NHS statistics reveal a complete mess
Virgil:
March 30th, 2007
In a recent poll, it was ascertained that the majority of NHS workers wouldn’t want to be patients at their own Trusts. The figures are thus: 39% of staff would be happy in their own care, 27% would not, and 33% aren’t sure. This is worse than last year. But perhaps this is due to another statistic: the amount of staff that feel that patients are a top priority. I was stunned to learn that in polls, this number was only 45%, down from 50% 12 months ago.
This is all wrong. Aren’t the health services there for the patients? Although this, we would hope, is true, financial pressures force staff to focus on other things than the patients. But perhaps monetary worries are not the only things dissuading staff from putting patients first. Maybe this in turn is due to yet another statistic: the amount of staff who suffer attacks from their patients. I was again stunned to learn that this number was 31%.
What is going on here people? The NHS provides top quality treatments and procedures and is free. Why are patients attacking their staff? Why are staff disregarding their patients? One spokeswoman comments, “a much more robust deterrent is needed to crack down completely on abuse and attacks on health staff”, whilst another explains that “the problem lies with the way patients are treated before and after they get treatment.” Can’t everyone just play and be nice?