First Aid

So yesterday saw the nation's media descend on Stafford Hospital to sensationalise report on the fallout from the publication of the public inquiry into the more than expected deaths at the hospital between 2005 and 2008. Midlands Today were still there when I left tonight.

The report made it as top story on the national news and warranted a statement from David Cameron in parliament. This public inquiry comes on the back of an independent inquiry that didn't seem to generate quite the same headlines but drew many of the same conclusions:
That the hospital was mismanaged in pursuit of financial targets.
That understaffing, lack of supervision, and low morale led to poor standards of care.
The public inquiry -insisted on by Cure the NHS- is rumoured to have cost around £15 million. Surely money that could have been better spent supporting the NHS than on a seeming campaign to nail somebody to a cross.

Even after the publication of the report, that stated that it was a failure of the system and not any single individual, Cure the NHS are still calling for people to be prosecuted. Again, surely their efforts could be better spent supporting their local hospital rather than trying to run it into the gutter.

I fully realise that some of the stories surrounding the scandal are terrible and that changes needed to be made to ensure these kind of things do not happen again. However changes have been made since that first inquiry, indeed the latest inspection, in June 2012, found that "all standards were being met". The hospital are much more transparent about it's failings -although doesn't appear willing to strongly defend itself to the media- and have worked hard to recruit new doctors and nurses, despite the reputation gained.

Even a district general hospital is also a pretty big place and failings in one aspect do not necessarily reflect the working of everyone in the hospital. my own experiences have been nothing but hassle free and Laura's Outpatient care has also been good.
Although I can't speak for all departments, I know that Biochemistry has been praised for the work we do and passed all of the accreditation processes we have to go through. We ALL work hard to help patients and nobody tries to do a bad job.

Sorry about the rant but I'm getting fed up of still being singled out as a hospital with no recognition of the hard work that goes on. So let's take the reforms on board and move forward positively.
Now is the time to get behind the local hospital to support it and ensure that the people of Stafford and around get to keep their hospital.