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ST you don't actually think the minister gives a toss about nurses do you. He can always go to underdevloped countries and nick theirs if the ones hes got go off
erm... Justine... those two links take me to the same place. Is that right?
I would like to see the edited version of his answers (I found it a bit hard reading without paragraphs yesterday ) But both those links seem to take me to the labour party page.
Ooh, ooh he answered my question (and FIRST at that!). Bit of a crappy answer but never mind, at least it means he actually read (or someone read out to him!) what I said and maybe he'll keep thinking about it!
nothing said about allergies, nothing on alternative medicine - pity I couldn't be here today to try and get an answer or to ask if he's had a dental emergency and tried to get treatment recently! I know someone who has and is still waiting to hear anything 10 days on. Meanwhile her gp is having to prescribe antibiotics for the infection.
So he gave better answers but they don't actually translate into action out here in the sticks......
vvv - better than 1.9% though - actually works out apparently at like 2.7 this year, 2.4 the following and 2.2 the third. Not great at the end, but hey, still better than 1.9%!
Gosh he's said an awful lot more than David Cameron. And all of it made sense. The Tory King of Smarm never answered anything - well he managed about three posts and all of them were evasive and shifty
Gosh he's said an awful lot more than David Cameron. And all of it made sense. The Tory King of Smarm never answered anything - well he managed about three posts and all of them were evasive and shifty
Yup - I think that too. In the case of all the London hospitals I've been to (and thats a fair few), the bits they show to anyone bear no resemblence to some of the less 'popular' departments. St Thomas' (nice view of the Houses of Parliament across the river) is a very good case in point - the subterranean journey to some departments through corridors filled with stuff is incredible.
My grandparents are both pretty ill. My grandad is recovering from Bowel cancer and my gran has emphysema.
My gran was dishcharged from hospital with a cannula still in her arm and it took two days for a practice nurse to come to their home and remove it. They are frequently let down by health visitors/ social workers who promise them support but give them none. It's hard enough for them to visit when they say they will.
Why would it be that the families are the ones left to care for them and try to chase up test results etc, even just basic care? They are extremely vulnerable but too proud to complain as they are reluctant to accept the health they get. I wonder how many elderly people are in this position who don't have family to look out for them?
I know you had lots of questions, but I really think SALT provision is worth you having a look at. Or at least delegate it to a flunky . The waits are too long. Please ensure our children get the help they need before they go to school.
Oh VeniVidiVickiQV I agree with you. HV give the most nonsensical advice in my area too. Always suggest topping up with formula. grrrrr. They all need retraining. If they good and accessible in strong numbers we've vastly cut down trips to GPs for trivial matters and would be better more confident mums.
Mr Johnson Why are hospitals so dirty? I had a major op in the QMC Notts in Jan and begged my consultant to send me home(which he did do) after 48 hours as the elderly lady in the bed next to me had suspected c.diff. She was not in isolation nor being barrier nursed and was having many accidents. The toilets and bathrooms should have been condemened - they were gross!
Another point why are the waits for CAMH appts so long? Our 13 year old son has OCD and we have waited since December for an appointment finally got a cancellation for next week. I have spent all my working life in the NHS and it is getting WORSE not better
Oh Thank you!! I hadn't heard about the pay deal (looks over shoulder at past two nursing standard copies unopened...) 8.1 percent is certainly more than I was expecting and I for one and pretty pleased!
I meant to say. The one-to-one system of midwifery care is SUPERB and needs to be assured continued funding and rolled out over the uk. The levels of successful home births are brilliant under this system and women are given decent care and choice. So is the one-to-one system going rto have its funding pulled?
Thank you very much for all of your posts - as a former post man I'm used to dealing with a different form of communication but this was very interesting and genuinely enjoyable. For more information on what we're doing on health you can also visit www.labour.org.uk!
Oh it's not a feeling Mr Johnston. It is fact that HV's often recommend "topping up" with formula, or even worse "you need to top up with Aptimil".
Advice for non-sleeping at 4 months..."try a little baby rice"
Advice (this one to me directly) when asking how to get a child to take soya formula when used to b/feeding, and suggesting mixing formula and breastmilk - the reply I got from an "experienced" HV was "eww yuk, dont do that". No suggestion to carry on b/feeding and ways to help me do this whilst working part time. No positive advice on how to get my daughter to take soya formula (cows milk allergy).
A later experience with 2 other HV's to help with b/feeding and thrush was miles better, but, I think it was largely down to the fact that they both breastfed, and in fact one was still breastfeeding her 11 month old.
Experience is great, but only when it's relevant. I think there is a point in there somewhere....
Can you answer my earlier Q about Northwick Park Hospital please?
Thanks everyone, and to Alan (and Sue) especially for your thorough responses and for staying a bit longer than he should have. Alan has promised to come back to us on a few things and we promise to make sure he does and to keep the pressure on with regard to miscarriage and a nationwide code of practice. Best, Mnhq
I'm delighted to read that you'll be looking into the standards of care given to women who miscarry. I really hope that this includes the care and support available to women who are pregnant following prior pregnancies.
If you put together a set of standards, can you encourage those in the Scottish Executive Govenrment to follow them too so that standards are UK wide.
To flossish - I hope that you will reconise the huge advances made in pay and conditions and indeed in the number of nurses since 1997. Agenda for Change was an enormously important agreement with all the Unions and Royal Colleges and it gave nurses a substantial real terms increase in salary. I'm not trying to curry favour here but I was the Minister in a previous capacity who defended the pension arrangements for nurses, teachers and civil servants. The pension is of course an important part of the package. Last year's staged pay increase caused understandable concern and resentment. I haven't got time to go into that here, but what I can say is that I've recently concluded negotiations on a pay deal that will give nurses an 8.1% pay increase over the next 3 years. RCN and Unison fought very hard to tackle issues such as the long banding structure and those on low pay and we've done a lot in this deal to address those concerns as well as setting up on-going discussions to do more in this area. In the context of public sector pay which in the last 10 years has risen by more than private sector pay I do think nurses have received fair treatment although given the work that they do I can understand the feeling that more should be done.
Thank you more health visitors would be great. I shall wait to see if it materalizes in my area. Please please read the rest of my post too, even if you don't directly reply. I feel really strongly that we should be encouraging women to stay at home to look after their children (as they do in many European countries - see France) rather than put them in nurseries, institutions at such a young age to the detriment of social behaviour and standards in general. I know everyone here is complaining mainly about NHS services for maternity/miscarriage/children/cleanliness and all that and it needs attention but please think about changing the way our society works and views children. It would dramatically affect our future for the better I believe. Read any Steve Biddulph to understand!! Great to see you on here by the way. Hope you take away lots of useful stuff and act on it!
i understand that problem re not enough hv's alan.
however, if they do decide to get more, can they also have proper training? especially in infant feeding issues - erm, breastfeeding.
not having myths handed down from the old hands to the new ones. and certainly not cross-fertisilised withinformation propoganda provided by the formula companies.
Oh, and absolutely - its not about so much who the cleaners are employed by, but how they are empowered to make decisions, the area they are expected to clean per time unit, and whether they are paid enough to recruit and retain staff who wish to and can do a great job.
I'm glad that you saw that for yourself at the Royal Free, although I'm sure they didn't show you the parts of the hospital which are in such a poor state that no one should be expected to work there.
To Minerva1 and others - the biggest complaint that I hear is that there are not enough health visitors. I committed Government last year to increase the numbers and I'm working very closely with Ed Balls at DCSF to ensure that in Sure Start centres for instance we have the right level of cooperation with the health service which usually involves health visitors. The issue about quality of training hasn't come up as often but I will look into this particularly as it relates to the earlier point about breastfeeding in general and a feeling that perhaps very good professionals who have been in post for a long time are not being kept up to date with new developments.
If you haven't gone Alan, I would be more than happy to share with you the horrors that I endured during my three miscarriages. If you would like to think about how it is to be told that your baby has died during a routine scan, left in a room filled with pictures of babies for a hour when you then find that they have forgotten about you, and then sent on your own to traipse through a hospital to then explain yourself what has happened to more staff, then that was just the start of my first miscarriage and it got worse from there.
Please, please, anything that you can do to push the subject of care for women and their partners in this area would be wonderful - the MC Association do what they can, but with a budget of only 200,000 a year to do the only real support and information for families they can't do a lot.
To cmotdibbler and monkeybird - I wish the issue of health care acquired infections was as simple as who does the cleaning. Unfortunately, it's not. In the worst case, which was Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells, the cleaners were directly employed. We find examples of hospitals which have completely overcome the problem where the cleaners are contracted. I think that the important point about cleaners is that they must be a central part of the NHS team and feel valued as such. Five years ago, hospitals felt that cleaning should only be done at night or when there was as few people around as possible. Now everyone wants their cleaners to be visible. As I saw at the Royal Free yesterday, where they do have directly employed cleaners, it's the way cleaners are treated that's important. Many hospitals are going back to directly employed cleaners but, as I say, there's no evidence to suggest that contracting out was the major cause of the rise of superbugs.
Oh I agree Kiski, but the are classed as a slightly different resource so I wanted to clarify the distinction between the two, even though both services are sorely lacking.
To ktmoomoo - the most common complaint about postcode lottery is the availability of drugs but you have pointed to another aspect relating to procedures. The policy is that once NICE has approved a drug or procedure it should be available everywhere. This is an area that we are considering addressing in the NHS Constitution that we plan to publish on the 60th Anniversay of the NHS in July. There is a problem in respect of the amount of time that it takes for NICE to properly consider whether to licence drugs or procedures. In the period upto licencing PCTs have discretion. I think the way we should seek to resolve this, particularly with cancer drugs, is by speeding up the NICE proceedure, if we possibly can. One final point on this - if the NHS isn't to be a hugely centralised command and control system so that it can be clinically led and locally driven there are bound to be differences between different regions of the country. But this shouldn't relate to the availability of drugs and procedures as I've mentioned above. Many people have asked about Scotland - I support devolution. It was a Government policy successfully implemented and we cannot complain that having devolved power, the Scottish Executive decide to do things differently. However, the basic principles of the NHS haven't changed and issues such as free prescriptions and car-parking etc whilst important do not represent the central issues around which the NHS is established.
Indeed Starlight. Chase Farm is one of the worst hospitals I've had the misfortune to be in (and that beats having a bed in Edgware General with squished cockroaches next to it).
Yet recent reports and reviews of its maternity services have flagged it up to have done quite well. This is entirely in conflict with experiences I, and other mothers have had there. I suspect that Alan Johnson has gone, but I'd like him to look into this if he could.
The attitude of some members of staff were so appalling it reduced me to tears at a time when I really needed some support and help. I dont understand how surveys and reports can be so wildly different to my two experiences of maternity services, and several experiences at A & E.
god heavens VVV, it isn't just Health Vis. who have crap breastfeeding knowledge, none of the midwives I have encountered and seen plenty of posts here on MN where the Midwives are just as inept.
this is partly why formula has to stop being advertised to hcp's and they should be given proper training in bfing.
they, like HVs do not have to update their knowledge
Just to clarify, I ask about health visitors as they are the only point of contact for mums to ask questions about child's development etc before child starts school. In my area, Barnet, my 3yr old wasn't seen after his six week check until he was 2yrs old (and then only because he was home when the health visitor was checking my 10 day old baby. Also, my baby is now 14 months and hasn't had a 1 year check up and there is no sign that any clinic near me will offer one. Is this really right in a developed country?
I have a (totally selfish) question about testing for gene mutations. I need a test (my Genetics Consultant says so) but my hospital won't fund it. My sister's hospital will. The difference is purely geographical - I'm in Bath and she's in Cambridge. Why does this happen?
I actually think you'd make an excellent leader (deffo the housewives choice not that I am one).
And I do actually see some improvement in health services in my area (though it started from a pretty low starting point). So much more needs to be done though.
What plans do you have for improving our (I use "our" in the loosest sense of the term) Health Visitor service.
They appear to be shockingly understaffed, training, knowledge and clinics vary wildly, and a different system seems to be set in place from borough to borough.
One of the biggest bugbears parents have on Mumsnet is due to incorrect information disseminated by Health Visitors. I note that another parenting website has teamed up with Health Visitors. I am concerned that a question be asked, and then the thread closed so that you cannot see what advice is being handed out to this person, which in my view, isnt a step forward.
To sfxmum and others who've asked about our policy with regards to mis-carriage - it seems to me from your comments and from talking to the Mumsnet people here that we really should seek to ensure a common set of standards across the country. I think I'm in at the start of a new campaign and it's something I will talk to Ministers about when I return to the Department. Mumsnet have informed me that I will not be allowed to forget this issue!
I have another question, about out of hours healthcare. Why do you concede with GP's opinions that they shouldn't work outside office hours, why can they not work shifts as so many other people have to?
My daughter was quite ill recently, she came down with a high fever around 6pm and I got no response from the 'out of hours' number our GP practice gave us. I eventually got through to a nursing team (from the yellow pages) who told me to go to a clinic around an hour from our home (we are in London and would have to use public transport)
Eventually I took her to childrens A&E and thankfully it was nothing serious, but what a waste of overstretched resources when a doctor could have reassured us far easier?
There's been several questions on GP access. Let me first of all make it clear that we are not seeking to go back on the GP contract we negotiated in 2004. There is a loss of collective memory in some quarters. Prior to 2004 there was a real problem in recruiting people into General Practice and a real fear that with so many GPs due to retire there would be a crisis in provision. We were quite right to raise GPs' pay which was very poor and to reduce their hours whilst enabling them to spend more time with each patient. I find it incredible that GPs were expected to be bright and efficient at 9am, having been out half the night dealing with call-outs. It was a system that had to change and we changed it. Access is not about out-of-hours. We do intend to go back to the 24/7 coverage by each GP. What we do want is for patients and the public to have greater choice about when they see their GP. People now work in a completely different way than they did 50 years ago and in those Practices where they do open in the evenings and on Saturday mornings they find not only blue-collar workers who have difficulty getting time off from employers during the week but also those mothers with children that some people told us were perfectly satisfied with the current arrangements. We have put extra money into the system and we are not asking GPs to do this for nothing. 92% of BMA members voted for greater access and I think it's very much in tune with what the public expect from the health service that they fund.
What cmotdibbler said: we'd ALL like to know I imagine whether and why the NHS still contracts outsources cleaning?
I am of the view that you pay the people who do the most difficult jobs as much money as you can. Difficult can mean well-educated and making difficult decision but it also means doing those personal care and dirty jobs that most of us can't bring ourselves to do.
So FGS pay the people who mop up our blood, vomit and poo a bit more. And the people who hold the hand of the sick and dying.
Dear Mr Johnson, If you are still here and reading through these. I would just like to point out a couple of things. It would be really refreshing for the govt to encourage mothers to stay at home to look after their children rather than go back to work and create a society where children are a nuisance extra and in nurseries at a young age where they don't have one-on-one attention which is what they need. It would also be refreshing for a govt to concentrate on post-natal services in this country and children's services which are becoming extinct. There is no or little help in hospitals on wards once you've actually delivered. There is little or no help to get mums breastfeeding. Health visitors are a dying species, and those we do have certainly in my area are completely useless when you actually can get hold of them. Further to that I"m disgusted that you no longer get sent reminders about jabs for kids. I had to beg my local clinic to actually book me in for my child's MMR. No reminders were sent out or information. And I"m English speaking, middle class, on second child. What happens to all new mothers who don't know about jabs and suchlike. You are currently failing our children. Not to mention the fact that getting a doctors' appointment is nigh-on impossible, and most of my friends are sacrificing something to go privately to see a "family" doctor for their kids, so that illnesses are dealt with and picked up more easily. The NHS even in the past two years has pretty much given up on children (unless you're really ill and in hospital). Can you do anything about any of these issues??????
I'd like to echo Starlight's experiences with my maternity experiences in North London's Chase Farm.
Made to wait from 10am till 4pm for test results for pre-eclampsia, and then till 9.30pm for a bed. During this time no food or drink offered.
Also, within an hour of giving birth, being bullied into having a shower because the room was needed, and my partner wasnt allowed to go and get my wash bag. Was told I would be fetched a towel and soap to use but it didnt happen and I ended up having to dry myself on a used gown on the floor of the shower room.
This kind of thing is quite common place in my experience at Chase Farm. Yet, recent surveys have shown that it did well in maternity services. How do you explain this?
Isn't the issue of working mothers and having a stautus and self actualistaion state through recognition and work related to mental health and the health of the kids. Also he represents the government.
hi i would like to know about the post code lottery !!!!!!!!!!1 i wish to have an opperation but i live in lincoln and nhs say no , but if i was living some where else it would be yes to the opperation i think this so unfair as this opperation would ne life changing for me , i have appealed twice now with no luck , im distaught
I am in the same position as you muppet but with 3 kids. I spend as much on after school care and holiday clubs as my monthly salary and would be better off at home. What incentives do I get? Nothing except personal ones.
Like many people (women) I work with I have a string of qualifications and experience that count for very little once you have children. I couldn't get a position anywhere nearly as senior as I had before children and tokk something lower paid. Where is the equality in that, you might as well tell a 16 year old girl not to bother as many do despite all wanting the best for our children
To sitdownpleasegeorge - I think this takes us back to the question of choice but on a far more profound level. I do instinctively feel that a woman should have the choice of how they give birth. Maternity Matters is the policy that was developed with a wide range of interested parties. It means that by 2009 all women giving birth will have more choice over how to access primary care, for instance they can self-refer to a midwife rather than a GP if they wish. They will also have more choice in anti-natal care, in where to give birth and in accessing post-natal care. The two problem areas that prevent me from saying that there should be an absolute choice in these matters is that the NHS probably couldn't afford to give C-Section on request and in any case I feel that it should remain the decision of the clinician as to whether to go down that route. The other problem is that the extended choice we've given on elective surgery cannot yet be extended to maternity care. I think its very important that women are able to choose the maternity hospital that they want to use but that's something that will take a little longer to implement.
Are you interested in supporting women's choice to breastfeed for as long as they wish.
are you interested in addressing the problem of sophisticated marketing of formula to health care profs.
my consultant told me antenatally that he is all for 'choice' when it comes to infant feeding.
I told him that so was I. And that 76% of women choose to initiate breastfeeding after giving birth. At 6 weeks half that number have given up and 90% of those who had given up wished to bf for longer.
This info comes from the DOH's own infant feeding survey for 2005.
FYI, over 35million pounds per year is spent every year on treating Gastro intestinal infections alone in children under 12 months.
so I asked my consultant what could our hospital do with an extra £35 million.
He had no answer to that but suggested I become a politician.
The government are so keen on parents going back into work, i'm a mother of a 3yr i work full time, but because of my income levels i don't get that much help from the government, to fund childcare etc. for instance i earn just under 1000 a month, but my Daughters school fees alone are 700. i know so many ppl who are much better off not working that working but that should be the way should it really?
I am somewhat heartened by your response and look forward to the consultation period.
However, I would also like to know whether the issue of formula manufacturers having forums of their own will be addressed and also the disingenuous helplines that claim you can ring them for breastfeeding advice and speak to their trained midwives/health workers - who will often persuade you to use formula, even if your baby is only a few days old (we tested them on Mumsnet). The forums are clearly posted on by representatives of formula companies - posing as mothers - to perpetuate the "you mustn't let anyone make you feel guilty" message, which is part of their marketing strategy and discourages open debate about the risks of artificial feeding. It's a good way to get round the infant formula promotion ban in place in the UK, but I honestly believe that advice about infant feeding in general ought not to be found via formula company websites. Far better that it's left to independent sites such as Mumsnet.
Also, formula companies won't even give out information about their own products - so why should they be able to perpetuate these myths and muddy the waters surrounding this most important time in a baby's development. After all, if we were feeding any other group in society one food for a prolonged period of time as their sole nutrition, it would be far more regulated. As it is, formula doesn't even have to have safe guidelines for its reconstitution printed on the packet in this country, exposing babies to potentially fatal bacteria.
How likely am I to have repeat experience of this if I miscarried in a year, 5 years, 10 years?
a) The A&E waiting room had no loo roll in the toilets, and as I was dripping blood the receptionists went through their own personal handbags to find me their own tissues!
b) The treatment room in a&e had no soap in the loo, and with hands covered in blood I had to come out and ask three different nurses for soap. The best they could do was give me surgical scrub.
c) The used a nithtgown for me to lie of for an internal, and a night gown to cover me because they hadn't enough sheets.
d) A nurse spent 15 mins looking for some gel for my internal
e) They tied a surgical glove around my arm instead of a strap to take my bp
f) They took ages trying out different extention leads to find one that would reach a lamp for my internal.
And another quick question:
a) If Breastfeeding is a priority, why have the two breastfeeding clinics in my area shut down?
Dear Alan, is the Kinder Hotel advert on this thread annoying you as much as it is me?
But back to the serious stuff. How do you propose to solve the problems midwives and mothers have to deal with in continuity in care? I saw seven different midwives with my first, and as a result hired a Doula for my second. Not everyone can afford such a luxury. Why are maternity services so underfunded and why do the midwives have to struggle through a system they know is wrong but can do nothing about?
To pyjamarama - your specific point is I think related to the attempts to ensure Government money for further and higher education is focused remorselessly on the millions of people who have no qualifications at all and where the Leitch Report predicted that we would have serious problems if it wasn't addressed. However, having said that, I am concerned that one of the reasons why so few women end up in senior positions in the NHS is that although our medical schools have more and more women graduates, the system doesn't allow any flexibility at senior level. In one sense this is understandable given that consultants have to be called back out to see patients when problems occur. I am convinced that there is more we can do in relation to the kinds of opportunities we can offer to women coming back into the NHS after maternity leave or any other reason for a break in service. I have talked to our senior clinicians in the Department about this and we will be working on this over the coming period. I'll also look at the specific point you've raised in relation to funding because I can see how counter-productive it is to lose the investment that the tax payer has put into putting the investment in providing you with the skills you have.
A bit of a cheap shot there re the shreddies and kissing.
My question would be how would you encourage mothers to re enter the work place and give them affordable and flexible working arrangements and child care. I know of a number of highly qualified women who have opted out of a career to have children and cannot get back in to the career ladder due to the inflexibility of employers. How would you incentivise them both?
I think the NHS cleaners did treat it as a high priority - when it was inhouse and there was a cleaner with responsibility for a particular area, so they had real pride in keeping their ward spotless.
I have worked in the NHS before and after cleaning became an outsourced area, and it was patently obvious that it was at that point that standards slipped hugely. Cleaning was then just treated as something that someone would pop in and do once per day, rather than the continuous process that could occur before. And anyone who has no feedback or feeling of responsibility for their job, just won't clean to the same standards.
In response to saffy1 and others - as I said to somebody who asked me this yesterday I think Gordon Brown is a serious man for serious times. If you want somebody who will invite the cameras in while he shakes out the shreddies over breakfast he's not your man and he won't be telling how many girls he kissed behind the bike shed. That's not to say that Gordon's not good company - he's just a very private man and he is absolutely focused on the major problems which this country faces. I suppose you wouldn't expect me to say anything other than this, but I really do believe that he's a good man, leading a good government that's doing good things.
My daughter was referrred to the speech and language threrapy service when she was 2 years and 9 months. She had her initial assessment 8 weeks after that, was put on the waiting list, and was given her follow up appointment 13 months after that, when she had already turned 4.
Is this due to a crisis in recruitment or funding? Are there targets for SALT waiting lists?
Why do you have to wait until you are 20 weeks pregnant to get a scan in some parts of the country I'm in Bristol? Mine was at 23 weeks what would have happened if I had needed an abortion, it would have been carried out past the legal limit and everyone would have known I was pregnant as I would have been showing and the emotional trauma I don;t even what to think about it. Will you change policy that every women gets a scan at 12 weeks.
) But both those links seem to take me to the labour party page.
). 
. The waits are too long. Please ensure our children get the help they need before they go to school. 
