Another week another NHS scandal relating to Government targets. I’ve posted a few times about how targets distort rationale organisation priorities. The last one on hospital waiting times is HERE. So apart from creating unofficial waiting lists to be admitted on to the official waiting list what other ways have the NHS invented to meet the Government’s imposed targets?
The latest one is a cracker and the NHS is to be congratulated on its ingenuity. If only this organisational ingenuity & creativity were directed at treating patients we would have a world class health service. Someone in the NHS has spotted that at busy airports, like Heathrow, aircraft are held in a holding pattern by airport control until a landing spot becomes available. I bet the NHS brain storming session on this was great fun….
” what if we treated ambulances like Boing 747s?”
“don’t be silly ambulances can’t fly!”
“Stay with me on this one Jasper…we’ve got Ambulance Dispatching Centres which control the arrival & departure of ambulances at NHS Hospitals. We can’t meet the government target of all hospital patients being treated within 4 hours of admission Sooooh….picture this…We put ambulances in holding patterns until the hospital gives a green light that the patient can be admitted and treated within the 4 hours. Hey presto! For ambulance patients we can guarantee to meet the government waiting time target.”
“Fantastic Ravi, patient stacking like aircraft stacking….you’ll probably get a knighthood for this one!”
Sound bizarre? Not in an NHS which is becoming less patient centric and more government centric. That’s what happens when centrally imposed, punitive targets are imposed.
Evidence of patient stacking is revealed in the official ‘turnaround time’ data from seven of England’s 11 regional ambulance services who responded when asked for the figures last week. These show that delays of at least an hour are widespread in the NHS. Figures relating to the past 15 months show that a total of at least 44,000 delays were reported by the seven ambulance services.
In London, there were 14,700 occasions last year when an ambulance took at least an hour from its arrival at one of the capital’s 35 hospitals to hand over a patient and be ready to respond to the next emergency. This figure includes 332 that took more than two hours.Those affected by ‘patient stacking’ include people with broken limbs or those suffering fits or breathing problems having to wait upto 5 hours in an ambulance
Read more HERE.
