Overpaid top hospital consultants continue to ride the gravy train

The Telegraph reports that despite Britain's austerity measures and cuts in public spending, and the assurances made by the ConLib government - to overhaul the system, limiting rewards which currently give most consultants bonuses for life - massive lifetime rewards have continued to be awarded to the top consultants. The awards are meant to be for "outstanding contributions to patient care or research" and yet they are received by more than half of doctors! - How can more than half of them be outstanding? - The correct answer to that question, as you well know, is that they can't. It's got to be a fix, hasn't it? - Overpaid and on the make is a common moral failing in these materialistic days...)o: - Oops! - I forgot! - It's medical ethics, no doubt...

We should pay heed to the words of Katherine Murphy, Director of the Patients Association

In this Telegraph article we read that "Two of the bosses of the company at the centre of the out-of-hours GP scandal have gone on to other jobs running similar patient services for the NHS." These two bosses are GPs. You will remember that Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Ill-Health, who infamously refuses to ban the addition of transfats to food products, despite NICE's recommendation to do so and save up to 7,000 premature deaths a year, is planning to put £billions into the money-grubbing hands of entrepreneurial doctors like this pair.

Extract from the article:

"Katherine Murphy, director of the Patients Association, said: "It never ceases to amaze me that people can move from one senior post to another without having to justify their failures or be held to account.

"It is appalling that these individuals are involved in out-of-hours again. Where is the accountability and what message does that send to patients and the taxpayer?"

She added that it 'raises many issues' about the government's NHS reforms and plans to put GPs in charge of commissioning care.

Ms Murphy said: "I wonder if the Secretary of State [is] reconsidering some of his plans for GP commissioning now.""

Report reveals big rise in GPs' pay and shorter working hours

Report reveals big rise in GPs' pay and shorter working hours - Guardian

Extract:

"The NHS work of the average GP in England has been cut by about seven hours a week since the government introduced a new contract in 2004, official figures revealed yesterday.

The contract, which removed GPs responsibility for treating patients outside normal office hours, increased their earnings by 25% in the first year, raising the average for a dispensing partner in a GP practice to £117,000. Many doctors boosted earnings by selling out-of-hours services to their primary care trust that they used to provide for free.

A report from the government's information centre for health and social care showed the average GP worked 36.3 hours a week for the NHS in 2006-07, compared with 43.5 hours in 1992-93. The reduction was due to more part-time working and fewer out-of-hours responsibilities.

The latest figures showed only 62% of GP partners and 22% of salaried GPs work full-time."


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Patients groups have criticised GPs over cost of phone calls

GPs criticised over pricy phone codes - Telegraph

Extracts:

"Patients groups have criticised GPs for switching their phone numbers to expensive 0844 dialling codes.

Although the phone numbers are not technically premium rate they are around four pence per minute more expensive than a standard local call.

Campaigners have called for an end to the practice saying it is unfair on elderly patients who can run up large bills calling their surgery regularly.

It is understood that 1,200 GP surgeries have switched to the new numbers and argue that it allows them to provide a better service.

Getting through on the telephone to GP practices can be extremely difficult as some surgeries operate a system where appointments can only be booked on the day, causing a rush of calls in the early morning.

However, the telcoms watchdog, Ofcom, has said it is not appropriate for public sector organisations to use the more expensive phone lines.

Joyce Robins, co-director of Patient Concern, said: “It is quite ridiculous. People should not pay more for their calls to their GP. I thought this had been stopped by the Government, but they have obviously found a loophole. "

"Two years ago the Department of Health banned the use of 0870 numbers in GP surgeries which are premium rate and cost 10 pence a minute to call. "

"But the Say No To 0870 campaign against chargeable numbers said that patients were put in a queue system when using the 0844 numbers which cost them money without talking to anyone.

And Michael Summers, chairman of the Patients Association said it was disgraceful and immoral to charge sick and vulnerable people more than necessary to call their GP practice.

He said: “It is a scandal. It is another way to extract money from the people who can least afford it. We have got excessive car park charges at hospital, bedside telephones and now this new one.

“These people are ill. These are not the people who should be targeted to have money extracted from them. It is immoral.”"


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...

Britain's leading foetal medicine expert has condemned the IVF industry for 'exploiting women' by offering them unproven and expensive treatments.

Private IVF clinics are 'exploiting women' - Observer

Extract:

"Britain's leading foetal medicine expert has condemned the IVF industry, saying some private clinics are exploiting women desperate to get pregnant by offering them unproven and expensive treatments.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Professor Charles Rodeck, founder and head of the unit for foetal medicine at University College Hospital London, has expressed particular concern over some of the drugs and tests being offered to infertile couples.

'The commercial world of IVF provision is a very competitive one, so some clinics try to keep a step ahead by offering more interventions than their competitors, even if they know those procedures might not work,' he said.

Rodeck transformed the use of foetal medicine in Britain by initiating the use of ultrasound for foetal therapy and diagnosis of malformations in the late Seventies. He went on to set up the first foetal medicine unit in the early Eighties, as well as setting up clinics specialising in the care of young women.

'Even though I have no evidence that the mothers or babies are being harmed by the extra hormones and steroids they are increasingly being given by these clinics, you can't be sure what happens to a baby when you put unnecessary and unproven medicines into its mother's body,' he said.

His work has left him open to attacks from the anti-abortion lobby but he is defiant. 'The truth is that not all human life is totally sacrosanct,' he said. 'Nature has a mechanism called "miscarriage" which eliminates many of its early errors but it is not always totally efficient and so some of these errors survive. What we are trying to do simply use technology to assist Nature.'

Rodeck also criticised some private clinics for giving poor information to couples. 'Offering these interventions becomes exploitation when clinics do not spell out the pros, cons and limitations of these interventions because couples so desperately want to get pregnant, that they will pay for virtually any treatment if they think it will increase their chances,' he said.

There are 85 licensed fertility clinics in the UK, in an industry worth up to £500m a year. According to latest figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, in 2004 more than 30,000 patients underwent more than 40,000 treatment cycles, each costing up to £8,000.

Rodeck says he agrees with the concerns voiced earlier this year by Lord Winston, professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London, that the IVF industry has been corrupted by money. He pointed to a growing range of expensive clinical practices offered to couples at private clinics, despite there being very limited evidence that such interventions work."

It's good to see a doctor warning that prescribed drugs can do harm.

If a woman is subfertile because she is overweight/obese, avoiding salt and salty food would help because this would reduce the fluid retention that is the cause of obesity.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...

A new 'disease' has been invented! - toe-besity!

If the shoe doesn’t fit . . . - The Times

Good grief! - Some women in California are having surgery on their feet so that their feet look better in their favoured shoes...)o: - And a new 'disease' has been invented! - toe-besity!

Sadly, there are always money-grubbing doctors happy to perform unnecessary surgery on the foolish and the gullible...)o:


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Lord Winston, the fertility expert, has said that IVF clinics are exploiting women who are desperate for a baby.

Fertility expert says IVF clinics exploit women - Telegraph

Extract:

"Lord Winston, the fertility expert, has said that IVF clinics are exploiting women who are desperate for a baby.

Robert Winston, professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London, has said couples are being charged over the odds and the fertility watchdog is doing too little to protect them.

"One of the major problems facing us in healthcare is that IVF has become a massive commercial industry," he said.

"It’s very easy to exploit people by the fact that they’re desperate and you’ve got the technology which they want, which may not work."

Lord Winston is one of the world’s most respected medical academics and researcher of the human reproductive system. But he is perhaps best known as the presenter of the Human Body and Super Human television series.

He said: "Amazing sums of money are being made through IVF.

"It is really rather depressing to consider that some IVF treatments in London are charged at ten times the fee that is charged in Melbourne, where there is excellent medicine, where IVF is just as successful, where they have comparable salaries - money is corrupting this whole technology."

Lord Winston, who was speaking at the Hay Literary Festival in mid-Wales, said: "Hundreds of women are being exploited out of their desperation to get pregnant from people who are taking large sums of money from them in private clinics."

"The regulatory authority has done a consistently bad job," he said of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. "It’s not prevented the exploitation of women." "

Obesity reduces fertility. Cutting down on salt/sodium reduces obesity, so women can boost their fertility by eating less salt.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)