SOAPBOX: Mic Moore is a policy worker in the voluntary sector and vice chair of NIGAG. He argues that every political party needs to urgently decide if it’s in or out of power-sharing, so that the needs of vulnerable people don’t get sucked into the vacuum.
The problems in Northern Ireland’s health service (and in particular our constantly lengthening waiting lists) have been a recurrent topic on Slugger. Reference has been made to successive reports recommending transformation and hospital rationalization and the absence of any effective resulting action. As many of those reports have pointed out, the service here gets much more money per head than our adjacent jurisdiction England; we have more hospital beds, more doctors and more nurses. A 2014 study by the National …
Seanin Graham’s exclusive in the Irish News “Desperate Patients Pay for Eastern Europe Ops” highlights a persistent problem in our Health Service; lengthening waiting lists. She focuses on the use by local patients of surgical services in other European states and identifies the lengths some will go to improve their situation. She has identified the problem and, for very few patients, an expensive solution, and where this is a useful reminder that as a population we deserve better, she fails …
Great article by Seanín Graham in today’s Irish News about the ever expanding waiting list for medical operations in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland patients are waiting on average five years for routine operations. This compares to less than a year in England. From the article: It emerged that one million patients are now waiting in excess of 18 weeks for ‘routine’ operations in England. But in today’s Irish News, the story of a housebound pensioner who faces a five-year …
It seems such a shame that after the much-anticipated launch of Northern Ireland’s new Air Ambulance this month the service should find itself the subject of yet another negative article in the Irish News, this time regarding the condition of our road ambulances and stations. The article reports on how a surprise visit by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) exposed a number of hygiene breaches in the two ambulance stations inspected, and more importantly in our ambulances. This …
It’s now OK, according to a paper in BMJ not to finish a course of antibiotics. It is merely a myth according to researchers who can find no evidence that stopping your antibiotics when you feel well, does not lead to bug-resistance as we have always believed. Doctors, however, in spite of this finding are still suggesting that you should continue to take antibiotics as instructed and that means completing the course. It’s all a bit confusing and what’s the …
The crisis facing GP services in Northern Ireland has been well documented, including in previous posts on Slugger O’Toole. Increasing patient lists, ‘red tape’, underfunding, an ageing workforce and the compounding of health issues in deprived communities due to austerity policies, are only some of the problems faced by the service. The British Medical Association has mooted the unwelcome spectre of GPs walking away from the NHS, while the Royal College of GPs NI, in an open letter, has highlighted …
Here’s something for an incoming Northern Ireland Justice Minister to grapple with… It’s a question that arises following the UK Government’s decision to provide access for women from Northern Ireland to abortion services in England free on the NHS. From yesterday’s written answers in Parliament. Abortion: Northern Ireland Diana Johnson: [2513]To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, with reference to her letter of 29 June 2017 on funding for abortions for Northern Irish women in England, what assessment she …
Charlie Gard will probably die in the next few days. His death I hope will be private, peaceful and dignified and my sincere sympathy to his parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard and I truly hope they can move on with their lives after the torture of the last few months. Charlie’s short, tragic life has been lived too much in the glare of publicity, and as a result many will know of his case and the legal wranglings surrounding …
Good grief Northern Ireland you’re getting bigger! One-in-four of us has now moved up the scales to possess a “Over-30-BMI-Body”. Given that the expansion of the Ulster waist-line is threatening to bankrupt the Health Service in 20 years, obesity should be weighing heavily on the Health Minister’s mind; if only we had one. If we had, he or she should recognise the seriousness of the issue and scrap our Obesity Strategy (Fitter Futures for All: Framework for Preventing and Addressing …
For the past several years, I’ve been a guest speaker in our local high school’s ‘Culture Week’, when they ask people from overseas to come in and give presentations on life in their home country- food, sport, politics, art, and history- and the student’s then write reports on what they’ve learned. A frequently recurring question each year is, ‘What’s something you miss from there?’ When I started doing this, I tended to give light, fun answers- Tayto cheese and onions, …
Just over a year after the death of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965, his personal physician, Lord Moran, published Winston Churchill: the Struggle for Survival 1940 – 1960. Moran’s 800 page book was based on the diaries he had kept. Moran was vilified and excoriated for this; not only had be betrayed confidences, but he had broken the sacred bond of doctor-patient confidentiality. Some month later, when his critics had read the book, they saw that Churchill had been severely …
The 2004 GP contract was the result of significant problems in English inner cities with recruitment and retention of GPs. The continuity of care the bedrock of general practice was lost when GPs no longer were required with the implementation of the new contract to provide out of hours medical services. As a consequence patient care is now the responsibility of the Trusts for the majority of the time. The loss of continuity of care means the GP is no …
The BBC reports that… The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) has warned that Northern Ireland patients are waiting too long for surgery. The latest hospital waiting list figures show 55.3% of patients were waiting longer than 13 weeks to be admitted for inpatient or day case treatment. Meanwhile, 12% of patients waited more than 52 weeks. And… …latest Department of Health statistics reveal more people are having to wait longer on a hospital outpatient appointment in Northern Ireland. At the …
It will be a good 12 years before my eldest child can vote, but already she, along with her younger sister, has come with me to the polling booth on two occasions. The third is looming large on the horizon. Quite possibly, it is only the children who get a day off due to their school transforming into a polling station who will benefit the most from this election. I certainly don’t see any benefit to it and am getting …
Criticising our over stretched health and social care service is less of a public pass-time than it was five years ago. This is good and perhaps reflects a growing maturity as we begin to realise that these vital services, on which we all rely, can only do so much. In the social contract – the basis of the 1948 Health Service Act – there were two sides; (1) government agrees to provide a health service free at the point of …
For years GPs have been warming the government that the service is on the verge of collapse. But as usual in Northern Ireland we govern by inertia or doing bugger all as the man in the street might call it. I
But now it begins. We get to witness the collapse of the GP service in real time. The Portadown case gives us the template of how it will happen.
Seeking better patient outcomes: Music to the ears of occupational therapists
by Allan LEONARD
11 November 2016
The College of Occupational Therapists (COT) held a launch event at the Long Gallery of Parliament Buildings, for their campaign on the value of occupational therapy, “Improving lives, saving money”.
PhD Researcher @UlsterUni | Managing Editor @SharedFuture | Board Member @FactCheckNI | Photographer 📸 | Runner 🏃♂️ | Genealogist 🌳 | https://mrulster.info
The media hype on our latest could-do-better Health Service report Systems not Structures: Changing Health and Social Care, was more positive than I expected. BBC wheeled out the usual pundits. John Compton welcomed the report saying it was good to say things over and over again until the public finally heard the message. Dr George O’Neill was unusually positive but that seems to be because his Accountable Care System (ACS) approach got a good airing. At least George understands …
So after last year’s Donaldson report (saying clinicians should drive reforms and politicians take a back seat), we have this year’s Bengoa Report (commissioned by Simon Hamilton) along with the suggestion that the new SF Health Minister will do exactly that? The report’s ten-year time span and lack of specific actions (costs would be both too great a fiction and scare too many skittish constituency horses to bear publication) gives report the minimum required verisimilitude. Nolan has had great fun with the …
