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Gross Food provided by NHS - SkyNews

NHS accused of Deceiving  Public about Quality and Choice of Meals served to Patients.
Hospital Food: Patients Reject NHS Claims
4:39am UK, Tuesday 27 Aug 2013
http://news.sky.com/story/1133521/hospital-food-patients-reject-nhs-boasts

       Most hospitals claim they are serving five-star food to patients - but a survey reveals many patients disagree. Three in five hospitals give themselves the highest possible rating for the standard of their food, figures show. Out of 156 NHS hospital trusts in England 95 trusts rated the quality of the meals they served to patients as five-out-of-five. But the Campaign for Better Hospital Food (CBHF) said that the figures were a dramatic contrast to an independent Care Quality Commission survey. That survey showed that half of patients were dissatisfied with hospital food.

    The CBHF has renewed its calls for introducing mandatory hospital food standards on quality and nutrition. Alex Jackson, coordinator of the Campaign for Better Hospital Food, said: "It is time for the Government to come clean about the sorry state of hospital food in England and set mandatory standards for patient meals. "This would only involve extending an existing policy which has seen it set mandatory standards for prison food and food served in Government departments, to go alongside those that already exist for school food. "Surely patients recovering in hospital have the same right to good food as Government ministers, school kids and prisoners?"
      A Department of Health spokesman said: "There are many fantastic examples of really good food across the NHS thanks to forward-thinking and innovative staff. "But we recognise that there is too much variation across the country - that is why we have implemented a tough new inspection programme. "With our army of thousands of patient assessors we will drive up standards and reduce variation in hospital food." A spokeswoman for Patient Concern said: "The findings of this study are shocking. Over 10 years ago, the Department of Health recruited Patient Concern to join a team, headed by Loyd Grossman, to improve catering throughout the NHS.
    "We spent tens of millions of pounds commissioning celebrity chefs to create new nutritious dishes, had special snack packaging designed for patients who didn't want full hot meals and developed some glossy menus. "Patient Concern pointed out that unless all hospitals advised the Department of Health of the cost of implementing our plan and got ring-fenced budgets to do the job, we were wasting our time. Of course, we were ignored. Hence today's depressing report."

NHS Direct wants to End NHS 111 (Non Emergency) Phone service Contracts

http://news.sky.com/story/1121638/nhs-direct-plans-withdrawal-from-111-helpline

29 July 2013

Photo: NHS Direct

      NHS Direct, which provides the non-emergency phone line in nine regions of England, said it wanted to quit its contracts because they were too expensive. It has found that the cost of providing the service, where staff give the public non-emergency health advice, exceeded the contract price. NHS Direct is now seeking a "planned withdrawal" from the deals after projecting a £26m deficit for the coming financial year. Its chief executive Nick Chapman said: "We will continue to provide a safe and reliable NHS 111 service to our patients until alternative arrangements can be made by commissioners.

    "Whatever the outcome of the discussions on the future, patients will remain the central focus of our efforts, together with protecting our staff who work on NHS 111 to ensure that the service will continue to benefit from their skills and experience." The announcement came as an undercover investigation revealed "serious failings" in the system, with staff shortages, long waits for callers and unnecessary ambulance call-outs. In Channel 4's Dispatches programme NHS Undercover, one call centre manager was secretly filmed admitting the service was exposed at the weekends. "We had a very bad service. Still realistically on the weekends we still are unsafe. We don't have the staff to deal with the calls that are coming in," the worker said.

     Reporters posed as trainee call handlers and filmed secretly at centres run by the private health care company Harmoni, which has a third of the hotline contracts in England. They found many patients had to wait longer than 10 minutes to hear back from a clinician and some workers with no medical training were filmed giving medical advice to the journalists. A spokesman for Harmoni told the programme: "We provide a clinically safe service. We expect all staff to only provide advice according to their role and their level of training and take a zero-tolerance approach to any breach. "Our audits show no evidence of widespread poor practice. Our staffing levels are extremely robust with around one clinical adviser to every four health advisers.

     "While it has been acknowledged that NHS 111 services generally did not get off to a good start, we and other providers have successfully delivered substantial improvements including recruiting 180 more advisers." The 24-hour phone line replaced NHS Direct as the number to call for non-emergency care but has been dogged by problems since its inception. Patients complained about unanswered calls, poor advice and calls being diverted to the wrong part of the country. Doctors claimed its "problematic roll-out" had left patients not knowing where to turn and it has also been blamed for fuelling the current A&E crisis. Earlier this month, the Health Select Committee attacked ministers for the "premature" launch, claiming it was done with little understanding about how it would affect the wider NHS.

     NHS Direct worked on the 111 pilot, which was based on a cost of £13 per call to cover staff salaries and other costs. But it says local health commissioners refused to pay more than £7.80 per call when the first 111 contract was awarded in the North East of England. NHS Direct initially won 11 of the 46 regional contracts for the hotline but pulled out of two before they were even launched. It now wants to axe the remaining nine in Buckinghamshire, East London and the City, South East London, Sutton and Merton, West Midlands, Lancashire and Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire and Somerset. A company spokesman said it had encountered "significant problems" when it launched the three contracts in the north west of England and West Midlands in March.

     She said the calls took "twice as long as expected" and as a result, NHS Direct did not have "sufficient capacity" to handle all the calls that it received. The firm had worked on the pilot, which was based on a cost of £13 per call to cover staff salaries and other expenses, but local health commissioners refused to pay so much. The NHS Direct board remodeled its costs and decided it could bid based on £7 to £8 per call and was later awarded deals covering 34% of the country. However, its annual report says: "It is now clear that the trust is not able to to provide the 111 service within this lower cost range, and that the 111 contracts that the trust has entered into are financially unsustainable."

     David Cameron's spokesman admitted there had been problems with the hotline's launch but insisted performance and patient satisfaction was now high. "He is confident that we will continue to push up standards and deliver a high level of service for patients across the country," the spokesman said. NHS England blamed the earlier problems on providers not having enough call handling capacity in place but also claimed they had now been resolved. The Department of Health said NHS Direct had "struggled to meet the standards required" but defended the hotline as a whole and vowed it would continue.

     A spokesman said: "There is widespread consensus that NHS 111 is in principle a good idea. "It makes obvious sense that for many patients, accessing the NHS by phone is often the quickest and easiest way to get advice and speak to a doctor or nurse when needed. "So of course it's disappointing that there have been problems with its implementation but these are flaws that can and will be overcome."

Report highlights 13,000 needless deaths across 14 NHS hospital trusts

     Sir Bruce Keogh's investigation will suggest that 14 trusts had higher than average mortality rates- 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/report-out-today-will-highlight-13000-needless-deaths-across-14-nhs-hospital-trusts-8710313.html


      Hospitals are preparing for tough criticism over the thousands of needless deaths that will be revealed in a major report released today. A report conducted by NHS England medical director Professor Sir Bruce Keogh is expected to say that 14 healthcare trusts had higher than expected death rates between 2010 and 2012. It will describe poor care, medical errors and management blunders at the 14 Trusts which have been investigated over high mortality rates. The review has been examining if trusts have already taken action adequate enough to improve care quality or if they require extra support.

      In his review, Sir Bruce will highlight that the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal may not have been an isolated incident. Sir Bruce's investigation indicates that there may have been up to 13,000 needless deaths from across the 14 trusts since 2005. The Prime Minister's official spokesman has suggested that hospital board members could be suspended following care failings. “Clearly there have been examples where patients and families have not received the high quality, compassionate care that it so important,” David Cameron's spokesman said.

     “The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State, and all the Government are deeply, deeply concerned at the evidence of failings in the NHS. “It is important to have undergone the review to get to the bottom of where failings may be occurring. What people can be very clear about is the Government's commitment to that culture of compassion and high quality care. “The Government will continue to take the action that is necessary. “One of the things the Prime Minister said in response to the Francis Inquiry is that a single failure regime would be set up whereby the suspensions of boards can be triggered by failures in care.”

     As part of the Government's response to the Francis report into serious care failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, ministers said that if a hospital is deemed to be failing, the Chief Inspector of Hospitals could initiate a failure regime in which the board could be suspended or the hospital put into administration. Following publication of the public inquiry, Sir Bruce launched an investigation into the 14 other trusts because of their high mortality rates. Nine of the trusts have been “outliers” on the Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR) for two years running and the other five were identified by the Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator (SHMI) as having higher than expected death rates.

    The latest SHMI data, published in April, in which the number of patients who died following admission to hospital is compared with the number who would be expected to die, suggests that as many as 3,000 people may have died needlessly in just one year at the 14 trusts. Researchers said that death rates were deemed to be “higher than expected” at eight of the trusts and “as expected” at the other six of the trusts. The trusts which have been under review are: Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, Medway NHS Foundation Trust, North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

      Reports suggest Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will send teams of expert “hit squads” into 10 of the trusts to turn around hospitals, the Daily Telegraph said. Professor Sir Brian Jarman, one of Sir Bruce's advisers and a mortality data expert, said that he warned health officials over the course of a decade about the high death rates but was ignored. “We felt we were banging against a locked door,” he added. Tories are likely to seize on the findings of the review to attack Labour's handling of the health service. Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham was in charge of the NHS between June 2009 and May 2010. But Ed Miliband, Labour leader defended his party's management of the NHS and said yesterday that he was “proud” of Labour's health record in government.
      Pressed on the role of the then Health Secretary, he said: “I think that's what you get from this Government, which is that they are wanting to politicise some of the problems there have been in the NHS.
“Now, we were very vigilant about dealing with those problems and I am very proud of Labour's record on the NHS.” “The high mortality rates had been known about for years previously and some of the trusts also had other indicators suggesting problems with patient safety. For example, Tameside had failed to implement large numbers of patient safety alerts at the same time as it had high mortality rates. We need a regulator who will investigate when there is one serious indication of a problem, let alone several”.

Do Immigrants Work Harder than Native Borns?

British House of Commons Speaker John Bercow said;

'Migrants are harder workers than Britons': Speaker John Bercow says arrival of Eastern Europeans has benefited Britain
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336050/Migrants-harder-workers-Britons-Speaker-John-Bercow-says-arrival-Eastern-Europeans-benefited-Britain.html#ixzz2VKZxoFYQ

There are some issues that need to be addressed, I think.

1. The effects of Immigration on Economic Status of African-American Men
   A. The employment rate of black men, and particularly of low-skilled black men, fell 5.9 % between 1960 and 2000.
   B. At the same time, their incarceration rate rose 1.3%.
   C. 2.5% reduction in Wage of Black group by, 10% increase in the supply of workers.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0335.2009.00803.x/abstract;jsessionid=B8D425F27E152A061C5E4D43028D3443.d04t01

ARMED Police patrol Luton Public Housing to stop shoot-outs between Gangs

Portrait of modern Britain: ARMED police officers patrol Luton estates to stop dangerous shoot-outs between gangs

• Bedfordshire town suffers nine shootings in four month crime wave
• Paul Foster, 46, murdered in April while teen shot in the back on Saturday
• Police say armed patrols in place for 'foreseeable future' to stop crime
• Officers with guns and dogs will also be increasing searches to find weapons

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324949/Armed-officers-patrol-streets-LUTON-stop-dangerous-shoot-outs-feuding-gangs.html#ixzz2TPT71mY6

         A town at the heart of the usually sedate Home Counties is being patrolled day and night by armed police trying to stop feuding gangs killing each other. In the past four months there have been nine shootings in Luton linked to trouble between youths on the Marsh Farm and Lewsey Farm estates. In the latest attack, early on Saturday morning, a 16 year old young man was shot in the back on Marsh Farm. The police have said he may never walk again.

      A boy walks past an armed officer as police patrol the Marsh Farm Estate after a spate of shootings

    Patrol: Armed police with a dog walk through the Marsh Farm estate in Luton after a spate of shootings in the Bedfordshire town

Response: There have been nine shootings in Luton in recent months in explosive rows between rival gangs

        Reassurance: Bedfordshire Police say the patrols will be in place 'for the foreseeable future' to ensure local people feel safe and to prevent further crime
    On April 9, Paul Foster, 46, known locally as Big Shyne, was shot dead on the Lewsey Farm estate. Armed officers are now patrolling both estates and using stop and search powers in an attempt to find weapons. A £1,000 reward has been offered to anyone who gives the police information that leads to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in gun crime in the town.

   Case: On April 9, Paul Foster, 46, known locally as Big Shyne, was shot dead on the Lewsey Farm estate (pictured)
   Today a jury at Luton crown court is continuing to consider its verdict on a youth accused of driving a car and killing a rival gang member. A Bedfordshire police spokesperson said: 'Armed officers, together with members of the local policing team, for Marsh Farm and Lewsey Farm will be out and about in greater force for the foreseeable future; reassuring the public and ensuring offenders who carry guns or weapons in public are stopped and arrested. 'Patrols, already on the ground in significant numbers, will be doubled and will be using stop and search powers to ensure public safety. They will also be asking the public for help to find the person responsible for Saturday morning’s shooting which left the victim in a serious condition in hospital.'

Twitter Interactions with Alex Nowrasteh about Immigration

He says, Hypothetical is common method to figure out what somebody actually thinks.

@torankrai Asking hypotheticals is a common method to figure out what somebody actually thinks. My mistake for assuming that.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 16, 2013

After I have replied his tweet with a good argument, he replies;

@torankrai Ha, another non response.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 16, 2013

Here, He deals with Hypotheticals;

Wikipedia:
In some cases, the hypothetical scenario might be considered impossible in any sense at all. David Chalmers says that we can imagine that there are zombies, or persons who are physically identical to us in every way but who lack consciousness. However, some argue that zombies are inconceivable: we can no more imagine a zombie than we can imagine that 1+1=3. Others have claimed that the conceivability of a scenario may not entail its possibility.
Dealing in Hypotheticals is a Thought Experiment.

@torankrai What if 10,000 US companies each want to hire 1000 peaceful immigrants to work here on their property. Would use you gov to stop?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

Here, Alex admits he doesn't want Open borders;

@torankrai I am not advocating for open borders, but if you want to rant about what u think I support go ahead.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai The government should have no power to stop peaceful interactions between willing adult parties across borders.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai That's a non-sequitur.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai How is hiring an immigrant to do a job, selling him goods, or renting him an apartment an "invasion"?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai It's not national security when the goal is to keep willing workers from willing employers.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai Tens of thousands of border patrol/immigration agents running check points, inspecting firms, & checking ID isn't Big Gov?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

Here, he is trying to equal Border Security with Big government;

@torankrai You are avoiding the question. You can say "it is called a NATION!" to justify any Big Government program. It's a non-argument.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai That is not an answer. US had open borders 1790-1882, we were not a nation then?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai First, why should Big Government be deployed to stop peaceful & healthy migrants?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

@torankrai So? Let them come so long as peaceful & healthy.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 15, 2013

The following twitter interactions on May 13, 2013

@torankrai No. How do u explain ~$500 billion in remittances annually? Is there a point to your questions?
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

@torankrai If incomes reverse, you will see mo out migration as you've seen w/ US & Mexico post 2006.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

@torankrai Because convergence takes a while. As incomes increase in poor nations, migration should increase to a point then diminish.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

@torankrai Mexico too, is growing at a decent clip.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013

@torankrai Given massive economic growth rates in Africa, India, & China, they might have learned.
— Alexander Nowrasteh (@AlexNowrasteh) May 13, 2013