Labour countermands doctors’ orders
The Labour triballists have gone into full on attack mode with the news tonight that the government is planning to downgrade the service offered by NHS Direct. John Prescott is one of many whose Twitter feed screams: “This is disgraceful. ConDems set to axe NHS Direct. http://bit.ly/cJvnxV We must stop them #savenhsdirect”.
The plan is to eventually replace NHS Direct with the new non-emergency 111 number, which was announced earlier this week. Some of the nurses would be replaced by operators who have the same emergency diagnostic traimning as that given to 999 operators. That’s right: the person answering your non-emergency call will be as well trained as the person answering your emergency call. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.
But what is even stranger is that the very article that Prezza quoted to justify his anger itself points out that doctors believe NHS Direct to be largely a waste of money and a top target for cuts.Earlier this year, well before the election, a suvey of 900 GPs by the magazine Pulse found that a majority thought that NHS DIrect should have its funding cut. In June, representatives of family doctors said that the new government should consider scrapping NHS Direct as a way of reducing costs in the health service. The Mritish Medical Journal reported:
The cost effectiveness of parts of NHS Direct, which has so far not been properly evaluated, were of questionable value, said chairman of the BMA’s GPs Committee, Laurence Buckman
So there you have it. The medical profession say that NHS Direct is of questionable value and should have its funding cut, say doctors. But the Labour Party are so keen to pick a fight on each and every issue that they decide that they know better than the medically qualified. Maybe prescott and pals should be staffing the NHS Direct phone lines if they know so much?
Related posts:
- Practice makes perfect for doctors
- So who’s right: Labour activists or Prezza?
- Labour scorched earth policy is 'a cynical contempt'
Comments
28 August 2010, 7:15 pm
Would I have ever voted LD if I knew they would be puppets to the Tories, no not in a milion years, NHS Direct is money well spent and to change it is simply daft. just asked the 27,000 people a DAY that uses the service.
28 August 2010, 10:47 pm
GPs (who don’t actually represent the entire medical profession – your blog is misleading) have a vested interest in getting rid of a “competitor”, so wise people take their comments with a dose of salt.
Replacing a trained senior nurse – band 6 or 7 for NHS Direct – with someone with 60 hours training is ludicrous. The new service will not be fit for purpose, and put extra pressure on A&Es – counter-productive, even for simply saving money.