Leatherhead Matters

Brown’s Government appears genetically incapable of telling the truth. Everything is done by sleight of hand, media brief & counter brief (all from the same sources) in the hope we will lose the thread (or, the will to live).

The latest is on the NHS. We have had a decade of promises that our national treasure, the NHS “Is safe in New Labour’s hands”. At the same time, the government hasy been sucking up to the nursing profession. NHS nurses are increasingly being  given tasks which previously, only doctors with years of medical education & training were allowed to do. All sorts of new diplomas & certifications have been handed out to nurses, like confetti, to camouflage this change. As a consequence, NHS nurses appear increasingly unwilling to perform some of the basic tasks of nursing (like cleaning, feeding & turning patients unable to do this for themselves). It now appears as if only third world nurses are prepared to carry out these tasks.

No, much better for the modern NHS nurse to be steeped in protocols & competencies. The government hopes we won’t understand that this isn’t the same as several years at university studying medicine and then several years of applied medicine under the tutelage of a consultant doctor, before doctors are permitted to practice diagnostics & remedial treatment. But, now perhaps we are nearer the end of this charade because, the real purpose behind the government’s wooing of the nursing profession has become clear. The nurses are to be allowed to opt out of employment by the NHS and provide their services privately to the NHS…..just as doctors have done since the start of the NHS (Read more on this HERE)

We are clearly heading down a road where the National Health Service will provide public health services via private providers, paid by the government out of taxes…..and I suspect, personal top ups for some medical treatments. Not that I have a problem with this model of socialised medical care, I just wish the government would be honest with the electorate on the direction of travel. In the meantime, just beware, the clinical advice you may receive when you visit a new polyclinic. It’s likely to be from a nurse rather than a doctor……and the advice you receive may be on a par with the insight from the wonderful Nursey in this video clip from Black Adder: