Professionalism is to blame

Whatever criticisms can be levelled at this Government no one can say they haven’t reached deep into the State’s wallet to sub the NHS.

So today’s Healthcare Commission report into the horrendous state of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust should make every socialist weep.

90 patients lost their lives in filthy wards through contracting C.difficile - a bacterial infection of the gut which mainly affects the elderly.

But this scandal isn’t about a lack of funding. Or not enough nurses, doctors or radiographers.

It’s not even just about shitty management.

It’s about an organisational attitude that says “it’s not my job”.

Not my job to report dirty wards. Not my job to report a filthy toilet. Not my job to see that Doris gets a new nappy. Not my job to wash my hands before dealing with patients.

It’s about lazy nurses, arrogant doctors and fuckwit managers and the culture of underperformance they’ve cultivated for themselves. For years.

All the Government cash in the world won’t make a blind bit of difference to ‘clinicians’ who don’t have the wherewithal to report the disgusting state of the wards, on the basis of a clinical judgement about the potential risks to patient care.

But the big issue here is the failure of the Government to force the so-called ‘professional bodies’ to get behind an NHS run in the interests of patients first and foremost. Not those who work in it.

WCH was once squirreled into the Tory Party conference (clearly to destroy them from within) and checked out their exhibition area. Just which organisations were mad enough to splash out a big chunk of their marketing budget to attend this gathering of the walking dead in the vain expectation that Iain Duncan-Smith might one day become Prime Minister?

WELL, the BMA, and nursing unions were there. So were the education lot. And the Police Federation. In fact, all the ‘hidden’ trade unions (in all but name) who really run Britain.

You see, the greatest trick the ‘professional bodies’ have pulled is to create a political consensus for inaction. To make sure that whatever government is in power is too scared to act against their (invariably well-paid) members interests.

Bob Crow, Dave Prentis and Billy Hayes are mere amateurs in comparison.

And this is why public services never seem to get any better. Despite record amounts of money invested, we aren’t seeing big enough improvements in quality and reliability.

Until the Government gets serious about taking on the professional bodies, ending their "its not my fault guv" culture, efforts to improve public services for Mr. And Mrs. Bloggs will crawl along. It’s like driving with the handbrake on.

Anyway, back to the NHS...

Nye Bevan famously lamented that to get the consultants to buy into the very idea of the NHS in 1948 he had to “stuff their mouths with gold”.

Yet we still live with a system where GPs get 120k a year (same as a Cabinet Minister), but now work fewer hours than they used to.

Personally, I’d like to insert an anal probe in the form of my size 12’s into the back passage of the NHS to get a bigger bang for the bucks the Government has (undoubtedly) put in.

Before it is weighed down by so many horror stories the middle classes begin to take flight and demand a system of private provision.

Because, make no mistake, comrades, that’s where we’re heading.