From BBC Essex today:
An NHS hospital where a woman bled to death in childbirth has been given an “urgent” deadline to keep patients at its maternity unit safe. A letter seen by the BBC reveals the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found unsafe staffing levels at the unit at Basildon Hospital throughout August. The CQC said the trust that runs it had until next Monday to implement appropriate measures. The trust said it had a “robust improvement plan in place”.
It’s a horror story. Findings from the latest inspection included:
Only four shifts throughout the month of in August had safe staffing levels
The CQC was told 20 midwives had been recruited, yet subsequent documents submitted by the trust did not support this
Required safety meetings during shift handovers did not take take place
Incidents affecting patient safety were inappropriately categorised, including one in which a woman who lost more than a litre a blood was graded “no harm”
Babies were transferred to intensive care, yet graded as “low” or “no harm”
Inconsistent guidance to staff on identifying the risk of post-partum haemorrhage.
The hospital is in a safe Tory seat.
You can probably imagine if this had happened in a Scottish hospital, how BBC Scotland would have presented the story. Even with one case of a child where a hospital acquired infection might have contributed to a death, we saw this day after day:
And where a Labour politician saw the opportunity to exploit the death for political gain we saw:
Evidence the above is not a ‘one-of‘:
Tweet for a doctor in NHS England.
“Keep Our NHS Public Retweeted
Ben White
@drbenwhite
·
11h
Even before covid19, the NHS is often running above 80% capacity all year round (in some weeks above 95%). The system was already at breaking point. We have been desperately trying to tell you about this problem for years. Now, sadly, it is obvious for all to see.”
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The vox pop driven BBC Scotland would dismiss this as ‘anecdotal’. Only tweets from those they know as ‘sound’ are acceptable.
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To my great surprise, Jeremy Hunt seems regarded as a reliable source of information having presided over the degradation of NHS England for so long.
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How utterly tragic for this woman and her family, and yes, had this happened in Scotland there would be demands for the health minister and first minister to resign, they would have been hounded out of office by the media. It’s what happens in third world countries, when women lose their lives in this way in childbirth, it’s what happened a lot in Victorian times, it should not happen in a first world country, in 2020. Are the media calling for resignations in the EngGov? Someone needs to be held accountable for this terrible unecessary death of a young woman.
I hope the family take the EngGov to court over this. Scarily, it’s an indication of what the EngGov are doing to the NHS in England, even to the point of allowing people to die unnecessarily. Criminal in the extreme,
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Independent Sage on the latest state of play in UK and (mostly) England’s weakness. Supermarkets, pubs, restaurants, schools as sources of transmission.
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1eaJbzWkorBJX
Or read it on twitter.
“We are 3 weeks away from the April peak in terms of hospitalisations. In the next few weeks hospitals will be struggling, particularly in the north”
“Watching what happens in France over the next 2 weeks is going to be really crucial”
I think, reading this, there is a good chance of some lockdown in Scotland’s worst affected places to get the R number down quickly.
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Bleeding after childbirth is one of the most common problems, which is why women are observed closely by staff, or should be. My cousin almost died in NE England due to this, luckily they noticed in time and she was given a transfusion, but it was almost too late. The facts about the hospital in the article make for extremely worrying reading, the EngGov have a lot to answer for indeed.
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English folk must have got used to horror stories out of their NHS . . . . They keep voting in politicians who have no intention of fixing it (spending the cash) . . . .
Heard a deputy head of emergency meds think it was David Tan saying the reason the UKhas to try to keep numbers enterring hospital low is that after decades on underspend the capacity isn’t there. . . saying it is a different story in Germany and France.
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And all because no one could make money out of the situation
Tis the bottom line that counts for EHNS and their Tory masters
Nothing else matters other than power to lord over us all and that is only to facilitate
Their personal wealth enhancement
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As tragic as the Basildon case is, your central point remains the manner of reporting in Scotland and England by purportedly the same organisation, the BBC, yet what you don’t mention is that the PQ/#10 (?) generated articles are then selectively shared to the English network.
This slews the perspective of both audiences on how SG are performing, even on Covid handling which could have more serious consequences.
Your Jeanne Freeman example perfectly illustrates the point, Hancock’s fizog never appears on similar England articles, and he is always referred to by his official title, but you are not alone in highlighting this deliberate propagandising of “balanced” journalism.
https://mobile.twitter.com/msm_monitor/status/1323291578891411458
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