Wednesday 9 December 2009

Britain's Survival Rates


click to enlarge

The above data is for the five years 2002-2007. You can hear politicians saying, "Survival rates have improved since 2007" can't you?

Do you believe them? I don't.

This is part of labour's legacy after throwing £billions at the NHS.

Graphic grabbed from DarkLochnagar

18 comments:

banned said...

""Survival rates have improved since 2007"
That is exactly what a spokeswoman said on BBC Radio 4 yesterday about 10:15am after admitting that she had no clue as to why the quadrupling of investment in cancer care has resulted in little improvement.

Oldrightie said...

One in ten people in The UK were not born here. When will these NHS declines be linked to mass immigration and the unbearable pressure on already stretched services. For what? Labours' belief they can creat a vote base of such magnitude they can fiddle forever.

subrosa said...

I knew it banned! Never heard it mind you. Thanks for letting me know.

subrosa said...

Oh OR, we can't mention that now. That's a 'sensitive' issue. You don't speak about 'sensitive' issues unless you adhere to the party lines.

Great Big Billygoat Gruff said...

Over on The Scottish Review, John Roy has a really good piece on the Swine Flu con.

Sees that The D o' Death was predicting between 19,000 and 61,000 deaths before Xmas and to date, 270 have been recorded.

There have been 1.6 million doses of the vaccine taken up, instead of the 30 million predicted and the Health service professionals, 2 million of them see to be conspicuous by their absence in the take-up statistics.

How much is this fiasco costing and will it be written off as a dry run for something later?

Excellent article and very good review

http://www.scottishreview.net/KRoy180.html

More power to their collective elbow.

MekQuarrie said...

Clearly people are staying healthy longer and serious problems are being identified sooner. This is not an issue tat one party can claim to have 'succeeded' on, it's just how Western society is evolving. At a certain point, when peak efficiency has been reached, you really are then having to pour vast loads of money in to get the tiny percenatge points of improvement that we all demand.

Great Big Billygoat Gruff said...

Has my photo be affixed?

subrosa said...

Mek there's a difference of 12%, 14% and 3.4% with the three stat cases. I wouldn't say these percentages are tiny.

Tony Blair said he would make the NHS as good as anywhere in the world. More money has been ploughed into it than ever before yet we're nowhere near top of charts.

Dare I suggest that the money has gone to top heavy management and never trickled down to the front line?

subrosa said...

Aye Billy, it's a great read Kenneth Roy. The Tamiflu mess is another example of how governments throw our money away.

subrosa said...

Yes your photo looks fine to me. A bottle with a label is always pleasant to view. ;)

Great Big Billygoat Gruff said...

It seems that the penchant of the Global Warming Brigade for hiding or losing their raw data is catching.

Leg-iron is reporting that Roche is not sharing their findings on the tests they have carried out with their Tamiflu products.

http://leg-iron.livejournal.com/267667.html

Who pays?

Who wins?




follow the money suckers

subrosa said...

Aye Billy, I was reading about that mess last night. Not a lot in the press though is there.

Clarinda said...

I suspect that despite our professional health care staff running ever harder to sustain what they can in terms of patient care (there are still remarkably good examples of the original principles of the NHS around) it must be so demoralising for them to see their best efforts in the face of incompetent managemnt and political decision-making resulting in the blame being laid at their door and not that of the real culprits. Perhaps this factor is a little similar to our armed forces being so professional in their duties with such poor equipment and dreadful political decisions overwhelming their potential?

I suspect that if you question a random group of doctors and nurses they will tell you in a blink where the money has gone - the transient, incompetent and oppressive deluge of management that has been politically imposed since the mid 70s which now accounts for the greatest spending explosion since the NHS began.

Management in our public services has become one of the largest growth employment rackets fueled by political interference and subjugation over the once respected and effective services once run by experienced health professionals. Patient care is also reliant on the 1000s of other health care Professionals Allied to Medicine (PAMs) who are also at the wrong end of managerialism.

Billions have been wasted on untried, experimental change, re-organisation, IT white elephants and 'modernisation' i.e. faffing about with non-clinically relevant or beneficial paper initiatives with the predictable consequence (inevitably foreseen by the doctors and nurses but brushed aside by management) of falling standards of patient care.

Training places for doctors have been cut and their training experience truncated - which are both predicted to become even worse in the next two years. Yes - salaries have improved - but if there are fewer trained/training doctors around - care and patient safety will suffer. The EU Working Hour Directive has further inhibited the potential of doctors to achieve requiste standards of experience and good practice. Many Consultant positions have been dumbed down to account for the lower quality and quantity of medical practice but this lower qualified position of Consultant grade allows the government to claim there are more Consultants! Yes, there may be but not as we once knew them!

The statistics, in their defence, are not comparing like with like when the origins of their data are considered. The USA may appear to have better cancer survival rates but this may be due to the omission of 1000s who die from cancer due to their lack of health insurance to access early diagnosis and treatment. What effect has our own 'health tourism' and immigration had on UK statistics and over-stretched services. Many arrive with advanced disease and disability not then ammenable to early diagnosis and effective treatment resulting in unavoidable death or chronic disease managemnet costs.

These graphs should propel us to demand a stop to politically motivated and managerial interference and return the NHS and many of our other public services to the respected and capable authority of the professionals whose expertise is currently marinalised by incompetent and costly managerialism. Of course the NHS needs managing - good managing!

subrosa said...

Clarinda, your comment deserves a post of its own. I will do it later if you don't mind.

Clarinda said...

No problem - sorry about the spelling mistakes- management and marginalised!

JRB said...

Clarinda

May I compliment you on an excellent post.

It reveals the clear and distinct truth of all that currently ails the NHS, and bears the hallmark of one who works from within, hamstrung and frustrated by the sheer bureaucracy of it all, but who still fundamentally cares for the NHS and the people it serves.

subrosa said...

I'll correct them Clarinda.

subrosa said...

John, she deserves a post of her own doesn't she? I think so.

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