Page 1 of Yet another example of Blair`s Britain

I work in a busy inner city hospital - yesterday we were told one of the acute medical wards was closing immediately- due to finance !
That`s 30 less beds and 35 nursing staff needing to be redeployed.
Currently there is a complete job freeze as well as no study leave !
Good luck if you`re ill- the NHS is fast becoming a lottery

Sorry to hear this.

which city hospital is this happening at?

I`ll understand if you do not wish to name the hospital.

If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything BTTF

This item was edited on Saturday, 23rd April 2005, 08:28

Any more details than "finance"?

Is it that the hospital is wasting its money in other departments or is it genuinely underfunded?


What I`m listening to...

This sounds similar to Sade`s place.

Staff seem to be leaving in droves at the moment. However, when a sister or charge nurse (F & G grade) leaves, they are not being replaced. Instead staff nurses (D & E grades) are being employed.

An F or G must be in charge of the department. This is leading to massive problems when shifts are being arranged for the forthcoming month and a huge strain when somebody goes off ill.

Why is this happening? Because a computer program told them that this was all the department needed.

In addition, A&E have spent millions on a fantastic computer system currently used in Australia, so that you knew which patients were where, how long they`d been waiting since arrival, what was wrong with them, which staff had already seen them, etc, etc, etc. This was due to be rolled out across the whole hospital.
1) the monitors and keyboards (in each cubicle) were all installed about 2 feet too high, so that the staff couldn`t see what they were typing or reach the keyboards properly(Sade`s only 5`1").
2) the system has 2 back-up servers (apparently all with UPS), so that should something go wrong with the main server, the 1st back-up will automatically kick in and then the 2nd if absolutely necessary. You`ve guessed it - the whole system crashes on a very regular basis. It simply can`t cope with the amount of patients being seen.

Sade & I have been together for over 10 years - I have never seen her work morale so low.

Our local councillor came round canvassing the other evening, on behalf of our himself and our current Labour MP. She tore strips off the bloke & told him she`d like to see the MP himself - he`s due to be around our area during the weekend, but I reckon he`ll give our street a wide berth :D

Cheers

Si



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This item was edited on Saturday, 23rd April 2005, 12:53