Governments have failed the NHS & Residents of Medway

NHS is in trouble but Politicians haven't been listening

Yesterday was a sad day for our Democracy and the House of Commons.

The Secretary for Health Jeremy Hunt made announcements relating to the Keogh commission report and on going problems with the Nation's hospitals, especially dealing with unnecessary deaths.

Twitter exploded with comments about what was being said in Parliament and most party members and supporters that I follow were horrified by the level of partisan tweets and comments in Parliament. Tories going after Andy Burnham, Labour blaming the Coalition for deep cuts and mismanagements. Both sides of the house sat sneering at each other and shouting like the crowd at a Roma vs. Lazio game - Not the seat of power of a First World country and people who should know a lot better.

Even on a Local level the various Party politicos have started winding up the noise about the incompetence of the others - Andy Burnham this and Tory cuts that. The Labour PPC for Chatham & Aylesford has released a press statement on the subject and their various Twitter feeds have been releasing stats showing what has come into being since 2010. The Tories and some Libdems have been passing around a petition to get Andy Burnham to accept responsibility and resign... It needs to stop.

The NHS has had problems for a long time. Medway Hospital has had issues for at least a decade. Back in March I wrote about my family's problems with Medway hospital back in 2007.I also referenced problems that Rehman Chishti highlighted in 2008. It is irresponsible for the Labour Party to say this has all been since May 2010. However the Coalition needs to take ownership of the cuts and recognise that they have also had a massive impact and they need to be reexamined.

However lets look at the NHS Chief Executive at Medway Hospital who administers the cuts. Instead of keeping care and staff levels up efficiency savings were made and then a stupid amount of money was spent on a motivational speaker for the staff!

Then there is the merger with Darant Valley which has been beset with problems for Medway. Who was given a voice for this concerns? Only NHS trust members - not the staff or the residents who use the service. Even the elected representitve of Gillingham South ward, Lib dem Geoff Juby, was ignored by the Chief executive.

Of course there is also the Local NHS hospitals. Medway is the only local hospital with a 24 hour A&E where as the others can close at a certain time or redirect cases up to Medway. This obviously throws the already stretched triage and Emergency staff to unacceptable levels with priorities being thrown all over the place. When I took my infant son up with a suspected case of Meningitis we had to be hurriedly discharged (after thankfully pronouncing him all clear!) as they had an emergency case literally outside the curtain that desperately needed the space.

It also means that Medway has a catchment area of One Million people in North Kent covering Sheppey to Dartford and can include Maidstone and Canterbury on a rough day. This is a horrendous amount of space and people for one A&E and hospital to cover.

A culture of target meeting and figures started to develop in the 90s and now hospitals are stuck trying to meet Government targets and not treating the sick as human beings rather than Statistics. Party Politics has been using the lives and deaths of the sick and elderly for years as a way of measuring the success of policy and to beat the other party over the head at PMQs.

This HAS to stop.

Many politicos sit and wonder why the public are fed up with Politics and don't vote and it is because of incidents like this that push people too far. If Politicians, and I use this as a broad stroke - I know there are exceptions, could stop acting like Children and trying to constantly get votes and score points and actually sort this problem out. People's lives genuinely depend on it and too many have been lost already.

What needs to happen is for the three main parties to get together and work out what is the best for everyone and stop acting like children. Medway Council need to look at things, the Department for Health need to look at Medway Maritime management, priorities and staffing. Most importantly of all Politicians of all ilks and creeds need to listen to the residents, of the horror stories that will hit the Press this Friday and of people's general disgruntlement and actually do something about it rather than play the blame game which is a game that frankly, we all lose at.

Medway hospital; mergers, mortality and management

I remember my 27th birthday very clearly.

I was at Medway hospital with my Mum, sister, grandfather and my 90 year old grandmother who was suffering from dementia and had suffered a fall and had a nasty leg wound. After a long wait in triage she was moved on trolley to a staging area for another few hours. As time went by mum became most distraught and asked the only nearby nurse for assistance, namely the wound dressed and water for a dehydrated patient who had no idea what was happening.

"I'm doing my paperwork" she was told.

After half an hour my Mum spoke loudly and with a huff and a puff the nurse finally complied.

It boils down to a 90 year old dementia sufferer was left on a trolley with an untreated open wound with out water because paperwork is more important than care.

Medway's Liberal Democrats have worked hard with the hospital on many issues. We have also opposed the joint merger with Darant Valley because of fears that it was being done purely for financial reasons and that patient care would suffer immensely. Medway maritime has a large catchment area, covering much of North Kent and even Sheppey with approximately 1 million people.

Many of our ward constituents have voiced concerns over the merger as Daren't valley is difficult to get too by public transport, as well as expensive. Embarrassingly it is easier and cheaper to come up to London!

Unfortunately, the constituents have had very little voice during consultation as the regular meetings and forums were only available for the Trust's members. It seems that, even though problems have been identified and raised to the Hospital Board they had become fixed on pushing this through solely for the money and ignoring valid concerns of patients, users and patient groups as well as their elected local representitives.

However, the merger has been put on hold due to Medway's high levels of mortality. On Thursday Chatham & Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch raised concerns in Westminster;

The Medway Maritime hospital is under investigation for higher than expected hospital standardised mortality rates, and there is currently a specific outlier alert on septicaemia. Worrying, this is not the first time this has happened. Discrepancies in coding were highlighted way back in 2008 with the discovery that 8% of deaths were being recorded as end-of-life care when the proportion should have been 37% ... A clear manipulation and distortion.

I, like Tracey presumably, am not accusing Medway of repeated malpractice but clearly there are issues that need addressing. I would sincerely hope that there will be maximum transparency and not just to the Trust's members.

I'd like to tell another story.

About a decade ago a nurse was struck off for failing in patient care. On a night shift an understaffed ward (1 nurse, an auxiliary and an agency) forced the nurse, with no training or real supervisory training to take charge of the shift. In the middle of the night she heard a noise that could have been a slap but was unsure. Having seen the agency with a confused elderly patient moments before she presumed it had been an altercation. With no one senior about and with no evidence of wrong doing as well as dealing with a whole ward to deal with she thought she'd report it to a superior first thing in the
Morning. She was suspended and taken to tribunal for failure to act straight away despite all the problems.

She was sacked.

A more legally savvy relative tried to appeal the case and dig up information on the processes involved and was met with an sir of hostility that ended with the threat of legal action for harassment.

As I understand it there has been quite a history of bullying at Medway hospital, indeed Rehman Chishti has been up there three times for this reason yet it is still continuing, however it was Tracey (not Rehman) who bought it up in Parliament again;

A culture of bullying and its suppression within the NHS has been mentioned. The latest staff survey at the Medway Maritime hospital shows that there is still a perception that bullying is widespread.

Then of course there was the motivational speaker issue that made the national press (here) with up to a hundred jobs being lost but £140k available for a motivational speaker...

Something is not right up at the Maritime hospital. Although I can report that every time I have been there the nursing and medical staff have been fantastic and this is in no way a slight at hard working individuals on little pay, there is something questioning the management and its practises and would encourage greater transparity for patient groups and families and where there is liability the right course of action is taken.