Some observations from a NHS health worker on the risk register

undearneath i publish a special guest post from a comrade who works in the NHS and holds the service close to her heart. her name is helen ridett a proud member of the socialist party like myself and i'm more than happy to share with you her thoughts on the NHS risk register she has kindly let me have to share with you all. Hope they make a echo and get shared far and wide to help people understand what is to happen to our NHS.

Some Observations on The NHS Risk Register…



The government is proceeding with this bill blindly not knowing the impact of recent amendments to the bill. They don’t really know how much these changes will cost or whether they can afford to implement the new ones, all during a period when the country is in masses of debt. The bill does not guarantee that the treasury will be able to get new savings i.e. efficiencies out of the NHS when the system is put into place



New NHS structures are being created and old ones dismantled and no one knows whether the old or the new teams will control the budget and when the Gps’ will be in a position to take over holding it. Also no one really knows who will be accountable if things go wrong as there are no clear lines of responsibility. This means that if things fall apart and the new NHS system doesn’t work everyone will point the finger at everyone else and there will be no one to take responsibility. If, for eg; a private company takes over a community health team and a patient suffers harm or neglect and that same company then goes bust what happens then? Where does the patient or their relative get redress during the transition to the new system?



The register highlights that GPs are not trained properly to either hold the budgets or to buy the care that you and I might need in future. When GP’s are spending their time training for this new job they will have less time to spend with patients. The GP’s haven’t even reached an agreement with the government regarding how they will operate within the new system



It is worth noting that if the new system falls apart or doesn’t work there are no plans in place to deal with emergencies that may arise off the back of this and there appears to be no fall back plans



Staff morale will be low because of the changes and with commissioning and senior management staff at risk of loosing their jobs but being expected to dig their own graves by setting up the new system. Frontline NHS Staff are already being shifted from post to pillar around the NHS and staff may be redeployed to sites miles away from training and occupational health facilities. This problem is likely to get far worse as the NHS gets more fragmented and bits of it get taken over by more and more private firms (any qualified provider). Industrial relations are getting increasingly strained and unions may have no choice but to ballot for industrial action if the pay and conditions of NHS staff are attacked even more. Unnecessary and awkward redeployment plans add complication to an already complex situation.



Healthcare records will also become an open book as the Health and Social Care bill is going to loosen the regulations and make sharing our personal information much easier to accommodate ‘any qualified provider’. In what appears to be a chaotic, less regulated and less accountable system change patient confidentiality will be an early casualty.



The risk register also seems to readily admit that patients are not being listened to during consultations and this problem is likely to accelerate thus giving the lie to the catchphrase ‘no care about me without me’.