Fuck off, *unt

[Jimski]

Just when you think ideas can't get any scarier, Jeremy Hunt's department comes up with one...

http://www.channel4.com/news/nice-assessment-elderly-health-drugs-rejected-contribution

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, *unt

"There are lots of people who adopt the fair-innings approach; 'you've had 70 years of life you've got to accept that society is going to bias its investments in younger people'. There are people who subscribe to that but it's not something we feel comfortable (with)."

I'd be amazed if this didn't apply to some extent. My friend the Consultant said that until about 15 years ago they didn't use to give dialysis to anyone much over 65. That's changed, but I'd be surprised if the principle didn't remain for some of the much more expensive stuff.

I wonder if Jeremy Hunt's been stitched up here.

Couldn't happen to a nicer man.

[Bored Of Education]

Fuck off, *unt

Now I'm getting confused between him and Tristram

[MsD]

Fuck off, *unt

The "Liverpool Pathway" has been policy or general practice for some time.

This is only something I have personally really taken notice of over the last decade, to my regret. When my own father died in hospital at the age of 77, I didn't challenge it and assumed he was "in the best hands". Since then, several of my closest friends have had their parents "murdered" (as they see it) or made more ill by negligent hospital staff. Ignoring calls of distress and calls for water, plonking food down in front of them but not encouraging them to eat, giving catheters (which can be painful and lead to infection) because it is more convenient than changing beds or providing frequent toilet care, failing to keep records of medication, or to take account of allergies and sensitivities ... I've seen all this at first hand, in the case of my best friend's parents and their fellow elderly patients. Her bravery in challenging hospital negligence and abuse led to a scary series of events where she was undermined, labelled as "unstable" and threatened with being barred from seeing her father. (A subsequent inquiry went in her favour, but too late for her Dad, who died in January).

Ageism is rife, and it's also a class issue. The Royals are hale and hearty into their 90s, is that because they're from better stock?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Fuck off, *unt

Anyone who's admitted to hospital should designate an advocate to deal with staff and ask questions. This is particularly true of elderly people. I'm not going to list the specific issues La Signora had during her seven months in three different UK care facilities, but there were many. Fortunately she was relatively young, in full command of her faculties, and not on medication which clouded her judgement. Therefore she was able to advocate on her own behalf brilliantly. However all around her were patients who couldn't, or wouldn't.

Few of us are prepared, intellectually or emotionally, for being hospitalised. To my knowledge there are no courses you can take in advance, and even if there were, who would? Until we're ill our self-hood is a healthy one. Don't go into hospital without someone you know and trust, to act for you. Make it legal if you must. Being ill and alone is terrifying.

[MsD]

Fuck off, *unt

Yes. I don't want to denigrate those staff who ARE caring and conscientious, but if you have an elderly parent in the system, pay attention, keep a diary, ask questions, and look out for the person in the next bed, too. I wish I'd done that for my Dad.

[Uncle Ethan]

Fuck off, *unt

It's extremely difficult though. I have intelligent, competent family members who were trying to get things done for and answers about my sister's care in hospital a couple of years back. They were getting nowhere and she was fading away before their eyes.

I arrived back and because I am an extremely bolshy bugger who has worked in enough bureaucratic environments to know whose buttons to push and how to do it, things were finally done and she eventually left hospital and lived out her remaining months in relative comfort.

It is not the fault of family. Frontline staff are often under-resourced, poorly-trained and just too damn busy to do their jobs properly.

Relatives can sometimes then feel guilty about "making a fuss". I didn't because (a) I am too impatient and belligerent and (b) I have picked up some of that Australian distrust of authority.

Sometimes the British are just too British.

For what it's worth MsD I wasn't even in the country when my Mum was hospitalised for the last time, so don't be too hard on yourself.

[Jimski]

Fuck off, *unt

I was worried not just about the implications for the elderly, which are scary enough (and as people imply probably do happen to some degree already), but the whole innate logic of people being judged as more valuable somehow if they "contribute more to the economy". There's a whole path one go down there that one really doesn't want to start along...

(I mean if ministers claim this isn't aimed at the elderly, then what exactly do they mean by the proposals?)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Fuck off, *unt

Relatives can sometimes then feel guilty about "making a fuss". I didn't because (a) I am too impatient and belligerent and (b) I have picked up some of that Australian distrust of authority.

Sometimes the British are just too British.

Oh for sure. I got into several verbals with doctors in the first days of C's hospitalisation "This may not be how you do things in Canada but... etc., etc." After that she handled them herself. One simple thing she insisted on was that doctors spoke to her sitting down. She was unable to to sit up, and felt vulnerable being, literally, talked down to. It's amazing what a difference something so simple made. More importantly she had an insatiable curiosity about what was actually going on inside her body. Anyone who's genuinely interested in their work — and most doctors, particularly specialists, are — will respond to that. I remember sitting in a neurologist's office for three hours while he and she discussed the brain's capacity to repair itself. It just doesn't pay to be a passive patient.

It's extremely difficult though.

It is. That's why some people turn to professional advocates (if they can afford it.) The ones we met were working on behalf of elderly patients. Once you're defined as geriatric, then very often treatment changes dramatically — certainly in the case of strokes, which are still viewed as, primarily, an affliction of the elderly.

[Wouter D]

Fuck off, *unt

Jimski wrote: the whole innate logic of people being judged as more valuable somehow if they "contribute more to the economy". There's a whole path one go down there that one really doesn't want to start along...

Yes! Thank you for singling that out. It freaks me out no end that there are actually quite a lot of people willing to go down this path.

[MsD]

Fuck off, *unt

This story (link) is very similar to what happened to my friend's Mum, except the patient lived to tell the tale. Fuck the Liverpool Pathway, let someone's body decide when they've had enough.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23698071

My friend's mum, Jean, went into hospital for something minor and was dead in weeks. The last time her daughter saw her, she was begging for water, and the nurses had shouted at her. Her last words to my friend were "if you love me at all, get me out of here. I don't want to die, it's not my time."

[MsD]

Fuck off, *unt

To add, yes this new rhetoric about economic viability is scary, but I think this has been going on for a while. As I said, it's a class issue, with the poor elderly treated like garbage. Working class girls (young women, who tend to be unassertive if not inarticulate) aren't treated particularly well when it comes to reproductive care, either. And so it goes on.

[sw2borshch]

Fuck off, *unt

ipse, over on the Guardian's CiF said

O.K. then let's have a closer look at his back-story, eh ?
Part 1.
Throughout his career, Jeremy Hunt’s advancement somehow always seemed to involve his path crossing that of his cousin the former ,Virginia Bottomley, known since 2005 as Baroness Nettlestone.
The most striking thing about Hunt is a penchant for toughing out any and all criticisms with a bare face. Almost nothing uttered in public by this man is ever anything other than an embellishment, or a distortion, or a boldly stated but clearly inaccurate statement: “I gave full disclosure”, “I have done nothing wrong”, “It was a purely fact-finding mission” and so forth.
At the Conservative Party conference, Hunt excelled himself by suggesting to his audience that his father “worked as a manager for the NHS”. It is an exaggeration served with lashings of deception: Sir Nicholas John Streynsham Hunt (Daddy) was Admiral of the Fleet in his main career and, once retired, became a quangoista par excellence. He was Chairman of the South West Surrey District Health Authority from 1990 to 1995 and then Chairman of Nuffield Hospitals from 1996 to 2001.
Ring any bells? The clues are ‘South West Surrey’, ‘Health’ and ‘Nuffield’. And it might not be too hard to imagine where he got the assist into those cosy sinecures: for not long previously, his niece Virginia Bottomley had been….Minister of Health.
Admiral Sir John had an elder brother (now carefully airbrushed out of the Wikipedias and other genealogies), one Roland Colin Charles Hunt. He married Hilda Pauline Garnett, whose brother was W. John Garnett. WJG had a daughter called Hilda Brunette Maxwell Garnett….aka, Virginia Bottomley.
Virginia Bottomley eventually became MP for South West Surrey.
Ring any bells? Ah yes, that’ll be the same South West Surrey for which her cousin Jeremy Hunt became MP when Virginia decided to quit open politics and become a quangoista…just like her uncle the Admiral of the Fleet.
And this wasn’t the first time La Bottomley had been helpful to cousin Jeremy. She’d joined infamous quango The British Council. And it might not be too hard to imagine where Jezzer got the assist into becoming a monopoly supplier to the British Council with his company Hotcourses.
Nor would it involve much of a lateral leap in thought to understand how – after Hotcourses completely cocked up the first job it did for the Council – an elaborate system of shelf companies and oddly-headed invoices enabled Jeremy to carry on secretly being a preferred monopoly supplier to The British Council for the next five years…on the back of which he amassed the fortune of which he is so proud today.
• Hunt C.V. part 2.....
Then Virginia moved upwards into Another House, becoming Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone in 2005 – handing her seat to Jeremy Hunt as if it might be a family heirloom. Hunt was duly elected, and South West Surrey thus became a Rotten Borough.
This is what Baroness Nettlestone mainly gets up to in the Lords: she lobbies on behalf of the private health sector via her directorship of BUPA. She must’ve been a shoe-in for that little earner, she having been Health Secretary in charge of the public sector an’ all…but then, probably Uncle Admiral’s contacts at Nuffield helped. You know how these things work.
Right then….private health lobbying, and a creeping pauperisation of NHS hospitals by former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. But Andrew was a bit accident-prone – rather like his Cabinet colleague Jeremy Hunt, who partnered Newscorp in his educational supplies business, went to New York to broker a change of Newscorp’s Party preference from Labour to Tory, and then was quite coincidentally put in charge of adjudicating on the Newscorp bid for BSkyB. As we all know, that ended in tears.
But Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt didn’t go down a snake like the luckless Lansley. He went two rungs up the ladder to become….Secretary of State for Health. To paraphrase the old Lord Robert Cecil gag about ‘Bob’s yer uncle’ it seems the only way is up if Ginny’s yer cousin. As I blogged yesterday, Cameron didn’t want to give Jezzer the job. But Mr Hunt appears to have three very strong holds on the Prime Minister.
First, he is very – like I mean extremely – well in at Newscorp. “Jeremy is our man now: don’t mess with him”. Second, he is bankrolled by murky mega-donor JHJ Lewis – Chairman of the Groucho Club (a media-luvvie venue proven to have illegally recorded the coke-snorting antics of its celebrity customers) and influential eminence grise in the Conservative Party. And third, he has the influence and contacts via Bottomley to oil wheels here and there in the gradual sale of an insolvent NHS to organisation like – and here I’m only offering suggestions of course – BUPA and Nuffield.
So there’s Jeremy newly installed as Health Secretary after just seven short years as an MP. This is a summary of his meteoric rise:
He made a fortune at the taxpayers’ expense as monopoly supplier to a notorious quango where, by happy coincidence, his cousin sat on the Board. He became MP for SW Surrey where, by happy coincidence, his cousin had been MP previously. He became Minister in charge of Media & Culture where, by happy coincidence, he wound up steering his pals at Newscorp in the right direction. And he became Health Secretary partly because, by happy coincidence, his cousin is a lobbyist for the private health sector.
The Conservative Party claims to be all about the Bonfire of the Quangos, the Party where everyone who wants to work hard can get an even break, and the Big Society. But its members, acolytes and backers remain what they’ve always been: a small Secret Society where who is far more important than what you know. Hilariously, Virginia Bottomley has described herself as “a one-nation” Conservative. Well I guess we now know which of Disraeli’s two nations she was talking about

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, *unt

The principle is "had a good innings". How does that imply "economic usefulness"?

Very often it will imply the opposite. My relative has had pretty poor care for her Crohns Disease. She's almost certainly going to be on out of work benefits all her life. The economic usefulness test will throw her to the wolves. Treating her keeps costs far more than giving a 90 year old some treatment that will keep them alive a few months.

[Gangster Octopus]

Fuck off, *unt

Our new leader?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, *unt

You and your bloody links today.

[Gangster Octopus]

Fuck off, *unt

You should read that one on the Murdoch Scum thread. It's very funny.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, *unt

Ha ha ha. Clowns.

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/access/pms-seven-day-gp-access-pilot-scrapped-after-proving-unpopular-with-patients/20010222.article

CCG leaders have pulled the plug on their seven-day GP access pilot after just one in 10 appointments were filled despite ‘considerable promotion’ of the scheme.

Pulse has learnt that NHS Hambleton, Richmondshire and Whitby CCG - one of the first areas funded under the Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund scheme - will end at the end of this month, after only four months of full operation.

CCG leaders say the pilot was not a good use of resources as only 12% of appointments on Sundays were filled and less than 50% of slots booked on a Saturday. Patients also did not like the ‘hub’ model, because they preferred to be seen in their own practice.

The news comes as a blow to the PM’s plans to roll out seven-day GP access to all by 2020 and comes after Pulse revealed CCGs in some areas of the country were also rethinking their extended access plans due to lack of demand and cost-effectiveness.

This is quite a big deal.

As with Education (under both parties) the plan would have been to have a small number of "units" on which political attention was focussed and take credit for. Problems elsewhere are blamed on some mysterious force thwarting the brilliant Blair/Gove/Hunt.

If they can't get these 7 day areas going, then that option won't exist.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, *unt

Fuck off, BBC.

Main 6 o'clock broadcast had good old Jeremy Hunt wanting to open doctor surgeries for 7 days a week. Two areas were featured. Sleepy old rural doctor said no need. "But it's a different story in our cities". Interview with patient who had it in her area- it was good.

Hunt wanted to do this more. His "side of the bargain" would be to recruit more doctors and improve the "incentives" to become GPs.

WTF?!!

The same Hunt has banged on for years about how the current GP contract was too cushy. He's now going to make it more generous? How does that work?

Reference in passing to some areas not having many GPs at all. Not connected at all with Hunt or areas with enough for 7 day service.

Pitiful. Pitiful.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, *unt

Just as I said, same trick going on with health as they used in Education.

In a series of putdowns of promises made by David Cameron and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, Porter ridiculed their desire to see the NHS become “a health service open all hours, staffed by a phantom army of new recruits. A pledge to expand services, with barely the detail to fill a Post-it note”.

“We have a government run from cloud nine rather than Number 10. The crisis is real, but their solutions show little grasp of reality.”

The Department of Health rejected Porter’s claims, accused the BMA of being out of touch with patients and advised him to “tone down this rhetoric”.

‘The BMA is out of touch with what patients want. People are sick of struggling to get GP appointments that suit their working patterns or family life. It’s a shame that Mark Porter doesn’t acknowledge that thousands of innovative doctors have already embraced our shared vision of seven-day access to primary care,” a spokeswoman said.

Make a minority of teachers/doctors part of a favoured scheme. And when someone speaks out on behalf of the profession as a whole, accuse them of being the problem.

It's one thing to make that work for teachers, who've copped 30 years of media shit. Quite another to make it work for doctors.

But watch out for the next phase- Hunt starts naming a load of these "innovative" doctors in the media, with the implication that if he had his way every doctor would be doing exactly the same as them.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fuck off, *unt

Capita wins £1bn NHS contract to oversee administration

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/408bcd74-18bb ... 71480.html

7-10 years.