Thank goodness for the internet as we can easily track what politicians have ever said. Are they as happy as we are, only time will tell.
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent Telegraph
12 Jan 2009
12 Jan 2009
Britain has fewer hospital beds per head of population than almost any other European country, with half as many as Lithuania and Hungary, according to official figures.
Prague, Czech Republic©2010 Am Ang Zhang
Britain is ranked 25th out of 32 European countries, and only Cyprus, Portugal, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and Malta have fewer hospital beds.
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said that it was "madness" that the number of beds had been cut under Labour.
"The objective of the NHS is to deliver world-class healthcare, not to maintain a certain number of hospital beds," he said.
"The Government needs to explain why our hospitals have so many fewer beds than hospitals in other European countries." Read More>>>>
Now The Cockroach Catcher do not subscribe to the view that more is necessary better but:
Around 500,000 patients are readmitted to hospital within a month of being discharged which the Conservatives claim shows they are not getting proper follow-up care or are being sent home too early.
Emergency readmissions have increased by 52 per cent between 1998/9 and 2007/8, the Conservatives warned.
The number of hospital beds has also been cut by 12 per cent in the last five years, the Conservatives said, compounding the problem.
Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary, has announced that under a Conservative government, hospitals would have to pay for patients' support care at home to avoid them requiring admitting again.
Mr Lansley said: “Labour have let down hospital patients. For thirteen years they have ignored the serious problem of patients being sent home from hospital without proper care and support, resulting in a huge rise in the numbers having to be readmitted.
Before the election: a survey of English hospital trusts, conducted by the Conservatives, reveals that over the next parliament there will be a net loss of at least 650 doctors and 2,000 nurses:
April 25, 2010 The Sunday Times
Jonathan Oliver
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: “Gordon Brown promised voters that he would protect the National Health Service and protect frontline services. But these figures reveal that Labour is planning secret cuts. They will cut the number of nurses, the number of doctors and the number of hospital beds. It does not get more frontline than that.”
Lansley insisted the Tories would be in a better position to guarantee clinical services because of their commitment to ring-fence health spending.
Lansley said the reductions in hospital staff could not be excused by ‘restructuring’ or ‘moving care into the community’. He added: “There is no evidence that extra staff are being recruited to replace these roles in the community. In fact the number of district nurses has gone down. The big increases in primary care trust staffing are coming in administration not frontline workers.
“Under Labour the number of managers has risen five times faster than the number of nurses. Our NHS has been weighed down by a bloated bureaucracy which means precious resources aren’t being spent on helping patients.
“We will cut bureaucracy by a third and we will make sure that frontline patient care comes first.” Read all>>>>
1 comment:
Lets live and hope.
Thanks for digging.
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