Deplorable level of NHS obstetric care

Deplorable level of NHS obstetric care reported in the Daily Mail. "Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action for Victims of Medical Accidents, said: 'We never seem to make much progress with CTG failures. 'This problem has been around for years. Hundreds and hundreds of children have either been damaged or killed due to an inability to spot the warning signs of a baby in distress. I wonder if the NHS will ever learn.'"

AvMA, a charity, is inviting signatures to a petition

AvMA, Action against Medical Accidents, a charity, is inviting people to sign a petition to urge the Government to reconsider proposals to remove clinical negligence claims from the scope of Legal Aid and to further restrict access to justice by changing the rules that govern making claims under a condition fee ('no-win no-fee') agreement.

This Telegraph article may help you to decide whether to sign it. I agree with every word of Mr Jonathan Sinclair-Wilson, as quoted in the article. The proposed removal of legal aid would certainly increase the incidences of clinical negligence and avoidable suffering ,and would therefore not save any money at all.

NHS Trusts put patient safety at risk by failing to implement safety alerts in over 1000 instances

BBC News carries this report. As you will see, the regulatory bodies respond with their usual complacency, but "There can be no excuse for trusts continuing to put lives at unnecessary risk," said chief executive of the charity, Action Against Medical Accidents, Peter Walsh.

I suggest that the highest-paid member of the NHS Trust management team be made specifically responsible for the Patient Safety Alerts being implemented, and implemented on time, with a clause in his/her contract of employment that they will be sacked without pension/testimonial/reference/right of appeal the first time they fail to do this. This, I think, would ensure that an appropriate level of importance and urgency be accorded to this measure upon which, after all, patient lives depend.

Premature Baby Boy Dies of Dehydration from being put on a Saline Drip.

The Telegraph reports that a baby boy died earlier this month in the Queen's Medical Centre hospital in Nottingham after being put on a saline drip which apparently left him dehydrated.

This absolutely APPALS me. - A saline drip is a means of putting salt (sodium chloride) and water into the bloodstream by way of a vein. Doctors appear to believe that this hydrates the body. - It doesn't. -

A saline drip dehydrates the body. This dehydration could also be described as Salt Poisoning.

Salt is extremely harmful to small children and especially to babies, and this poor baby was premature and so even more vulnerable to harm from salt. I hope that those responsible for putting this baby on a saline drip will be named and will be severely punished so as to draw attention to the serious harm that salt causes to babies.

I believe there are horrifying parallels between this tragedy and the death of 3 year old Christian Blewitt in December 2002. - See the Saturday, March 03, 2007 entry on http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html See also the Wednesday, October 15, 2008 entry on http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html

In both of these sad deaths a saline solution was administered to a small child in hospital. In both cases the child died because of too much salt in the body. Health professionals seem unaware of the lethal possibilities of intravenous administration of saline solution to babies and small children.

I have a website about how salt is harmful to groups of people who are vulnerable to it. One of the vulnerable groups is children. - Here is an extract from my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/children.html about children and salt:

"When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food."

Here is a highly disturbing extract from the Telegraph report:

"Peter Walsh, the chief executive of Action against Medical Accidents, said

"This is a worrying incident. Research shows us that around 10 per cent of hospital admission result in adverse incidents. These are very alarming statistics.

"But more alarming is that the real figure is even higher since many errors go unnoticed by hospital staff. ""

Huge toll of avoidable suffering and deaths because of blunders in NHS hospitals. - A million are harmed each year. - I am one of those harmed.

From the Telegraph -

Hospital blunders 'kill 90,000 patients'

Extracts:

"More than 90,000 patients die and almost one million are harmed each year because of hospital blunders, research suggests.

Errors during surgery, misdiagnosis, falls, infections and complications are all to blame for the problems that contribute to the death and injury tolls in England each year.

Researchers found that between 8.7 per cent and 10 per cent of hospital stays involved such mistakes and up to a half were preventable.

Prof Trevor Sheldon, the author of the study published in the British Medical Journal, said a stay in hospital was as "risky as bungee jumping".

He examined medical notes from one hospital over six months and said the results were representative of what is happening across the country.

In 15 per cent of cases the adverse event led to impairment or disability that lasted for more than six months and increased the average stay in hospital by eight days.

The study did not include patients who were in hospital for less than a day, had mental health problems or gave birth.

There were 9.1 million hospital stays in England in 2005/6 if day case, maternity and mental health patients are not included and Prof Sheldon's figures mean 910,303 of these patients suffered harm as a result of a blunder. In 91,030 cases it contributed to their death."

"Errors included a patient at high risk of blood clots who was not given blood thinners, an avoidable delay in diagnosing cancer, a patient addicted to painkillers after being prescribed them repeatedly and a spleen that was torn during surgery, leaving the patient needing treatment for life.

Peter Walsh, of Action against Medical Accidents, a charity, said the real figures could be much higher as the research does not include incidents in General Practice, ambulance trusts or mental health and covers only England.

A Health Department spokesman said patient safety had long been a priority. "It is important to remember that serious failures are uncommon in relation to the volume of care provided by the NHS."

And remember - a great deal of medical negligence and poor care of patients is not recorded...

Amazing that the Health Department spokesman said patient safety had long been a priority and that it is important to remember that serious failures are uncommon in relation to the volume of care provided by the NHS! - This is so manifestly untrue that one can only assume that the spokesman has not yet read the report...(o:

I know personally all too well that patient safety is by no means a priority in the NHS. I have been in great pain and substantially disabled for 3 months now because my reporting excruciating pain and great swelling, including a huge blue 'hump' on the back of my right hand, was effectively disregarded by the many (dozens?) healthcare staff I informed. Having broken my right humerus at the end of August, I am still unable to use my right hand and lift my right wrist and am in very great pain with it. This is because I had to wait 12 and a half days before my arm was operated upon, and during that long, intensely painful time the hand and lower arm became extremely swollen because of the splint I had to wear, and the radial nerve was damaged. I also have lymphoedema in the arm. I now have to have carers come to help me get washed and dressed and undressed...)o: - As a steroid victim with fragile thin skin and delicate veins already, I did not need to be further harmed by the NHS...)o:

Complaining about NHS treatment adds further difficulties for complainants. - Susan Hodges and Richard Murphy lost their baby at birth.

'Why could no one tell us why our son died at birth?'

Extract:

"Nearly two years after their baby son Oliver died soon after he was born, Susan Hodges and Richard Murphy are still waiting to have questions answered. They have found their dealings with one of London's flagship NHS trusts perplexing and frustrating. Straightforward questions about what went so terribly wrong in the crucial minutes leading up to his birth have gone unanswered.

However, their experience of hitting a 'complaints brick wall' is not uncommon. More than 100,000 complaints were received by the NHS last year, with an increasing proportion going to independent panels because of dissatisfaction with the responses from hospital trusts or primary care trusts.

Despite government promises to overhaul the complaints system, the issue has now fallen even further down the list of priorities. The plan is to create a single system for dealing with complaints about both healthcare and social care, but instead of introducing reforms quickly, the government has embarked on a new consultation, which will begin in April. Officials have said there is no plan to introduce new reforms until 2009. By then, another 200,000 people will have been caught up in the complaints system."

"The campaign group Action Against Medical Accidents (AvMA) has been calling for years for reform of NHS complaints procedures to be speeded up. Peter Walsh, its chief executive, said: 'Far too many people are trapped in a system which is unwieldy and slow, and very often insensitive to their needs. Our view is that however complicated the complaint, no trust should take more than six months to fully investigate and respond to the individuals.'"

The Healthcare Commission should be remedying this situation, which has been going on for as long as there have been complaints about NHS care, i.e. for decades. It is a national scandal.