Care Home Patients Are Dying Due To Under-Funding By Tory Government

Beef Burgers Contaminated With Bugs.
Just before Christmas 2017, Sainsbury’s cleared their shelves of ‘Taste the Difference’ Aberdeen Angus beef burgers amid fears they were contaminated with killer bug E.coli.
Twelve people had already fallen ill after eating them.
Watchdog The Food Standards Agency warned shoppers, “If you have bought any of the batches, do not eat them.”.
Symptoms include blood in diarrhoea, abdominal pain, and can cause a condition that results in kidney failure.

When It Comes To Nurses, Theresa May And Her Ministers Know The Value Of None.

It’s always good to know what others think of you, especially those who decide how much you’re paid.
So how informative for those nurses, invited from their protest outside Westminster into the Commons gallery on Wednesday, to hear Theresa May say when Jeremy Corbyn urged her to scrap the public sector pay cap, that all he ever does is “ask for more money to be spent on this, that and the other”.

Ah yes, those people who do so little for society they aren’t really worthy of a name.
Nurse This who greets you from an ambulance after you’ve been scraped off a motorway, puts you on a drip, keeps you warm and talks to you to keep you alive.
Nurse That, who stays on after her shift to tend to you because she’s worried about your temperature and won’t leave until a doctor comes.
And Nurse Other, so-called as she’s thinking of joining the thousands of other colleagues who have quit the job after suffering a 14% pay cut in the past seven years and generally being treated like the contents of a dysentery sufferer’s bed pan.

It’s quite a damning phrase “this, that and the other”.
It’s generally said with a waved hand and a frown, as though the subject is too irrelevant to bother the speaker, who has more important this, that and the others on their mind.
And May certainly has.
This £50billion she wants to give the EU to save her crap, sorry crack, team of Brexiteer ministers from a crushing humiliation.

That £7billion she’ll find to do up Westminster and the Other £1billion she managed to shake from her Magic Money Tree to bribe the DUP into keeping her clinging on to power.
When it comes to public sector workers, May and her ministers know the price of all of them but, despite platitudes, the value of none.

They’re so tribally opposed to state involvement that they can’t see the worth to the economy of training and rewarding a dedicated NHS staff.
The truth is, it’s the This, That and the Others who keep this country living, earning and creating wealth.
It’s the ones who view them as an afterthought, and don’t believe they deserve their fair share of that wealth, who are killing it.
( Brian Reade, 09.09.2017 )

A New Cure To Treat Arthritis?
Costing from £5,000, but not available on the NHS, the London Regenerative Clinic are offering a cure to treat arthritis.
A new treatment called Lipogems uses the natural healing properties found in your own fat cells to treat arthritic joints and potentially even avoid the need for invasive options, such as knee replacement surgery.
Your own fat is harvested via liposuction, then the juicy stuff, precursor stem cells, is extracted, prepared and injected directly into arthritic areas.
The cells then home in on the arthritic damage, and start regrowing tissue.

Patients Waiting More Than Four Hours On Trolleys.

When someone runs an organisation into the ground, the boss usually gets sacked.
But the Tories keep them in the job.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt genuinely believes the NHS is better and safer.
Tell that to the 45,000 patients waiting more than four hours on trolleys.

Or the four million on waiting lists, the nurses at food banks and the chiefs who say staffing levels are so unsafe patients will die.
When Nye Bevan launched Labour’s NHS in 1948 he promised a healthcare system ‘based upon need and not the ability to pay’.
Hunt has changed that to treatment ‘free at the point of use’, if you’re prepared to wait up to 44 months for it.

This week the Department of Health admitted that we have a shortage of 50,000 doctors and nurses.
The growth of the private health service has led to a massive increase in firms’ profits from desperate patients.
Or they queue jump by paying for a private consultation and a fast-track to NHS treatment.
( John Prescott, 12.11.2017 )

Sprouts Can Stave Off Heart Disease And Cancer.
Seven brussels sprouts a day could stave off arthritis, heart disease and cancer.
Sprouts, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower protect against stomach ailments such as leaky gut and colitis that can lead to more serious illnesses, scientists say.
The greens contain compounds that break down to produce substances including indolocarbazile, which has anti-ageing properties and helps keep the gut healthy.
Just 5oz of broccoli or 3.5oz of sprouts would help, said Professor Gary Perdew, of Pennsylvania State University the U.S.
( Daily Mirror, 14.10.2017 )

Call For An Ambulance And You May Get A Fire Engine.

The ambulance service is so over-stretched the Fire Brigade is being called out to more medical emergencies.
Latest figures show a 14% increase in the number of callouts with no blazes involved.
And deaths in those incidents where fire officers attended rather than paramedics have more than doubled in the past five years, rising by nearly two thirds last year alone.

The shock-data emerged as it was revealed how police had to take a heart attack victim to hospital because there were no ambulances available.
The Fire and Rescue service attended 173,759 non-fire incidents in 2016/2017, 14% up on the previous year.
They included 5,088 fatalities, a 64% rise on 2015/16 and up 211% compared to five years ago.

The number of other casualties the brigade shipped to hospital last year from medical incidents where there was no ambulance was 32,928, a 21% increase on the previous year and 59% up on 2012.
( Keir Mudie, 28.01.2018 )

Owning A Dog Could Cut The Risk Of Early Death.
Owning a dog after middle age could cut the risk of early death by 33%, a study claims.
Singletons aged 40 to 80 who had a pooch were also 11% less likely to suffer from heart disease.
And researchers, who studied 3.4 million people over 12 years, found dog owners in the age group were 36% less likely to die from a heart attack, circulation problems or strokes.
Senior author Tove Fall, of Uppsala University in Sweden, said, “We know that dog owners in general have a higher level of physical activity, which could be one explanation. Other explanations include an increased well-being and social contacts or effects of the dog on the bacterial microbiome in the owner.”
The findings come after Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, warned that loneliness is killing millions and is as dangerous as high blood pressure, diabetes and depression.
( Martin Bagot, 18.11.2017 )

The Caribbean Exile Would Be Chuffed To See The NHS Go Bankrupt.

Your NHS had to pay £1.7billion to settle negligence claims last year, double what it paid in 2010, with £700million going to lawyers.
That’s money being sucked out of an already cash-strapped service, ratcheting up the strain on doctors and nurses, thus making errors even more likely and hastening the death of our greatest institution.

I’m not saying everyone who sues is wrong.
There are clearly examples, like a child left disabled through negligence where compensation is due to settle future care costs.
And although I don’t approve, I don’t blame people with little cash being seduced by no-fee lawyers after slipping in a hospital corridor.

What makes me want to go to A&E with slashed wrists though, is seeing rich businessmen sue the NHS for vast sums, knowing that if they win, the knock-on effect will be cancelled operations, pain and death.
Then claiming they have right on their side.
Businessmen like Richard Branson whose company Virgin Care sued the NHS after failing to win a contract to provide children’s health services in Surrey.

When that county felt care would be better provided by a partnership of NHS organisations, Virgin claimed the bidding system was flawed and took legal action.
The NHS has had to pay at least £328,000 to settle the dispute.
Outraged locals have started a petition, signed by almost 90,000 people, which points out that cuddly old Beardie, with an estimated wealth of £3.5billion, doesn’t need this money but their hospitals do.

The petition asks “Richard Branson to apologise and make a personal commitment that Virgin Care will never again sue the NHS after losing out on a contract”.
I wish them luck because they’ll need it.
I believe Branson, who has already been awarded NHS contracts worth more than £2billion since 2010, would be chuffed to see the NHS go bankrupt because Virgin Care has positioned itself to be one of the privatised companies allowed to fill their boots if it happens.

He knows, thanks to the billion-pound taxpayer subsidies he’s been handed through railway contracts, that our public services are big, fat cash cows primed to be sucked dry by private profiteers.
And unlike you and me, when Branson sues the NHS he’s not suing himself because the Caribbean exile no longer pays his taxes here.
So he’s laughing all the way to the bank.
( Brian Reade, 16.12.2017 )

Care Home Patients Are Dying Due To Under-Funding By Government.
Deaths from septicaemia among elderly care home patients have soared by 46% in just two years.
Figures released by the Lib Dems show 182 deaths were caused by the blood infection in 2016, the highest level since comparable records began in 2001.
Deaths where septicaemia was an underlying cause also reached a record high of 1,202.
Campaigners fear vulnerable people are being put at risk due to a funding crisis in the care sector.
Lib Dem MP Stephen Lloyd said it should be a “wake-up call to the Government”.
He added: “It’s a sign our cash-strapped care homes are in crisis and many struggle to provide the care older people deserve”.
The National Pensioners Convention added: “Corners are being cut at the expense of care and elderly patients”.
( Keir Mudie, 19.11.2017 )