Who gains from NHS errors? Not the patients, nor the taxpayer!
I don't know how often you visit your GP surgery. I go every couple of weeks, to drop off a prescription or somesuch. I've been registered at five surgeries in the last dozen or so years, and the walls and windows at each seem to have been peppered somewhat randomly with signs. Most are badly produced on a PC, and fixed up with Blu-tack. The spelling, grammar and design of these is uniformly awful.
Yesterday I visited our surgery and noticed a sign that I hadn't seen before, although my partner of those dozen years said has been there for some time:
Worse still, some manager (of whom there are plenty in the NHS) will have sanctioned the spend of, perhaps, a hundred quid on a sign that is, quite frankly wrong, and portrays their business in a bad light. Clearly they didn't care that it was wrong: did they give a thought as to how competent (or otherwise) it makes the practice appear?
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What's worse, this sort of lack of attention to detail is endemic in the NHS, and it is costing the country billions - arguably, there may be hundreds of thousands of people employed by the NHS only because of its systemic failure to pay attention to detail.
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Four years ago my partner was in a bad way - I can't go into detail due to legal issues. I can say that in March 2017 she was discharged from hospital and arrangements were made for her to be provided with a wheelchair by the NHS.
When someone needs a wheelchair, of course, they get help from physios and others because they, and their carers, need to adjust to what is a very new way of living. We had visits from physios, and, a month after discharge from hospital two experts from 'NHS Wheelchair Services' paid us a visit, to measure my partner and assess what we needed by way of a wheelchair.
My partner had an urgent hospital appointment in June that year; when it became apparent that the NHS wheelchair might not be with us in time, I ordered a cheap, fold-up one on the internet, just so we could bundle her into a taxi and get her to that appointment. Meanwhile the physio appointments continued, and we got to the point where she could, with my help, get in and out of the 'chair, up or down a few stairs, and in and out of a car. For a disabled person these abilities make the difference between incarceration and a semblance of normal life.
It was late-July by the time the NHS wheelchair was ready. Unable to deliver it, they asked us to go over to collect it; it was a good job we had the fold-up one, I thought. On arrival, the assistant seemed concerned: they had watched us get out of the car and hadn't, it seemed, bargained for my partner learning how to get in and out of a car; the assistant was apologetic that the 'chair they had for her 'might not quite be right'.
We got it home and, well, it was a wheelchair. Heavy, with many sharp, square edges - which I covered as best I could with pipe insulation - it was held together with allen screws. Some of these had never been fastened properly; I had to tighten them myself after one of the footrests fell off. It also had solid tyres, as cheap 'chairs do, and these give an uncomfortable ride to the user.
I only found out much later that this 'chair was not designed for outdoor use. I had thought it strange that there was no way for the 'pusher' to operate the brake, and, when going over a humped-back bridge, the weight of the chair plus occupant would be as much as I could control. If I had let go she would have hurtled on and crashed into, well, whatever happened to be in the way ....
The NHS wheelchair had, apparently, been hand-built for us. I can only guess at the cost of this - the visit of the two experts to our house, the selection of parts, assembly and configuration of them, and then the delivery to the former cottage hospital where we collected it - perhaps a grand, maybe more. Yet, to us, it was of little use, and in fact seemed dangerous for outdoor use.
I went on the internet and found a 'chair that looked much better, with large wheels, an accessible brake and inflatable tyres, for, I think, about a hundred and seventy quid, and another fiver for a lap belt. I got out the credit card and waited for delivery. After that happened a few days later, the NHS wheelchair received no further use. After three months I phoned up NHS Wheelchair Services and asked them to come and collect it.
Why was the NHS wheelchair no use to us? Why was perhaps over a grand spent on it when they could have just given us a voucher for a two hundred quid one - or even, I'll be honest, just given me some sensible guidance on what we needed, and I could have bought one?
I believe that no one involved in the design or delivery of the NHS 'chair actually thought about our needs, what would be comfortable and safe, or what she would find comfortable once she had adapted to the world of not walking. They'd just been told by the hospital that she needed a wheelchair so they got her a wheelchair - and didn't worry about the spec or the cost, which didn't seem to matter to them.
And, of course, the taxpayer - you and me - picked up that cost.
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Anyone who has worked with the management standard ISO9001 will know that quality is something that shows at all levels of an organisation. Likewise, poor practice, if it is endemic, will show at all levels. If you take your car to a garage to have the brakes done, you're not impressed if the receptionist notes down it's to have the clutch sorted: she (or he) may not be going to do the actual work, but those that are will rely upon information recorded by them.
This, I believe, is perhaps the most fundamental problem we all face with the NHS. As an organisation it believes it is doing what it needs to, that it knows best, yet it is not paying anything like enough attention to detail, at all levels. That is costing us all a fortune, for mistakes need to be fixed, and those affected by them will require ongoing support.
(A cynic may argue that this is in the interest of many of the staff; if, miraculously, there wasn't as much work for them to do, some might lose their jobs....)
I need to stress the failure is of the organisation, not necessarily individuals, some of whom are doubtless working their socks off doing what they are asked to do.
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If you're not convinced yet, please consider an article in the Telegraph for July 28th. Twenty-three patients have died due to their operations being cancelled due to covid-related issues, and these operations were for the removal of items left inside them in previous operations. That's right: they had been cut open, bits put in them, they were then stitched up and no-one noticed that swabs or whatever had not been taken out; the hospitals responsible were unable to then remove said items before the patients died.
These, of course, were far from the only 'preventable' deaths to occur in the NHS in recent times.
How many more people have survived such incidents, but perhaps undergone more procedures than they should have done, or been left disabled, because things were left inside them? How much effort, on the part of NHS doctors, nurses, radiographers, porters, administrators, receptionists, managers, HR and health-and-safety professionals (and of course lawyers) has been expended because of these cock-ups? How much has it all cost?
Is it the case, perhaps, that one man's cock-up provides another man with an amount of significantly well-paid work at the expense of the taxpayer? If so, why are we all putting up with this?
Please look in the mirror and ask yourself that question.
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