Government targets mean bunions get treated before cancer, says top surgeon (Socialized Medicine!)

The Sunday Telegraph ^ | March 10, 2002 | Joe Murphy and Lorraine Fraser

[Timesink]

Government targets mean bunions get treated before cancer, says top surgeon
By Joe Murphy and Lorraine Fraser
(Filed: 10/03/2002)

A SENIOR NHS consultant has accused the Government of forcing doctors to treat patients with minor problems such as bunions before those with more serious illnesses like cancer in order to meet targets for waiting lists.

Richard Rawlins, an orthopaedic surgeon and chairman of the Eastern Region Consultants' and Specialists' Committee, said pressure on consultants to meet official targets was stretching surgical ethics to the limit.

In a letter to Sir Peter Morris, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Mr Rawlins said surgeons were being forced to distort clinical priorities in ways that "may be unethical".

His letter, which has been passed to The Telegraph, reflects widespread concern among consultants that they are being forced to adopt Labour's political commitments at the expense of medical standards.

The Telegraph has seen a second letter from another surgeon accusing the Government of "bullying" managers and doctors to meet targets.

Allegations that hospitals sometimes delay treatment of seriously ill people were made in a National Audit Office report last year, but Mr Rawlins is the first surgeon to break ranks and protest openly. In his letter to Sir Peter, he calls for guidance to be issued to doctors.

"We can all recognise patients in serious pain from arthritic hips who are kept awake at night and whose every movement is agony," he wrote.

"And we can distinguish them from patients with bunions which are painful but by and large can be coped with.

"Yet, as you know, we not infrequently have to treat the `long waiter' before the more urgent case - quite irrespective of clinical need.

"I feel that we simply cannot go on like this. I am quite prepared to accede to managerial instruction and treat the long waiters before patients in greater clinical need, but none of them will give me the instruction clearly and in writing. Surgical ethics are being severely compromised.

"Managers seem to hope that I will stretch my medical ethics to breaking point and beyond without them having to accept responsibility."

Mr Rawlins, who works in Bedford, said yesterday: "When people are in great pain or have the distress of having a suspected tumour they should be treated before others with lesser complaints.

Instead, people requiring upper abdominal surgery have their treatment delayed so that simple procedures can be carried out to lower the waiting-list figure. For a person with cancer, even a week's delay causes great additional suffering."

Vanessa Bourne, who chairs the Patients' Association, praised Mr Rawlins for making his concerns public. James Johnson, the chairman of the Joint Consultants' Committee, said many surgeons would sympathise with his views.

Labour's election manifesto pledged that no patient should wait longer than 18 months for surgery. Critics say figures are "fiddled" by bringing forward simple operations at the expense of more difficult procedures, regardless of patients' sufferings.

Dr Liam Fox, the Conservative health spokesman, said: "One of the main reasons why morale has been destroyed is that Tony Blair and Alan Milburn are forcing doctors and nurses to put their own survival above the suffering of patients."

[Timesink]

Do I really need to add a comment here?

[gcruse]

If you want me to know what 20 char limits means, yes ;)

[JRandomFreeper]

Government housing, government schools, government cheese. None of those are any good. Why should government medicine be any different?

/john

[Pistias]

Three people you don't tell what to do: a mother with her kids, a mechanic with your car, and a doctor with his patient.

[Timesink]

If you want me to know what 20 char limits means, yes ;)

Heh ... You can't type long snarky comments in the "Keywords" field any more. They have to each be 20 characters or less, or the software won't let you post.

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to and descriptions of the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[Timesink]

Actually, government butter was pretty damn good. Back in the early- to mid-80s when they were trying to get rid of the stuff like crazy, my grandmother would always go downtown and pick up a load of butter and cheese when they offered it every month, just because it was free (you had to be poor or over 65, and she wasn't poor; still isn't, come to think of it). The cheese was all right, but the butter was very tasty.

[Timesink]

I try to remember the Bump Lists when I can, but to be honest, the current list is too disorganized and out-of-control. There's no standardization in naming conventions, half the bump lists don't have any descriptions, there are many duplicates, etc.

[hauerf]

And to think Great Britain is just in the early stages of HillaryCare.

[logic101.net]

Any time you take an industry and put it under control of an outside agency (usually government) service deteriorates. In this case people are dieing when they don't have to. But to the controling agency, it is all a numbers game. What those numbers represent never is taken into account.

MARK A SITY
http://www.logic101.net/

[Rustynailww]

but it's free to all.