GPs, A&E and organ donation

18 November

How far do you trust the NHS? This is not an idle questions folks. There were three news items on news today which might perhaps make us query just how safe the NHS really is. Take GPs for example. It’s claimed that 12% of practices are in need of reform because they are not performing very well at all. The GPs themselves say it’s all nonsense and that the new measure doesn’t take account of the area they are in, their patient pool, and so on. Who do you believe I wonder? I know that we have a lot of hassle in getting an appointment to see a doctor, even phoning in at 8.30am is not a guarantee of getting one.

The next story I picked up on the problems with A&E again. In Stoke on Trent some patients were stuck on trollies for over 12 hours waiting for treatment and admission. Yet that is happening all over the country and not just in Stoke. The question of ‘why is it happening’ is down to many reasons. The targets that are set are too hard to meet, and in many cases don’t take account of the needs of some patients. Like the alcoholics who attend A&E fairly regularly, are discharged and end up back in there two days later. That’s another target they fail on, the need to treating patients properly so preventing them for being quickly readmitted. The idea is to prevent patients attending with serious illnesses and being charged too early. Good idea, bad one to get right.

The third one is perhaps the most worrying and concerns organ donation and transplant. There are moves from some quarters to make donations compulsory. I’m against that entirely simply because such donations should be freely given, not removed without consent. Look at the fuss there was about samples being taken form babies and kept in storage for years. But there is something that has cropped up of which we all should be aware of. Two men were given kidney transplants even though the surgeons knew that they kidneys were infected with a type of worm. Both men died fairly quickly after the transplants. The worry here is that if they can do that now with a freely given organ, how much worse will it be from a donor who doesn’t give consent? That should be a concern for us all. On a lighter note then …

I went out this morning and had my hair cut; nothing special with that of course but do you remember this car photo I once posted … 

Well, it belonged to my hair cutter lady and see told me this morning that the Pink Peril has gone to the scrape yard in the sky – not before time I think.

But for today’s main photo then … 

and other from last Saturday.

 Today’s funny …

“The difficult thing with quotes on the internet is verifying them” – Abraham Lincoln