h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

These Cosnervative billboards, amrked "are You Thinking what we're thinking" which contain stupid, often inaccurate, always offensive slogans.

There's one which says "I mean, how hard is it to keep a hospital clean". The Conservative attack on the NHS continues.

The answer, of course, is bloody hard, and there was avery good article in today's "Independent" on just that subject: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=628201

All the subjects which seem to have become 'issues' for want of a better word in this election, are issues/subjects that ain't easily adressed or delt with within the way our politiacal system works, hence why they ain't sorted' out[' already, but each of the partis has the 'easy' answer, and they have 'the' method for dealing with it, which the 'other' parties don't have/can't/won't do and like anyone believes them about their quick fix solutions

I fully agree.

Yeah. Call that a manifesto?

I guess all this stuff is just supposed to be a handy checklist for the kind of thing you should talk about if you want to remain a candidate

I guess the sadest thing is, that if a polition did actually stand up and say things more along the lines of 'We will have a good attempt at rectifying X, by whatever means we are able to bring to it, our intial expectations are that we will initially try Y, and Z, and if they fail then we will look for new solutions to problem X' Oh, yeh, there was one guy, but no one liked him, that bloke in London, the mayor; when asked some time ago now, by an interviewer 'what happens if this fails?' (asking in relation to the charges for cars etc comign into the centre of London), and he repied along the lines of 'Well, if it doens't work we'l have to have a serious look and come up with another solution; the problem isn't going to go away on its own, so we will have to find a oslution, hopefully this method will work, if not, we will hopfeully find another method that will'.

Sad but true.

I think the campaign is a mistake - it so oversimplify's issues..

If we're going to oversimplify then the highest rise in crime in recent memory was 95/96.

Guess who was home secretary?

That's the danger of the conservative's approach - quick, cheap sloganising. It has a habit of biting you back.

Just read the article. Respect to those involved in cleaning hosptitals!

The tendency, and certainly the Conservative tendency, is to trivialise issues such as this. This is an enormous task which 'matron' will not be able to deal with with a 'flurry' of a hand or 'barked order'. This takes serious planning, money and management. Matrons are from a bygone era where working practices were different and where working relationships were based upon fear and respect. How different it is now. Its an ill conceived idea not suited to the modern work environment.

A thought- they may be over-simplified, they may make people angry (including me), but when it comes down to it at least they aren't simply bashing the Labour Party. I think Labour's campaign just shows what politics has come down to- backstabbing and name-calling. Would a different party make much of a difference? I doubt it. There are only so many ways to skin a cat.

A different party would make a difference if that 'different party' had something worthwhile to say. Talk about bygone eras, I think the Conservatives need to 're-brand' much the same as Labour did in 96/97.

Of course, the Conservatives saying they are going to 'up' cleanign in hospitals is a bit bluddy rich, seeing as how it was under the Conservatives, and maggie that they did away with vast swaiths of cleaning staff across the country 'Are you thinking what we're thinkings' I'm thinking how MR B and MR B from Labour will make a good comedy duo if they loose power during the election, do they relaly realise what a daft pair of buggers they look like/sound like with this new 'together' comedy duo act htey are giving us and the meda?

My GP told me yesterday that MRSA had little or nothing to do with hospital cleanliness, though that was desirable in itself. Rather it is a bacterial strain ( or group of ) which 20% of us carry about and which are resistant to drugs because of OVER-PRESCRIPTION in recent years by doctors.

Apparently the patients can take it in, visitors can too.

So it seems 'clean the hospitals', and continue to reduce antibiotic usage. Discussions in the office today suggest that there have ben no NEW drugs of this type invented for at least 20 years...can this be true?

Novo

Even with my limited medical knowledge - courtesy of the discovery channel - I know the difference between a virulent 'type' of bacteria such as MRSA and commonal garden dirt...

Giving 'matron' the chance to shout at immigrant cleaners may attract votes but to claim it will save lives is laughable...

I think matron is a good idea, but it only goes a small part of the way to solving the problem.

Just off the top of my head i would also stop paying agencies at least twice the average nurses wage for someone to do the same job as a nurse employed by the NHS.

And before you tell me the NHS needs to use agencies because there is a shortage of nusing staff.. i would ask the question... Where do the agencies find them?

This in turn would save a huge ammount of money which could go back to the cleaning side of things.

Just a thought, maybe not that well thought out, but a thought none the less.

I think I am correct - shout me down if I'm wrong, its been a while since I was last hospitalised - but matron is already back.

The Tories aren't proposing to reintroduce matrons, but to grant to them this new ward closing power.

Sensible though that might seem, I have two questions:

1) When a ward is closed where do all the patients formally of that ward go? I'll hazard a guess that it will be onto the spare beds that will form the basis of "choice" in the NHS. Presumably they also present a possible risk of further communicable infection with other healthier patients, so they'll have to be kept in exclusion... My point is, I'm not convinced that this new power is much beyond a bit of a gimmick and a host of logisitcal problems as yet unaddressed.

2) Who has the responsibility for ward closures in cases of communicable infection at the moment? What does handing this power to the matrons achieve, presumably, and let me underline that, presumably if a ward is deserving to be closed down now it would be closed in any event, no matter whose specific responsibility it is. What ADDED VALUE does hoisting this task into Matrons job description bring to the NHS and the health of the patients in it's care?

Clive - perplexed.

As for over prescribing anti-biotics...

I acquired a rather nasty but not lethal ear infection whilst on holiday in Jamaica. To make sure I could fly home, I saw the island doctor who gave me a course of anti-biotics and ibuprofen to take with me before the flight so the pressure of the infection would not rupture my eardrum.

I took the remainign doses of anti-biotic to my local GP when I got home to get some more as the ear was still giving me some grief.

When I handed him the packet he looked a little puzzled and said 'he didn't know they made this form of anti-biotic in pill form - usually it only comes in an injection because of its terribly high dosage.'

"So it should have killed the infection then?" I murmered, clutchign a near deaf left ear.

"This stuff could kill just about anything. You'd be as well served to drink a gallon of Domestos!"

Its not the first tiem I've been on ultra strong anti-biotics either ( my last stay in hostpital s it happened)

so if MRSA ever gangs up with the cross breed of Avian Flu and Malaria - me and my immune system are probably going to be some of the first to the wall when the superbugs come!

Simple fact is none of the nurses I know want to work full time for the NHS

Once they get qualified they go and work and work for the highest bidder...

who are all agencies..

With all their debts you can't blame them....

What do you do - BAN nursing agencies and conscript nurses to work for the nhs directly?

Government's have caused this by not recognising nurses and underpaying them for decades..

Oh and given Matron power is a meaningless change which will cost virtually nothing to implement - but does tap into current public concerns by harking back to a percieved - albeit mythical - golden age.

Exactly the kind of thing politicians like to bang on about in the run up to an election.

"Simple fact is none of the nurses I know want to work full time for the NHS

Once they get qualified they go and work and work for the highest bidder...

who are all agencies.."

I think the point being made was, if the agencies are paying higher, and the NHS is contracting the agencies, then the NHS are paying higher, since obviously the pay an agency nurse gets comes from the money the agency are paid.

Oh I spot the irony..

The NHS paying agency's to pay nurses ect...

My point was there's no realistic way to stop it as everyone - nurses included - wants to make a buck or two...