week are weighed. I don’t care what they weigh. They don’t care what they weigh. But the form says that we have to weigh them”. How ridiculous is that?

Dispensing drugs is really simple. You and I call it retailing. Every week when I get my drugs, I watch them doing it and it takes 40 minutes. Over the road, Waitrose, the supermarket, is doing exactly the same thing really well, so why cannot these people do it? It is a shambles. It takes 40 minutes to get a drug which you can see sitting on the shelf. Why is that? It is because they have never been trained.

My last point is about the clerical staff, who probably are the linchpin that holds together these tiny satellites—the departments and areas of a big service in a large hospital. These people make the appointments and make sure that everyone is in the right place at the right time. They are clearly, too, completely untrained. I talked about it with one of my consultants who said that one of the problems is that the junior clerical staff in the National Health Service are desperately keen to help, very well meaning, completely useless and totally untrained. In the past year, I have observed them in 30 or 40 departments and I have come to the conclusion that that is true. The clerical staff are absolutely useless, but very nice.

Of course, this is a difficult situation. There will always be good and bad. In Britain at the moment there is very little that is good enough and too much that is too bad. This Government came in 10 years ago to sort this situation out. It has not been sorted out. It is internationally embarrassing and humiliating that a country of this size and wealth should produce a service which is so horrible.



[hr]

Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy

[Jason Dunn]

Quoting KateBush from 16:07, 2nd Mar 2008

My bed was next door to the nurses’ station, so you could see how the whole place was being run. Actually, you could not: I have seen lots of things being run, but after a week, I could not tell you who was in charge. I had absolutely no idea who was telling who to do what. My view is that nobody was telling anybody.

Bring back Matron.

[KateBush]

Couldn't agree more, Jason.

[hr]

Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy

[rob 'f*ck off' wine boy]

Couldn't agree more, Jason.

[hr]

Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy

[Guest]

I was nursed in RUH and he's right. The lower grade nurses were a disgrace to the few qualified ones.

[David Bean]

I was going to say "Now let's see those bastards calling themselves Her Majesty's Government try to dismiss this as anecdotal evidence", but then I just I'd check, and what did I find?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... rse101.xml

Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister, criticised the hereditary peer, accusing him of using his platform in the House of Lords to make a "sweeping generalisation about all nurses".

James Scott, the chief executive of the hospital, said he had spoken to the peer and demanded evidence of any wrongdoing.

...
Mr Scott challenged Lord Mancroft to names the nurses involved, saying: "He has made very serious allegations against a group of dedicated professionals."

Meanwhile Francesca Thompson, the director of nursing at Royal United, said nurses were "devastated" at Lord Mancroft's comments.

The Government and their friends in the various special interest groups who laughingly claim to 'run' the National Health Service (an organisation whose title looks more Lord Privy Seal or Holy Roman Empire every day) have jumped into action with lightning speed - not to try to fix the problem, oh no, but to rubbish the one who spoke out of it.

How pathetic - and how predictable. Maybe now people will believe that the worst filth in the NHS today isn't what lines the floors and walls of our hospitals - it's the people who are supposed to be in charge of it.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[Senethro]

I have come to believe that the NHS is a problem with no solution.

[LK Today]

As some of you know, I have been quite ill over the last three months. My appendix burst back at the beginning of December, and I had a Deep Vein Thrombosis in the middle of January. Over these last three months I have had more experience of the NHS than I have ever had before, and ever hope to have again.

Here are just a few examples of how terrible the care I received was...

- the doctor in St Andrews tried to refuse to see me, saying that as I was now living in Cupar I could no longer be a patient there. When I did see the doctor I was told I had a stomach bug, and was given painkillers. When I went back two days later, I was put in an ambulance and sent to Ninewells, by which time my appendix had burst.

- I was asked the same question over and over and over again. I was in so much pain I hardly knew my own name, let alone when I last had a tetanus shot. My favourite request was when, doubled over with pain, a junior doctor got me to get out of bed, and jump up and down.

- I was in 4 wards over the course of 11 days. This included a 5 day stay in the out-patients eye clinic, on the other side of the hospital from the gastro ward where my consultant was based. I saw 2 junior doctors that whole time. Never my consultant.

- the man next to me had suspected C Diff, which was a great person to have in an overcrowded ward when I had an open wound. Two days later my wound became swollen, and started to weep. Three months later it still hasn't healed, and I still have to dress it daily. Tests 4 weeks ago showed it was an e-coli type bug.

- when i was back in Ireland I was in 4 wards in 7 days. The move between 2 of these wards happened at 4.30am. Another time I was moved into a bed, only to find the previous occupant (about 70 years old) of that bed sitting beside it, his belongings around him (in Tesco bags), still in his dressing gown, waiting for his daughter to come fetch him.

Some good things...

- the nurses were wonderful. In both hospitals they really took care of me, and, while they were extremely over-worked, they always made it seem that no request for their help was too much.

- my temporary GP in Ireland was fantastic, as were the practice nurses, and indeed all their staff. They took extremely good care of me, and made the whole process much easier. For three weeks I saw them every weekday, and the GP even gave me his personal phone number, incase something went wrong during the festive period

At the end of the day, no matter how bad I thought the care was, they still saved my life. By the time I got to Ninewells my appendix had burst, and was eating into my organs. Got to be thankful for that, at least...

[hr]

http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37102636

[Humphrey]

Someone should tell all this to Michael Moore

[hr]

http://humphreyclarke.blogspot.com/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[munchingfoo]

Or the guy from the super size me film. Perhaps he can give himself illnesses for a year to see if he can survive the NHS!

[hr]

[s]Warning : The sinner is a plateau, with moral high ground manifesting itself as an optical illusion in the the bearers mind.[/s]

[Colleen]

Quoting KateBush from 16:07, 2nd Mar 2008
The nurses, who probably are the most important people in this complex area, were what I would describe as an accurate reflection of many young women in Britain today. The nurses who looked after me—not all of them; we should never generalise and there were one or two wonderful ones—were mostly grubby, with dirty fingernails and hair. They were slipshod, lazy and, worst of all, drunken and promiscuous. How do I know that? If you are a patient, lying in a bed and being nursed from either side, the nurses talk across you as if you are not there. I know exactly what they got up to the night before. I know how much they drank and what they were planning to do the next night, and it was pretty horrifying.

This speech infuriates me. "Worst of all - drunken and promiscuous."

It makes no damned difference how much a nurse chooses to drink, or if she chooses to sleep with every man in the West County if she is still a good nurse. Talking about it in front of patients is extraordinarily unprofessional, I'll be the first to admit, but that is not 'worst of all'.

What he's describing as 'nurses' are probably the auxilliarys, or the nurse assistants (generally untrained), who are lumped with all the jobs nurses used to do, whilst nurses do paperwork instead.

And as someone who was brought up in the household with two nurses, and works as a nurse assistant (sorry, 'care assistant' nowadays) then can I just point out that we're not all like that at all and the Nurses Union have every reason to be angry. Some hospitals are appalling; my mum recently had a godawful experience in one. Making comments about awful personal experiences, fine, it was.

Get more permanent cleaners in (hint: agency staff simply don't have the experience a full-time cleaner does), train the assistants better, let the nurses get on with their jobs rather than having to fill in the gaps left by the recent MMC debacle leading to a lack of junior doctors. Don't just make sanctimonious speeches that will just polarise people even more over the whole issues.

[hr]

taking shots for mother nature

[exnihilo]

He's an opposition peer. He can't make the changes to the NHS that need to be made, all he can do is make speeches highlighting his, and others', experience of the health service. If nothing else, his speech has got people talking and punctured to an extent this notion that it has never been better and that record investment has somehow been a good thing and not an enormous theft of the taxpayers' money. Speeches like this are vital precisely because of your reaction - everyone is too precious, there can be no criticism of any one in any group because someone will leap up and say "but I know someone who works really hard, that's so unfair". It's impossible now to make valid criticism of the NHS without the nursing unions throwing a hissy, of education without the teachers unions, and so on throughout the entire public service.

[777]

@ Colleen - the trouble is, to a patient a nurse is a nurse, ill people don't acknowledge the different uniforms. Also, any nurse giving hands on care ought to behave professionally regardless of their grade. More care needs to be taken when recruiting and training nursing assistants, these are the people the majority of patients have maximum contact with and it is their performance and attitude that our opinions are based upon. Properly qualified nurses work damned hard to achieve their degrees yet they are tarred with the same brush as the sloppy chavs that do stand either side of the bed talking across the patient about their personal lives.

[hr]


You're not pinning it on me - I didn't did it!

[Bizarre Atheist]

Just got back from the St Andrews Health Centre. I was seen by a doctor at 9.45 for my 9.10 appointment. He wanted me out so fast that I didn't have time to explain all of my symptoms and generally my reason for being there. He ran off a very vaguely-explained prescription that he spent all of thirty seconds considering and sent me packing. Total contact time must have been less than three minutes.

Now I'm going to do the sensible thing and call my parents and have them book me an embarassingly expensive private consultant who might actually give me some attention. Sigh.

[hr]

[harmless loony]

I found the St Andrews Health Centre to be rather poor quality for its service and for dealing with health queries.

Over my 4 years I was misdiagnosed 5 times - two of those times resulted in me being admitted to hospital which could have been avoided if the doc had just listened to the symptoms I was trying to explain to him. Like BA I used to find it was a quick in and out service.

Registered back with the docs at home who have always given a brilliant service, same day emergency appointments, everyone has a 10 minute slot - they take the time to examine you properly. They read my records which the St A centre sent over and were stunned at how poorly they were kept and didn't even record the vaccinations I was given. (They'd also lost the bit with my medication allergies written).

All in all as with anything - in some places you get a poor service and some places you get an excellent service.....luck of the draw really....

PS: This is also the reason why I oppose medics automatically getting a job upon graduation. Like anyone else they should prove that they are good enough to be doctors rather than assuming that having the qualification is enough.

[exnihilo]

Pipeland Road is shocking. I've had so many fights with doctors there, even had shouting match with one in a hallway once because I requested a prescription for the drugs my consultant put me on and he decided to write one for something else. When I went in to complain he came out to reception and asked the receptionist what "he" wanted with me standing right there, so he got a good piece of my mind that day.

As for hospitals, don't get me started! I was covered on my parents' health insurance until I was 25 and then I went into an NHS hospital. I had private insurance sorted out the day I came out. Never, ever again. And, yet, my National Insurance contributions keep on climbing, and I don't even use the bloody service.

[fluffy]

I found pipeland road to be really good and understanding. apart from the one time i got grumpy dr tait. but i've always been with female doctors and they've been lovely. but then, i guess i've had nothing worse to go for than asthma/pill etc...

[hr]

dev ksereis, alla eimai trella erotebmevei mazi sou..

[KateBush]

At least you can *get* Health Insurance!

[hr]

Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy

[exnihilo]

Yes, I can, but with the state of my health it cost a bloody fortune. Almost as much as I pay in NI contributions.

[KateBush]

And it's no good jumping up and saying, "But I know some really good doctors, and some nurses who work in really hard conditions...."

There is no excuse for sloppy patient care. You either help a patient who rungs a buzzer and tells you they are in pain, or you don't. You either attempt to make them comfortable, or you don't.

The elderly bear the brunt of sloppy nursing, I would argue. My own consultant tells me now that it's common practice for old people to be left to starve to death in hospitals now- if they can't feed themselves- eg, unsteady hands, unable to cut up food, or reach it- I've seen nurses put trays on the opposite side of the room from patients- then no one ever attempts to help them.

I've had to press a buzzer myself as an inpatient to TELL a nurse that someone needs help with food.

Nursing used to be a vocationa subject. Now it's an 'academic' one. One time when I was an inpatient in Ninewells, the student nurses, knowing I was an English undergraduate, asked me to proofread their 'essays'. What these 'essays' really comprised of was an account of seeing a patient in distress, and writing about how to deal with it.

I had one student write that "I telt Missis Jones tae smile instead."

I have had to tell final year nursing students - whilst extremely ill in cardiac units myself- that I must be placed flat if I faint, and not held up. If someone who faints is held up for long enough, they can become brain damaged, or can eve die, because their brain is starved of oxygen. I have no medical training whatsoever. And I'm telling the people responsible for my welfare- the people whose hands my life is in- what to do, because they DO NOT know.

Nursing is a doss. It's too easy to get into. What nurse ever helps a patient to have a wash? what nurse helps a patient to eat, unprompted? What nurse shows the touch of human kindness? VERY few as far as I can tell. But they'll all have their 'three highers' or whatever the qualifications are.

I'd rather have a nurse who knows how to save a life than one with three highers who thinks she's above making someone fresh and clean if they have an accident.

[hr]

Intelligence can leap the hurdles which nature has set before us- Livy