East Lancashire's hospitals are overwhelmed, say MPs (From Chorley Citizen)

i do hope that the LT does not ban comments on this story like it did yesterday. there were few comments left before they were all removed - but personally, i saw nothing untoward or insulting about the postings

the issue at east lancs trust is not about A&E admissions as Jones says, nor is it about smoking, drinking or eating fatty foods - this is relevant to the nation as a whole and not exclusive to pendle, burnley, hyndburn and BwD. the issue is with reference to the unusually high death rate whilst under the treatment/care of ELT.

i understand that the CQC has been in and out of these hospitals - and closure of a hospital is not an option but closure of individual wards and removal of key staff is possible. equally, the witholding of operating licences for senior practioners is also an option. i would expect that there are concerted efforts from the inspectorate to challenge existing practices and wherever possible remove senior executive posts and replace with new execs with a better track record in sorting out the critical problems in at the Trust.

i am sure everybody can relate stories about the treatment they, or friends/family has received at local hospitals either as out-patients or admissions - these will be a mixture of good and bad - but the issue here is not about the removal of an ingrowing toe-nail or putting a leg in plaster - it is about patients dying unnecessarily whilst in one of the areas hospital and surely such an investigation and the taking of relevant action can only be a good thing.

Graham Jones says “People tell me often they simply don’t bother going to A&E because the wait is horrendous"

...then clearly they aren't seriously ill enough to warrant going Mr Jones & perhaps pass that on!

Well said Hasslem Hasslem but i'm not sure where you get the patients dying unnecessarily part from...?? I've not seen that statement..

I agree with some of comments relating to people's dietary intake, such a smoking and alcohol, both of which do put pressure on any hospital across the UK.

All we can hope is good comes out of the investigation !

hasslem hasslem wrote:
i do hope that the LT does not ban comments on this story like it did yesterday. there were few comments left before they were all removed - but personally, i saw nothing untoward or insulting about the postings

the issue at east lancs trust is not about A&E admissions as Jones says, nor is it about smoking, drinking or eating fatty foods - this is relevant to the nation as a whole and not exclusive to pendle, burnley, hyndburn and BwD. the issue is with reference to the unusually high death rate whilst under the treatment/care of ELT.

i understand that the CQC has been in and out of these hospitals - and closure of a hospital is not an option but closure of individual wards and removal of key staff is possible. equally, the witholding of operating licences for senior practioners is also an option. i would expect that there are concerted efforts from the inspectorate to challenge existing practices and wherever possible remove senior executive posts and replace with new execs with a better track record in sorting out the critical problems in at the Trust.

i am sure everybody can relate stories about the treatment they, or friends/family has received at local hospitals either as out-patients or admissions - these will be a mixture of good and bad - but the issue here is not about the removal of an ingrowing toe-nail or putting a leg in plaster - it is about patients dying unnecessarily whilst in one of the areas hospital and surely such an investigation and the taking of relevant action can only be a good thing.

Bang on the nail, I would further challenge the statement.
"A spokeswoman for the trust said: “We have benchmark staffing levels and the ability to ensure we can staff across all levels – doctors, nurses and assistants. If we have vulnerable patients we still have the ability to give them one-to-one nursing care."

This is a numbers game, on paper they look like they have the numbers, However the numbers are made up of agency and bank staff, while these people may well be qualified.they are not familiar with the patients on the ward they are covering and that is the difference.As for Jack putting his oar in perhaps he should remember he was in power when the PFI was agreed, not the best deal in the world. I think it spoke volumes when a staff member hung an S.O.S banner outside the hospital. Like many people in the area I have been worried by the amount of times we have heard senior staff roll out the usual statement of lessons will be learnt or we are working with the affected families, Will there be any prosecutions? will any of the senior consultants be called to account and maybe have their competence retested? or will they simply be paid off and given another top job in the NHS. There needs to be a complete transparent investigation with penalties an option.

If its the immigrants for causing the overwhelming number flocking and using the NHS services, then why the hell has the indigenous people of this country let it happen in the first place?

mavrick wrote:

hasslem hasslem wrote:
i do hope that the LT does not ban comments on this story like it did yesterday. there were few comments left before they were all removed - but personally, i saw nothing untoward or insulting about the postings

the issue at east lancs trust is not about A&E admissions as Jones says, nor is it about smoking, drinking or eating fatty foods - this is relevant to the nation as a whole and not exclusive to pendle, burnley, hyndburn and BwD. the issue is with reference to the unusually high death rate whilst under the treatment/care of ELT.

i understand that the CQC has been in and out of these hospitals - and closure of a hospital is not an option but closure of individual wards and removal of key staff is possible. equally, the witholding of operating licences for senior practioners is also an option. i would expect that there are concerted efforts from the inspectorate to challenge existing practices and wherever possible remove senior executive posts and replace with new execs with a better track record in sorting out the critical problems in at the Trust.

i am sure everybody can relate stories about the treatment they, or friends/family has received at local hospitals either as out-patients or admissions - these will be a mixture of good and bad - but the issue here is not about the removal of an ingrowing toe-nail or putting a leg in plaster - it is about patients dying unnecessarily whilst in one of the areas hospital and surely such an investigation and the taking of relevant action can only be a good thing.

Bang on the nail, I would further challenge the statement.
"A spokeswoman for the trust said: “We have benchmark staffing levels and the ability to ensure we can staff across all levels – doctors, nurses and assistants. If we have vulnerable patients we still have the ability to give them one-to-one nursing care."

This is a numbers game, on paper they look like they have the numbers, However the numbers are made up of agency and bank staff, while these people may well be qualified.they are not familiar with the patients on the ward they are covering and that is the difference.As for Jack putting his oar in perhaps he should remember he was in power when the PFI was agreed, not the best deal in the world. I think it spoke volumes when a staff member hung an S.O.S banner outside the hospital. Like many people in the area I have been worried by the amount of times we have heard senior staff roll out the usual statement of lessons will be learnt or we are working with the affected families, Will there be any prosecutions? will any of the senior consultants be called to account and maybe have their competence retested? or will they simply be paid off and given another top job in the NHS. There needs to be a complete transparent investigation with penalties an option.

After having an appointment at Blackburn today, notice board stated consultant away registar on duty. A nurse announced that he was in emergancy,asked what the delay period might be was told it was unknown.Where are the adequate staff to deal with this event, it was not available. Patients opted to rescheduled as advised,due to the unknown delay. What was the cost not to say the inconvieniance to all these patients. You miss an appointment then you are the bad guy,they miss their appointment nothing said. Didnt even get a free parking ticket, as a gesture.

The following text cut & pasted from the NHS Choices website might give some clue as to why East Lancashire hospitals appear to be overwhelmed and have higher mortality rates than hospitals in other areas:-

"If you're from a south Asian background and you live in the UK, you're more likely than people from other communities to have certain health conditions.
This is also the case for some mixed-race people of south Asian descent. The term ‘south Asian’ in these articles refers to anyone of Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Sri Lankan origin. While each of these communities has its own unique culture and background, they all share some common health issues.
People from south Asian communities can be up to six times more likely to have diabetes than the general population. Pakistani women are especially at risk. The death rate from coronary heart disease is higher among south Asian men and women who were born outside the UK than it is among the general population.

Bangladeshi and Pakistani men have much higher rates of smoking. Habits such as smoking bidi or shisha, and chewing paan or gutkha can be harmful, too".

Rimbus wrote:
The following text cut & pasted from the NHS Choices website might give some clue as to why East Lancashire hospitals appear to be overwhelmed and have higher mortality rates than hospitals in other areas:-

"If you're from a south Asian background and you live in the UK, you're more likely than people from other communities to have certain health conditions.
This is also the case for some mixed-race people of south Asian descent. The term ‘south Asian’ in these articles refers to anyone of Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Sri Lankan origin. While each of these communities has its own unique culture and background, they all share some common health issues.
People from south Asian communities can be up to six times more likely to have diabetes than the general population. Pakistani women are especially at risk. The death rate from coronary heart disease is higher among south Asian men and women who were born outside the UK than it is among the general population.

Bangladeshi and Pakistani men have much higher rates of smoking. Habits such as smoking bidi or shisha, and chewing paan or gutkha can be harmful, too".

Agreed, but then the alcohol problems in this country also cause alot of wastage in the UK, so you cant just try pinning this down on one part of the community. Everyone is responsible.

I'd love to comment but it would be more like an explosive rant, and it definately wouldn't be positive about Blackburn Royal Hospital. They don't recognise vulnerable patients even when its explained to them. Very bad experiences mean we fear
using this hospital again....but where else can we go??

Sajdin wrote:

Rimbus wrote:
The following text cut & pasted from the NHS Choices website might give some clue as to why East Lancashire hospitals appear to be overwhelmed and have higher mortality rates than hospitals in other areas:-

"If you're from a south Asian background and you live in the UK, you're more likely than people from other communities to have certain health conditions.
This is also the case for some mixed-race people of south Asian descent. The term ‘south Asian’ in these articles refers to anyone of Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Sri Lankan origin. While each of these communities has its own unique culture and background, they all share some common health issues.
People from south Asian communities can be up to six times more likely to have diabetes than the general population. Pakistani women are especially at risk. The death rate from coronary heart disease is higher among south Asian men and women who were born outside the UK than it is among the general population.

Bangladeshi and Pakistani men have much higher rates of smoking. Habits such as smoking bidi or shisha, and chewing paan or gutkha can be harmful, too".

Agreed, but then the alcohol problems in this country also cause alot of wastage in the UK, so you cant just try pinning this down on one part of the community. Everyone is responsible.

Its not often I agree with you Sajdin but you are absolutely right.

Another factor that costs the NHS millions every year is the children born through consanguineous marriages. The massive health problems they have are unbelievable ...yet it keeps happening & the NHS keeps on treating them.

People have to take responsibility for their health first, we cant expect the NHS to care for us regardless is we still want an NHS in 20years time

Fire Fly wrote:

Sajdin wrote:

Rimbus wrote:
The following text cut & pasted from the NHS Choices website might give some clue as to why East Lancashire hospitals appear to be overwhelmed and have higher mortality rates than hospitals in other areas:-

"If you're from a south Asian background and you live in the UK, you're more likely than people from other communities to have certain health conditions.
This is also the case for some mixed-race people of south Asian descent. The term ‘south Asian’ in these articles refers to anyone of Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Sri Lankan origin. While each of these communities has its own unique culture and background, they all share some common health issues.
People from south Asian communities can be up to six times more likely to have diabetes than the general population. Pakistani women are especially at risk. The death rate from coronary heart disease is higher among south Asian men and women who were born outside the UK than it is among the general population.

Bangladeshi and Pakistani men have much higher rates of smoking. Habits such as smoking bidi or shisha, and chewing paan or gutkha can be harmful, too".

Agreed, but then the alcohol problems in this country also cause alot of wastage in the UK, so you cant just try pinning this down on one part of the community. Everyone is responsible.

Its not often I agree with you Sajdin but you are absolutely right.

Another factor that costs the NHS millions every year is the children born through consanguineous marriages. The massive health problems they have are unbelievable ...yet it keeps happening & the NHS keeps on treating them.

People have to take responsibility for their health first, we cant expect the NHS to care for us regardless is we still want an NHS in 20years time

One for the record books? lol

@ Sajdin...I know, quick, find something to argue about lol!

Fire Fly wrote:
Graham Jones says “People tell me often they simply don’t bother going to A&E because the wait is horrendous"

...then clearly they aren't seriously ill enough to warrant going Mr Jones & perhaps pass that on!

Well said Hasslem Hasslem but i'm not sure where you get the patients dying unnecessarily part from...?? I've not seen that statement..

Nationally, five trusts, including East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, are to be probed because they have had higher than expected mortality rates for two successive years.

that's the bit fire fly - and i can assure you that it is effectively management speak for unneseesary deaths

and as for the nutters going on about immigration being the cause of the investigation - its about death rates - not about being overwhelmed by patient volumes and as someone on here says - most (not all) of the asian people in e.lancs are alcoholics.....that debate you need to keep to yourself.

colchester, tameside, basildon and blackpool (and indeed mid-staffordshire) are not areas known for mass immigration from the indian sub-continent - so don't try and make this an debate about race - IT IS NOT!.....the problems in at ELT are about appalling management by those in charge of running the trust and they can be white, black, brown, red, yellow or polka dot - incompetence is no respecter of colour or creed.

The staff are blame-free in this situation but there is a glaringly obvious reason for the current crisis which is only going to get worse; incompetence and box-ticking at the highest level. I see it on a daily basis when the NHS is denying itself access to the very highly-regarded senior staff it depends on because finance is a higher priority than the health of the public.

These vocational medical staff are found to be 'too expensive' when someone younger and less experienced can be brought in to tick the required boxes that have become sacrosanct to those in 'managerial' positions. Your health and your prognosis is of infinitely less concern to the current key-holders than the need to make figures look good.

I can't put anything specific in the public domain at the moment regarding the current situation but in the next five weeks, something that will end up being cataclysmic to our hopes for the NHS in East Lancs will hit us with the force of a tsunami. And it's not going to be anything like nice.

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:
Graham Jones says “People tell me often they simply don’t bother going to A&E because the wait is horrendous"

...then clearly they aren't seriously ill enough to warrant going Mr Jones & perhaps pass that on!

Well said Hasslem Hasslem but i'm not sure where you get the patients dying unnecessarily part from...?? I've not seen that statement..

Nationally, five trusts, including East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, are to be probed because they have had higher than expected mortality rates for two successive years.

that's the bit fire fly - and i can assure you that it is effectively management speak for unneseesary deaths

and as for the nutters going on about immigration being the cause of the investigation - its about death rates - not about being overwhelmed by patient volumes and as someone on here says - most (not all) of the asian people in e.lancs are alcoholics.....that debate you need to keep to yourself.

colchester, tameside, basildon and blackpool (and indeed mid-staffordshire) are not areas known for mass immigration from the indian sub-continent - so don't try and make this an debate about race - IT IS NOT!.....the problems in at ELT are about appalling management by those in charge of running the trust and they can be white, black, brown, red, yellow or polka dot - incompetence is no respecter of colour or creed.

I see what you're saying, what I have an issue with is the term unnecessary deaths...

Lets say, for argument sake, that the deaths where indeed unnecessary, who would be classing it as such? Surely for such a conclusion only a coroner could say that following investigation?

In which case if the Coroner was saying that on a regular basis, then something would have happened to address that by now.

I've no hesitation in accepting that mistakes can & do happen that result in patients dying but I also can't help but think...the doctors & surgeons etc are required to take risks at times that can often tip the balance. So if we have them too scared to take those risks for fear of litigation or poor mortality rates...then that rate will surely increase would it not??

Re diet etc...poor diet & inherited problems etc all add to a patients risk factors for recovery...so whilst not wholly the issue, it does impact on the rates. We cant blame surgeons or hospital managers for that.

For me, this is one of those issues where I genuinely can't see it being as black & white as painted.

The staff are too blame. All too often problems are passed upwards when incompetent, uncaring, lazy ward staff are directly responsible for neglect on the wards. It isn't rocket science to know when a patient is in pain, has no water, isn't eating etc it's basic common sense. The caring element no longer seems to be present - based on a number of personal experiences.
They took nurse training out of the hospitals and into universities and somehow removed common sense and empathy.
The sooner 'grassroots' staff were held personally accountable for their actions or inactions, the sooner the service will improve.
Stop blaming senior management for all the ills. They do have some responsibilty of course but it wasn't the CEO who left Mrs Smith without water!

Fire Fly wrote:

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:
Graham Jones says “People tell me often they simply don’t bother going to A&E because the wait is horrendous"

...then clearly they aren't seriously ill enough to warrant going Mr Jones & perhaps pass that on!

Well said Hasslem Hasslem but i'm not sure where you get the patients dying unnecessarily part from...?? I've not seen that statement..

Nationally, five trusts, including East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, are to be probed because they have had higher than expected mortality rates for two successive years.

that's the bit fire fly - and i can assure you that it is effectively management speak for unneseesary deaths

and as for the nutters going on about immigration being the cause of the investigation - its about death rates - not about being overwhelmed by patient volumes and as someone on here says - most (not all) of the asian people in e.lancs are alcoholics.....that debate you need to keep to yourself.

colchester, tameside, basildon and blackpool (and indeed mid-staffordshire) are not areas known for mass immigration from the indian sub-continent - so don't try and make this an debate about race - IT IS NOT!.....the problems in at ELT are about appalling management by those in charge of running the trust and they can be white, black, brown, red, yellow or polka dot - incompetence is no respecter of colour or creed.

I see what you're saying, what I have an issue with is the term unnecessary deaths...

Lets say, for argument sake, that the deaths where indeed unnecessary, who would be classing it as such? Surely for such a conclusion only a coroner could say that following investigation?

In which case if the Coroner was saying that on a regular basis, then something would have happened to address that by now.

I've no hesitation in accepting that mistakes can & do happen that result in patients dying but I also can't help but think...the doctors & surgeons etc are required to take risks at times that can often tip the balance. So if we have them too scared to take those risks for fear of litigation or poor mortality rates...then that rate will surely increase would it not??

Re diet etc...poor diet & inherited problems etc all add to a patients risk factors for recovery...so whilst not wholly the issue, it does impact on the rates. We cant blame surgeons or hospital managers for that.

For me, this is one of those issues where I genuinely can't see it being as black & white as painted.

There's no way anyone can get away with that! 'Doctors and surgeons etc are REQUIRED to take risks at times'? NO THEY ARE NOT! Iatrogenic injuries and damages caused through 'taking risks' are there in black and white, despite your protestations to the contrary. We CAN blame surgeons and hospital managers for unacceptably higher than acceptable death rates; it IS black and white. It's as black and white as black and white can be.

What you're arguing is to suggest that a motorway pile-up causing the deaths of 12 people was 'an accident'. No it wasn't. There is ALWAYS a major contributory factor and to let the guilty off by hiding behind the weasel word 'accident' allows this to go on. And on and on and on and on.

itsjaynehere wrote:
The staff are too blame. All too often problems are passed upwards when incompetent, uncaring, lazy ward staff are directly responsible for neglect on the wards. It isn't rocket science to know when a patient is in pain, has no water, isn't eating etc it's basic common sense. The caring element no longer seems to be present - based on a number of personal experiences.
They took nurse training out of the hospitals and into universities and somehow removed common sense and empathy.
The sooner 'grassroots' staff were held personally accountable for their actions or inactions, the sooner the service will improve.
Stop blaming senior management for all the ills. They do have some responsibilty of course but it wasn't the CEO who left Mrs Smith without water!

That's not staff. That's management. The staff can only do what they are told or trained to do. If the people who KNOW what to do and have been trained to do it are binned because someone can do the job for less money, that is a MANAGEMENT matter. And above them, a GOVERNMENT matter. If you can only see the face of the staff member immediately in front of you and try to blame them, that is a lack of knowledge and intelligence on your part.

Fire Fly wrote:

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:
Graham Jones says “People tell me often they simply don’t bother going to A&E because the wait is horrendous"

...then clearly they aren't seriously ill enough to warrant going Mr Jones & perhaps pass that on!

Well said Hasslem Hasslem but i'm not sure where you get the patients dying unnecessarily part from...?? I've not seen that statement..

Nationally, five trusts, including East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, are to be probed because they have had higher than expected mortality rates for two successive years.

that's the bit fire fly - and i can assure you that it is effectively management speak for unneseesary deaths

and as for the nutters going on about immigration being the cause of the investigation - its about death rates - not about being overwhelmed by patient volumes and as someone on here says - most (not all) of the asian people in e.lancs are alcoholics.....that debate you need to keep to yourself.

colchester, tameside, basildon and blackpool (and indeed mid-staffordshire) are not areas known for mass immigration from the indian sub-continent - so don't try and make this an debate about race - IT IS NOT!.....the problems in at ELT are about appalling management by those in charge of running the trust and they can be white, black, brown, red, yellow or polka dot - incompetence is no respecter of colour or creed.

I see what you're saying, what I have an issue with is the term unnecessary deaths...

Lets say, for argument sake, that the deaths where indeed unnecessary, who would be classing it as such? Surely for such a conclusion only a coroner could say that following investigation?

In which case if the Coroner was saying that on a regular basis, then something would have happened to address that by now.

I've no hesitation in accepting that mistakes can & do happen that result in patients dying but I also can't help but think...the doctors & surgeons etc are required to take risks at times that can often tip the balance. So if we have them too scared to take those risks for fear of litigation or poor mortality rates...then that rate will surely increase would it not??

Re diet etc...poor diet & inherited problems etc all add to a patients risk factors for recovery...so whilst not wholly the issue, it does impact on the rates. We cant blame surgeons or hospital managers for that.

For me, this is one of those issues where I genuinely can't see it being as black & white as painted.

http://www.telegraph
.co.uk/health/health
news/9854030/3000-mo
re-patients-have-die
d-needlessly-in-hosp
ital.html

http://menmedia.co.u
k/accringtonobserver
/news/s/1598925_east
-lancashire-hospital
s-to-be-investigated


http://www.bbc.co.uk
/news/health-2135890
5

http://www.newshour2
4.com/2013/02/07/125
222-3,000-more-patie
nts--died-needlessly
-at-five-NHS-hospita
ls--in-the-past-two-
years.htm

the words that consistently appear are "died needlessly" or "unnecessary"

i could include other titles but when you copy stuff from the sun and mail it is then assumed to be some polemic rant.

believe me - i have been told from the horse's (perhaps inappropriate in today's news) that these are unnecessary. - this is not just from a headline press statement.

Chris P Bacon wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:
Graham Jones says “People tell me often they simply don’t bother going to A&E because the wait is horrendous"

...then clearly they aren't seriously ill enough to warrant going Mr Jones & perhaps pass that on!

Well said Hasslem Hasslem but i'm not sure where you get the patients dying unnecessarily part from...?? I've not seen that statement..

Nationally, five trusts, including East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, are to be probed because they have had higher than expected mortality rates for two successive years.

that's the bit fire fly - and i can assure you that it is effectively management speak for unneseesary deaths

and as for the nutters going on about immigration being the cause of the investigation - its about death rates - not about being overwhelmed by patient volumes and as someone on here says - most (not all) of the asian people in e.lancs are alcoholics.....that debate you need to keep to yourself.

colchester, tameside, basildon and blackpool (and indeed mid-staffordshire) are not areas known for mass immigration from the indian sub-continent - so don't try and make this an debate about race - IT IS NOT!.....the problems in at ELT are about appalling management by those in charge of running the trust and they can be white, black, brown, red, yellow or polka dot - incompetence is no respecter of colour or creed.

I see what you're saying, what I have an issue with is the term unnecessary deaths...

Lets say, for argument sake, that the deaths where indeed unnecessary, who would be classing it as such? Surely for such a conclusion only a coroner could say that following investigation?

In which case if the Coroner was saying that on a regular basis, then something would have happened to address that by now.

I've no hesitation in accepting that mistakes can & do happen that result in patients dying but I also can't help but think...the doctors & surgeons etc are required to take risks at times that can often tip the balance. So if we have them too scared to take those risks for fear of litigation or poor mortality rates...then that rate will surely increase would it not??

Re diet etc...poor diet & inherited problems etc all add to a patients risk factors for recovery...so whilst not wholly the issue, it does impact on the rates. We cant blame surgeons or hospital managers for that.

For me, this is one of those issues where I genuinely can't see it being as black & white as painted.

There's no way anyone can get away with that! 'Doctors and surgeons etc are REQUIRED to take risks at times'? NO THEY ARE NOT! Iatrogenic injuries and damages caused through 'taking risks' are there in black and white, despite your protestations to the contrary. We CAN blame surgeons and hospital managers for unacceptably higher than acceptable death rates; it IS black and white. It's as black and white as black and white can be.

What you're arguing is to suggest that a motorway pile-up causing the deaths of 12 people was 'an accident'. No it wasn't. There is ALWAYS a major contributory factor and to let the guilty off by hiding behind the weasel word 'accident' allows this to go on. And on and on and on and on.

I beg to differ re surgeons taking risks. Every time they open someone up there's risk. They come across things that cant be seen until they're in there & no manual on earth can cover such things. In which case, the surgeon has to take calculated risks to overcome.

I don't believe I was arguing anything in my post...debating & considering yes but arguing no. I certainly haven't protested anything, maybe you need to read it again.

@ hasslem hasslem

I just find it absolutely staggering that if all these deaths are in the main unnecessary, that its not been a bigger issue until now. At the end of the day, these trusts have to submit data for these figures to come out & if the NHS is as corrupt as many here claim...then would the data not have been 'tweaked' to show something far better??

Fire Fly wrote:
@ hasslem hasslem

I just find it absolutely staggering that if all these deaths are in the main unnecessary, that its not been a bigger issue until now. At the end of the day, these trusts have to submit data for these figures to come out & if the NHS is as corrupt as many here claim...then would the data not have been 'tweaked' to show something far better??

i hate it when people say what i am about to say - but here goes.

fire fly i know people pretty high up on a national basis within the Dept of Health framework and this is a MASSIVE issue which has been coming for a long time. I was told middle of last year that the Mid-Staffs inquiry would blow a major hole into the credibility not just of staffordshire hospital but of the nhs/dept of health in general.

staffordshire was, as they say, just the tip of the iceberg. incompetence is endemic through the organisation at a local and national level. i can tell you some stories - but it would make your toes curl.

the reality is that by the very nature of the cases involved the problems associated with individual trusts can "go away" if you get my drift. it is only by the extremely concerted efforts of some dead patients relatives and a refusal to take "NO" for an answer that led to the chaos at mid-staffs being exposed and investigated.

like any sane person - i sincerely hope that this week's publication represents day zero and that plans are put in place to prevent such incompetence happening again - but it will take a long time for the recommendations to be implemented - but at least now the incompetence can be investigated and criminal prosecutions can be pursued in future cases.

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:
@ hasslem hasslem

I just find it absolutely staggering that if all these deaths are in the main unnecessary, that its not been a bigger issue until now. At the end of the day, these trusts have to submit data for these figures to come out & if the NHS is as corrupt as many here claim...then would the data not have been 'tweaked' to show something far better??

i hate it when people say what i am about to say - but here goes.

fire fly i know people pretty high up on a national basis within the Dept of Health framework and this is a MASSIVE issue which has been coming for a long time. I was told middle of last year that the Mid-Staffs inquiry would blow a major hole into the credibility not just of staffordshire hospital but of the nhs/dept of health in general.

staffordshire was, as they say, just the tip of the iceberg. incompetence is endemic through the organisation at a local and national level. i can tell you some stories - but it would make your toes curl.

the reality is that by the very nature of the cases involved the problems associated with individual trusts can "go away" if you get my drift. it is only by the extremely concerted efforts of some dead patients relatives and a refusal to take "NO" for an answer that led to the chaos at mid-staffs being exposed and investigated.

like any sane person - i sincerely hope that this week's publication represents day zero and that plans are put in place to prevent such incompetence happening again - but it will take a long time for the recommendations to be implemented - but at least now the incompetence can be investigated and criminal prosecutions can be pursued in future cases.

Very true! But if i'm right there were 260 or 270 recommendations made in the Francis report?...I hope to god they don't get lost in translation.

Unbelievable that this can go on in this day & age.

A spokeswoman for the trust said: “We have benchmark staffing levels and the ability to ensure we can staff across all levels – doctors, nurses and assistants. If we have vulnerable patients we still have the ability to give them one-to-one nursing care.

............ Is this spokeswoman on hallucinogenicis? ..... or is it just one of the many high paid managers with 'head up arse syndrome'?

Sajdin wrote:

Rimbus wrote:
The following text cut & pasted from the NHS Choices website might give some clue as to why East Lancashire hospitals appear to be overwhelmed and have higher mortality rates than hospitals in other areas:-

"If you're from a south Asian background and you live in the UK, you're more likely than people from other communities to have certain health conditions.
This is also the case for some mixed-race people of south Asian descent. The term ‘south Asian’ in these articles refers to anyone of Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Sri Lankan origin. While each of these communities has its own unique culture and background, they all share some common health issues.
People from south Asian communities can be up to six times more likely to have diabetes than the general population. Pakistani women are especially at risk. The death rate from coronary heart disease is higher among south Asian men and women who were born outside the UK than it is among the general population.

Bangladeshi and Pakistani men have much higher rates of smoking. Habits such as smoking bidi or shisha, and chewing paan or gutkha can be harmful, too".

Agreed, but then the alcohol problems in this country also cause alot of wastage in the UK, so you cant just try pinning this down on one part of the community. Everyone is responsible.

You complain about alcohol every time but is it because of your concern over the welfare of others or because your religion makes you intolerant of another culture?

My feeling is that it's the latter.

shytalk and jack daniels - please keep your own racist agenda off these pages. this article has nothing to do with race whatsoever.

Fire Fly wrote:

Chris P Bacon wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:
Graham Jones says “People tell me often they simply don’t bother going to A&E because the wait is horrendous"

...then clearly they aren't seriously ill enough to warrant going Mr Jones & perhaps pass that on!

Well said Hasslem Hasslem but i'm not sure where you get the patients dying unnecessarily part from...?? I've not seen that statement..

Nationally, five trusts, including East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, are to be probed because they have had higher than expected mortality rates for two successive years.

that's the bit fire fly - and i can assure you that it is effectively management speak for unneseesary deaths

and as for the nutters going on about immigration being the cause of the investigation - its about death rates - not about being overwhelmed by patient volumes and as someone on here says - most (not all) of the asian people in e.lancs are alcoholics.....that debate you need to keep to yourself.

colchester, tameside, basildon and blackpool (and indeed mid-staffordshire) are not areas known for mass immigration from the indian sub-continent - so don't try and make this an debate about race - IT IS NOT!.....the problems in at ELT are about appalling management by those in charge of running the trust and they can be white, black, brown, red, yellow or polka dot - incompetence is no respecter of colour or creed.

I see what you're saying, what I have an issue with is the term unnecessary deaths...

Lets say, for argument sake, that the deaths where indeed unnecessary, who would be classing it as such? Surely for such a conclusion only a coroner could say that following investigation?

In which case if the Coroner was saying that on a regular basis, then something would have happened to address that by now.

I've no hesitation in accepting that mistakes can & do happen that result in patients dying but I also can't help but think...the doctors & surgeons etc are required to take risks at times that can often tip the balance. So if we have them too scared to take those risks for fear of litigation or poor mortality rates...then that rate will surely increase would it not??

Re diet etc...poor diet & inherited problems etc all add to a patients risk factors for recovery...so whilst not wholly the issue, it does impact on the rates. We cant blame surgeons or hospital managers for that.

For me, this is one of those issues where I genuinely can't see it being as black & white as painted.

There's no way anyone can get away with that! 'Doctors and surgeons etc are REQUIRED to take risks at times'? NO THEY ARE NOT! Iatrogenic injuries and damages caused through 'taking risks' are there in black and white, despite your protestations to the contrary. We CAN blame surgeons and hospital managers for unacceptably higher than acceptable death rates; it IS black and white. It's as black and white as black and white can be.

What you're arguing is to suggest that a motorway pile-up causing the deaths of 12 people was 'an accident'. No it wasn't. There is ALWAYS a major contributory factor and to let the guilty off by hiding behind the weasel word 'accident' allows this to go on. And on and on and on and on.

I beg to differ re surgeons taking risks. Every time they open someone up there's risk. They come across things that cant be seen until they're in there & no manual on earth can cover such things. In which case, the surgeon has to take calculated risks to overcome.

I don't believe I was arguing anything in my post...debating & considering yes but arguing no. I certainly haven't protested anything, maybe you need to read it again.

You can beg all you like but your views there form the foundation of all the ills of the current NHS. Since you don't know enough about the service, I respectfully suggest you remove yourself from this thread.

'Every time they open someone up there's risk'! There's absolutely no need for that. The only time that could possibly apply is in the A&E dept. Everywhere else, the patient's been road-mapped prior to surgery so the medics know EXACTLY what they are going in to. That's the 'manual' you claim doesn't exist on earth, right there.

M Foster wrote:
Hospitals overwhelmed? I wonder how that happened? Might it be that we have imported millions of unwanted and unneeded immigrants over the past 4 or 5 decades? The same ones that are having very high birthrates, bringing in once eradicated diseases and increased birth defects due to inbreeding, etc.

Thanks mainly, but not now exclusively, to the likes of Mr Straw and the traitorous party he represents who have successfully set about the colonisation of the UK by Third Worlders? It stands to reason that `nursing' staff from that section, particularly on low wages, are far less likely to have any empathy for, or understanding of, sick and particularly,old people, needing special care who come from another race or culture. It cannot be the same as looking after your own kind, particularly when personal needs have to be met.

Added to all that is the reduced quantity and quality of front line nursing staff (whilst more target-seeking `suits' have been introduced by successive governments) with profitable chunks of the NHS hived off to private enterprise. Yes, we know people are living longer but they are generally more healthy and, but for the foregoing disasters foisted on the service, there would have been plenty of resources to care for OUR sick.

Excellent post, I agree with every word.

@ Chris P Bacon

You know nothing about 'my knowledge' of the NHS or otherwise & you clearly have no idea about whats entailed in surgery or the pre surgery 'road mapping' as you call it.

FACT - at this hospital trust...they don't operate in A&E. In exceptionally rare cases where a patient is too unstable to be moved to theatre, a necessary procedure may have to be performed there to stabalise them but its very indeed since all major trauma's for this area go to Preston.

Secondly....provide a quote from any any surgeon who will state that when they open a patient up...they know exactly what they're getting...as you insist. Fact - you can't.

If the world of surgery was as 'black & white' as you state...nobody would ever die from complications known or unforeseen...because as you say, as they know exactly what they're getting so complications of any kind simply wouldn't exist.

hasslem hasslem wrote:
shytalk and jack daniels - please keep your own racist agenda off these pages. this article has nothing to do with race whatsoever.

I never brought it up and it wasn't racist, so keep your halfwitted comments to yourself.

People of East Lancashire I just wanted to start by saying that I am not happy to keep reading arguments on this site that involve discussions about race, immigration, culture and ethnicity. We are all equals in this world. We are all made differently for a reason. Why don’t we just celebrate diversity and learn to live in peace and harmony. What a dull place the world would be if we all looked the same. We need to come together and unite as one to tackle what is a very deep rooted and serious problem with regards to our health care provision. This is what is really at the heart of these discussions.

Well what can I say! I read the comments from the article this week with regards to the Francis Report. I will have to agree with what Hasslem Hasslem said yesterday about the fact that these comments had been removed. I too was very disappointed in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph (LET). The LET has to realise that the public need to be able to have their say. You removed some very honest, genuine and none malicious comments and replaced them by a video clip of the Francis Report. That is what I would call “punching below the waste”. If you continue to do this then the public will lose confidence in you. I am now questioning whether your intentions are honourable or not! Whose side are you on? I remember when one of your reporters was invited to the Trust to help to build relationships between the Trust and the reporters. This was because you were making negative comments about the Trusts performance in your articles. I would say that you were actually reporting the truth! You were carefully placed in a room in the Emergency Department Seminar Room right out of the way of what was really going on. The manager who was assigned to you was given careful instructions to make sure that you did not see anything. You had no idea that patients were stacked up on corridors a few steps away from where you were seated because the Emergency Department was so full. Were you that “naïve” that you couldn’t see what was really going on. This was your prime opportunity to "expose" the truth.

Now let’s get back to the discussions surrounding this article. I have to say that VicLou has hit the nail on the head! I couldn’t have put it better myself! I notice that this spokeswoman has been very careful not to be named. She has obviously put her “rose tinted” glasses back on and has jumped back in her cupboard. After all, she must be living in a cupboard if she thinks that what she has written remotely resembles the truth. I felt so strongly about what she had written that I felt compelled to fight back. Staffing levels in most areas within the trust are at bare minimum, and often “unsafe”. I was not surprised that the Trust was named as one of the Trust’s where the mortality rates are much higher than the national average. Some wards are running with 1 Registered Nurse and 1 Health Care Assistant with between 20 – 25 sick patients to care for. This often happens on the night shifts within the Medical Division. When the nurses object to this they are often told that it is “tough” and that they will just have to get on with it. Royal Blackburn Hospital now runs and completely relies on Bank Staff and Agency Staff and if these shifts are not covered then the patients suffer. The front line staff often cover extra shifts above and beyond what is expected of them. However, morale is so low now that most staff cannot stomach being there above their 37.5 hours per week. When I read the Staffordshire Report I could see that ELHT Hospitals was just like Staffordshire. The ELHT Trust bosses were just better at hiding it for much longer. I welcome the fact that the Francis Report will be making recommendations to ensure that staff will be expected to speak out. Several of the managers within the Trust don’t live in the area and therefore do not have a vested interest in how the Trust is run. It doesn’t affect them or their loved ones because the services that they use where they live are much more superior to ours. I will give you a good example of this fact. We have inherited a band of “autocratic” managers from Blackpool Hospitals who are insistent and adamant that “we have to do things the Blackpool way”. Well look where that has got us! Blackpool is one of the 5 named Trusts that are under investigation too. I hasten to say I rest my case!!!

I have to say that the behaviour that is being displayed by the Senior Managers and Directors of the ELHT have nothing to do with the demographics of the population. We all know as a result of “cutting corners” that patients have been put at risk and have died as a result. I could give you several examples of this fact. The Trust have just been very good at covering things up. They blind relatives with “medical jargon” to justify “unexplained deaths”. What do patients’ being “dumped on corridors to wait for beds” have to do with the lifestyle of the population? Again, ELHT senior managers are trying to hide behind another set of statistics to justify their failings. They have hidden behind the Noro Virus outbreak, the Flu outbreak and now they are trying to hide behind the lifestyles of the population argument. How deceitful is that! They are so “predictable”. What they fail to realise is that the truth always comes out in the end. Staffordshire is a prime example of that fact. In ELHT nurses and doctors have spoken about their experiences where they have”missed a vital clue” because they have been so severely understaffed. Unfortunately in ELHT this is a frequent occurrence. It is inevitable that if the staffing levels are not adequate then patient care will suffer. The Trust is “breaking people’s hearts”. Staff morale is at an all time low because of this fact. The frontline staff go home on a daily basis racked with guilt. This is not what they have signed up for. The managers of ELHT are too busy saving their own jobs and creating new ones for their “family members” and “best friends” to actually care about how their behaviour has impacted on the people of East Lancashire. I made comments to this fact a few days ago on this website and my comments were removed. This is because “the truth hurts”. My comments were not rude or malicious. I don’t work that way. I am a very well educated professional. I just purely highlighted one area within the Trust as an example where there was a duplication of senior mangers, and gave a break down and calculation of their salaries and their performance. This money spent on these high wages could be put to better use. This money would be better spent on employing more front line staff as opposed to spending it on managers that don’t care and don’t make a difference.

When I initially started to read these articles I could not hold my tongue any longer. I had to speak out. We have all tried to tackle things the “diplomatic” way, but this has got us nowhere. When I was thinking about choosing a name to identify myself on the LET website the most obvious name for me was the “Protector”. I am here to protect the well-being of the people of East Lancashire and the front line staff. Gordon Birtwistle, instead of campaigning for the bringing Accident and Emergency Services back to Burnley, please can you start by campaigning to have the failing Executives, Directors and Managers removed from East Lancashire Hospitals. If these managers remain in post the Trust will still under perform even if the services are reinstated at Burnley General Hospital. MP’s like Gordon Birtwistle and Jack Straw need to see what is really going on and accept that some of the people will have died in East Lancashire Hospitals as a result of negligence. When I say “negligence”, I don’t mean negligence at the hands of the front line staff I mean negligence at the hands of the Executives, the Directors and the Senior Managers. After all, they are the ones that decide how, where and when the money is spent with regards to front line staff and patient care.

To Summarise:
1. In ELHT we have sick patients stacked on corridors in order to “cheat” and achieve the 4 hour Accident and Emergency waiting times. They call this their “Surge Policy”; I call it “unsafe and dangerous”. It basically means that they move the “problem” i.e. a high volume of patients from one department to another. These patients may I hasten to add are “sick” and are very often lined up on a corridor with no allocated nurse to care for them. The front line staff have been threatened with “disciplinary action” if they refuse to accept these additional patients, even though they have highlighted that it is not safe. The frontline staff have been to their unions to complain about this fact. I am sure that if you contacted The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Unison that they would confirm this fact. Other staff have also spoken to their Governing Bodies for advice, The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and the General Medical Council (GMC).
2. Batches of sick patients are moved from the Medical Assessment Unit to the Medical Wards to wait for a vacant bed. These patients wait unsupervised on a trolley with no allocated nurse, no privacy and no dignity. This process is repeated all day and every day at Royal Blackburn Hospital. This behaviour is all in the name of achieving Foundation Trust Status.
3. ELHT is severely understaffed. The experienced staff are leaving in “droves” and are being replaced by cheaper and less experienced staff.
4. Experienced and credible front line staff are in and out of consultation fighting for their jobs. If they are unsuccessful in competing during an interview they are moved to a lower band which impacts on their morale, their career, their performance, their finances and their love of the job. Hence, this impacts on patient care.
5. ELHT Trust runs on agency staff and bank staff.
6. ELHT is run by managers who are like “androids”. They
are “heartless”.
7. ELHT has an invisible Chief Executive who gives the staff the impression that he is just “baby sitting” the Trust until he is ready to retire. You have more chance of securing a one to one meeting with David Cameron and President Obama than you have of securing a one to one meeting with him. He doesn’t live in East Lancashire, so therefore does not have a vested interest in the Trust. After all, if he gets sick he will cared for by the Trust nearer to where he lives who I hasten to add are not in the bottom 5 in the country.
8. Qualified and experienced teams are being replaced by cheaper “non clinical” and ineffectual teams which basically spells “false economy”!!!
9. A duplication of Senior Managers and a reduction in front line staff
10. A total mismanagement of resources
11. Damaged and irreparable morale of the front line staff
12. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) need to undertake unannounced visits to the Trust instead of announced visits. If they did this in the first instance the failings of the Trust would have been uncovered and exposed much sooner.


Finally I would like to urge the people of East Lancashire to stand up and be counted. It is time to form a more militant approach. Enough is enough. Please don’t leave it until you or your loved ones become a mortality statistic of ELHT. We need to join the relatives of Staffordshire and challenge the Trust. I am really proud of the Staffordshire campaigners for not being “blinded” by the truth. They didn’t accept the reasons why their loved ones had died. People of East Lancashire you need to join them in this fight and campaign for a complete overhaul of the management of East Lancashire Hospitals. The current managers have enjoyed a very well paid and “lucrative lifestyle” on the back of failure for long enough. They have had their chance and failed. ELHT managers are so far removed from “reality” that they have failed to get the basics right. It is time to bring in a breed of managers that actually perform and actually do care.


Warm Regards,
The Protector

Fire Fly wrote:
@ Chris P Bacon

You know nothing about 'my knowledge' of the NHS or otherwise & you clearly have no idea about whats entailed in surgery or the pre surgery 'road mapping' as you call it.

FACT - at this hospital trust...they don't operate in A&E. In exceptionally rare cases where a patient is too unstable to be moved to theatre, a necessary procedure may have to be performed there to stabalise them but its very indeed since all major trauma's for this area go to Preston.

Secondly....provide a quote from any any surgeon who will state that when they open a patient up...they know exactly what they're getting...as you insist. Fact - you can't.

If the world of surgery was as 'black & white' as you state...nobody would ever die from complications known or unforeseen...because as you say, as they know exactly what they're getting so complications of any kind simply wouldn't exist.

I take great offence at you claiming I have 'no idea about what's entailed in surgery' since it is my job to know EXACTLY what's entailed in surgery.

Throwing in the word 'FACT' (and your poor grammar) doesn't lend it some credibility, it makes you look like you are desperately hoping to con the gullible.

I've advised you earlier to drop out of this thread and your comments about road mapping indicate just how much you know about the subject.

Your archaic views may have had some validity in the 1950s but those days are long gone and best left in the past; trying to exhume those days to bolster your argument on this issue is you tying a millstone around the neck of an organisation that's struggling as it is.

Protector wrote:
People of East Lancashire I just wanted to start by saying that I am not happy to keep reading arguments on this site that involve discussions about race, immigration, culture and ethnicity. We are all equals in this world. We are all made differently for a reason. Why don’t we just celebrate diversity and learn to live in peace and harmony. What a dull place the world would be if we all looked the same. We need to come together and unite as one to tackle what is a very deep rooted and serious problem with regards to our health care provision. This is what is really at the heart of these discussions.

Well what can I say! I read the comments from the article this week with regards to the Francis Report. I will have to agree with what Hasslem Hasslem said yesterday about the fact that these comments had been removed. I too was very disappointed in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph (LET). The LET has to realise that the public need to be able to have their say. You removed some very honest, genuine and none malicious comments and replaced them by a video clip of the Francis Report. That is what I would call “punching below the waste”. If you continue to do this then the public will lose confidence in you. I am now questioning whether your intentions are honourable or not! Whose side are you on? I remember when one of your reporters was invited to the Trust to help to build relationships between the Trust and the reporters. This was because you were making negative comments about the Trusts performance in your articles. I would say that you were actually reporting the truth! You were carefully placed in a room in the Emergency Department Seminar Room right out of the way of what was really going on. The manager who was assigned to you was given careful instructions to make sure that you did not see anything. You had no idea that patients were stacked up on corridors a few steps away from where you were seated because the Emergency Department was so full. Were you that “naïve” that you couldn’t see what was really going on. This was your prime opportunity to "expose" the truth.

Now let’s get back to the discussions surrounding this article. I have to say that VicLou has hit the nail on the head! I couldn’t have put it better myself! I notice that this spokeswoman has been very careful not to be named. She has obviously put her “rose tinted” glasses back on and has jumped back in her cupboard. After all, she must be living in a cupboard if she thinks that what she has written remotely resembles the truth. I felt so strongly about what she had written that I felt compelled to fight back. Staffing levels in most areas within the trust are at bare minimum, and often “unsafe”. I was not surprised that the Trust was named as one of the Trust’s where the mortality rates are much higher than the national average. Some wards are running with 1 Registered Nurse and 1 Health Care Assistant with between 20 – 25 sick patients to care for. This often happens on the night shifts within the Medical Division. When the nurses object to this they are often told that it is “tough” and that they will just have to get on with it. Royal Blackburn Hospital now runs and completely relies on Bank Staff and Agency Staff and if these shifts are not covered then the patients suffer. The front line staff often cover extra shifts above and beyond what is expected of them. However, morale is so low now that most staff cannot stomach being there above their 37.5 hours per week. When I read the Staffordshire Report I could see that ELHT Hospitals was just like Staffordshire. The ELHT Trust bosses were just better at hiding it for much longer. I welcome the fact that the Francis Report will be making recommendations to ensure that staff will be expected to speak out. Several of the managers within the Trust don’t live in the area and therefore do not have a vested interest in how the Trust is run. It doesn’t affect them or their loved ones because the services that they use where they live are much more superior to ours. I will give you a good example of this fact. We have inherited a band of “autocratic” managers from Blackpool Hospitals who are insistent and adamant that “we have to do things the Blackpool way”. Well look where that has got us! Blackpool is one of the 5 named Trusts that are under investigation too. I hasten to say I rest my case!!!

I have to say that the behaviour that is being displayed by the Senior Managers and Directors of the ELHT have nothing to do with the demographics of the population. We all know as a result of “cutting corners” that patients have been put at risk and have died as a result. I could give you several examples of this fact. The Trust have just been very good at covering things up. They blind relatives with “medical jargon” to justify “unexplained deaths”. What do patients’ being “dumped on corridors to wait for beds” have to do with the lifestyle of the population? Again, ELHT senior managers are trying to hide behind another set of statistics to justify their failings. They have hidden behind the Noro Virus outbreak, the Flu outbreak and now they are trying to hide behind the lifestyles of the population argument. How deceitful is that! They are so “predictable”. What they fail to realise is that the truth always comes out in the end. Staffordshire is a prime example of that fact. In ELHT nurses and doctors have spoken about their experiences where they have”missed a vital clue” because they have been so severely understaffed. Unfortunately in ELHT this is a frequent occurrence. It is inevitable that if the staffing levels are not adequate then patient care will suffer. The Trust is “breaking people’s hearts”. Staff morale is at an all time low because of this fact. The frontline staff go home on a daily basis racked with guilt. This is not what they have signed up for. The managers of ELHT are too busy saving their own jobs and creating new ones for their “family members” and “best friends” to actually care about how their behaviour has impacted on the people of East Lancashire. I made comments to this fact a few days ago on this website and my comments were removed. This is because “the truth hurts”. My comments were not rude or malicious. I don’t work that way. I am a very well educated professional. I just purely highlighted one area within the Trust as an example where there was a duplication of senior mangers, and gave a break down and calculation of their salaries and their performance. This money spent on these high wages could be put to better use. This money would be better spent on employing more front line staff as opposed to spending it on managers that don’t care and don’t make a difference.

When I initially started to read these articles I could not hold my tongue any longer. I had to speak out. We have all tried to tackle things the “diplomatic” way, but this has got us nowhere. When I was thinking about choosing a name to identify myself on the LET website the most obvious name for me was the “Protector”. I am here to protect the well-being of the people of East Lancashire and the front line staff. Gordon Birtwistle, instead of campaigning for the bringing Accident and Emergency Services back to Burnley, please can you start by campaigning to have the failing Executives, Directors and Managers removed from East Lancashire Hospitals. If these managers remain in post the Trust will still under perform even if the services are reinstated at Burnley General Hospital. MP’s like Gordon Birtwistle and Jack Straw need to see what is really going on and accept that some of the people will have died in East Lancashire Hospitals as a result of negligence. When I say “negligence”, I don’t mean negligence at the hands of the front line staff I mean negligence at the hands of the Executives, the Directors and the Senior Managers. After all, they are the ones that decide how, where and when the money is spent with regards to front line staff and patient care.

To Summarise:
1. In ELHT we have sick patients stacked on corridors in order to “cheat” and achieve the 4 hour Accident and Emergency waiting times. They call this their “Surge Policy”; I call it “unsafe and dangerous”. It basically means that they move the “problem” i.e. a high volume of patients from one department to another. These patients may I hasten to add are “sick” and are very often lined up on a corridor with no allocated nurse to care for them. The front line staff have been threatened with “disciplinary action” if they refuse to accept these additional patients, even though they have highlighted that it is not safe. The frontline staff have been to their unions to complain about this fact. I am sure that if you contacted The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Unison that they would confirm this fact. Other staff have also spoken to their Governing Bodies for advice, The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and the General Medical Council (GMC).
2. Batches of sick patients are moved from the Medical Assessment Unit to the Medical Wards to wait for a vacant bed. These patients wait unsupervised on a trolley with no allocated nurse, no privacy and no dignity. This process is repeated all day and every day at Royal Blackburn Hospital. This behaviour is all in the name of achieving Foundation Trust Status.
3. ELHT is severely understaffed. The experienced staff are leaving in “droves” and are being replaced by cheaper and less experienced staff.
4. Experienced and credible front line staff are in and out of consultation fighting for their jobs. If they are unsuccessful in competing during an interview they are moved to a lower band which impacts on their morale, their career, their performance, their finances and their love of the job. Hence, this impacts on patient care.
5. ELHT Trust runs on agency staff and bank staff.
6. ELHT is run by managers who are like “androids”. They
are “heartless”.
7. ELHT has an invisible Chief Executive who gives the staff the impression that he is just “baby sitting” the Trust until he is ready to retire. You have more chance of securing a one to one meeting with David Cameron and President Obama than you have of securing a one to one meeting with him. He doesn’t live in East Lancashire, so therefore does not have a vested interest in the Trust. After all, if he gets sick he will cared for by the Trust nearer to where he lives who I hasten to add are not in the bottom 5 in the country.
8. Qualified and experienced teams are being replaced by cheaper “non clinical” and ineffectual teams which basically spells “false economy”!!!
9. A duplication of Senior Managers and a reduction in front line staff
10. A total mismanagement of resources
11. Damaged and irreparable morale of the front line staff
12. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) need to undertake unannounced visits to the Trust instead of announced visits. If they did this in the first instance the failings of the Trust would have been uncovered and exposed much sooner.


Finally I would like to urge the people of East Lancashire to stand up and be counted. It is time to form a more militant approach. Enough is enough. Please don’t leave it until you or your loved ones become a mortality statistic of ELHT. We need to join the relatives of Staffordshire and challenge the Trust. I am really proud of the Staffordshire campaigners for not being “blinded” by the truth. They didn’t accept the reasons why their loved ones had died. People of East Lancashire you need to join them in this fight and campaign for a complete overhaul of the management of East Lancashire Hospitals. The current managers have enjoyed a very well paid and “lucrative lifestyle” on the back of failure for long enough. They have had their chance and failed. ELHT managers are so far removed from “reality” that they have failed to get the basics right. It is time to bring in a breed of managers that actually perform and actually do care.


Warm Regards,
The Protector

I can only assume that your previous comments on a similar story were removed (as were mine) for being too honest!!! Perhaps the LET could not cope with the response from many who have experienced the 'mismanagement' of this trust!!!

I agree that the problems in this trust don't relate to the state of health/race/ethnicit
y/social class because there are many 'non failing trusts' in poorer/more diverse areas than East Lancs!

I completely agree with everything you have written and cant help but think we probably shared similar experiences when it comes to ELHT!!!

Its unfortunate that many experienced, hardworking staff have left that trust either through their own choice or they have been 'pushed out'!!

Lets hope that instead of 'reinventing the wheel' time and time again, redeploying incompetent managers elsewhere etc ceases and something constructive and beneficial can be done to improve the lives of patients, visitors and frontline staff working there!!!

...You 'advised me earlier to drop out of this thread'...who exactly do you think you are?? That is beyond arrogant.

If you don't like my comments, ignore them. I wasn't originally discussing them with you anyway. I'm very happy for people to join in but not in the aggressive way that you do & the need to resort to insults.

Regardless of any insults you throw, how many capitals you use etc to make your point...you've steered well clear of my asking you to quote just one surgeon who says that surgery has no risks.

Given 'you know EXACTLY what surgery involves because it's your job'...odd you'd push that point simply because...prior to any surgery a patient has to be consented.

Part of the consent process involves explaining to a patient about all the benefits & percentages of the known complications of their surgery. Percentages because nobody but God could say to you with any certainty that those complication won't arise.

A document which notes all this is then signed by both the surgeon & the patient...each retain a copy.

Now if as you say, there are no risks, that process wouldn't exist.

With a patient on an operating table should those complications arise the surgeons job is to overcome where possible & yes, that will involve taking some risks. Its a situation where split second decisions have to be taken...that in itself is a risk.

It's fairly obvious what has happened; the NHS has been sacrificed on the altar of the almighty pound. In stark but simplistic financial terms, we had a strata of nurses who had evolved into their positions by hard work, experience and vocational choice. Over time, this strata were on wages of around £40,000 p.a. In order to save money, MORE managers and financial 'experts' were parachuted in (at great cost) to decide in their infinite wisdom that the £40,000 nurses' jobs could be done by someone on £20,000. A huge saving there but at a much, much bigger cost. The swathe of £40,000 nurses left or are in the process of being kicked out of the NHS and taking with them their experience and knowledge. The £20,000 nurses have considerably less experience, knowledge and, in most cases, the sort of hard-won understanding that comes with years and years of hard graft and long hours.

Short-term savings at a colossal cost already being counted but not yet fully understood.

Fire Fly wrote:
...You 'advised me earlier to drop out of this thread'...who exactly do you think you are?? That is beyond arrogant.

If you don't like my comments, ignore them. I wasn't originally discussing them with you anyway. I'm very happy for people to join in but not in the aggressive way that you do & the need to resort to insults.

Regardless of any insults you throw, how many capitals you use etc to make your point...you've steered well clear of my asking you to quote just one surgeon who says that surgery has no risks.

Given 'you know EXACTLY what surgery involves because it's your job'...odd you'd push that point simply because...prior to any surgery a patient has to be consented.

Part of the consent process involves explaining to a patient about all the benefits & percentages of the known complications of their surgery. Percentages because nobody but God could say to you with any certainty that those complication won't arise.

A document which notes all this is then signed by both the surgeon & the patient...each retain a copy.

Now if as you say, there are no risks, that process wouldn't exist.

With a patient on an operating table should those complications arise the surgeons job is to overcome where possible & yes, that will involve taking some risks. Its a situation where split second decisions have to be taken...that in itself is a risk.

Please don't be telling me what happens between patient and doctor like I don't know. That's beneath contempt.

Fire Fly wrote:
...You 'advised me earlier to drop out of this thread'...who exactly do you think you are?? That is beyond arrogant.

If you don't like my comments, ignore them. I wasn't originally discussing them with you anyway. I'm very happy for people to join in but not in the aggressive way that you do & the need to resort to insults.

Regardless of any insults you throw, how many capitals you use etc to make your point...you've steered well clear of my asking you to quote just one surgeon who says that surgery has no risks.

Given 'you know EXACTLY what surgery involves because it's your job'...odd you'd push that point simply because...prior to any surgery a patient has to be consented.

Part of the consent process involves explaining to a patient about all the benefits & percentages of the known complications of their surgery. Percentages because nobody but God could say to you with any certainty that those complication won't arise.

A document which notes all this is then signed by both the surgeon & the patient...each retain a copy.

Now if as you say, there are no risks, that process wouldn't exist.

With a patient on an operating table should those complications arise the surgeons job is to overcome where possible & yes, that will involve taking some risks. Its a situation where split second decisions have to be taken...that in itself is a risk.

Petty point scoring there my friend. He's beaten you hands down there. D the decent thing and bow out with what's left of your dignity intact.

@ Patty B

Hahaha I have all of my dignity don't you fret!

Have a read again of his replies to me...lots of hot air, insults & argument telling me how wrong I am...but not one piece of credible (or even clinical) information is given addressing my points to explain why he's so adamant i'm wrong having the views I do.

That's not what i'd call beating me hands down :)

You lot did nothing when Burnley General was closed, did you think the people would just stop getting ill, overwhelmed, the area who now use this hospital means their is no wh it can cope we are getting a 3rd class service and have to trave 15 miles to get it, they are closing the mental health wards in Burnley and Blackburn and opening one in Blackpool how can people from the colne area travel all that way to visit relatives many of them elderly, even talk about virtual wards for pity sake, it will get worse next year when the floodgates open yet again, we cannot let anymore people in, we are an Island with no jobs no houses and no money left in the pot, wake up and sort it quick

hasnutts wrote:
I'd love to comment but it would be more like an explosive rant, and it definately wouldn't be positive about Blackburn Royal Hospital. They don't recognise vulnerable patients even when its explained to them. Very bad experiences mean we fear
using this hospital again....but where else can we go??

If your lucky enough to live in Colne, you might have a chance and go to airedale hospital near Keighley.

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:

hasslem hasslem wrote:

Fire Fly wrote:
Graham Jones says “People tell me often they simply don’t bother going to A&E because the wait is horrendous"

...then clearly they aren't seriously ill enough to warrant going Mr Jones & perhaps pass that on!

Well said Hasslem Hasslem but i'm not sure where you get the patients dying unnecessarily part from...?? I've not seen that statement..

Nationally, five trusts, including East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, are to be probed because they have had higher than expected mortality rates for two successive years.

that's the bit fire fly - and i can assure you that it is effectively management speak for unneseesary deaths

and as for the nutters going on about immigration being the cause of the investigation - its about death rates - not about being overwhelmed by patient volumes and as someone on here says - most (not all) of the asian people in e.lancs are alcoholics.....that debate you need to keep to yourself.

colchester, tameside, basildon and blackpool (and indeed mid-staffordshire) are not areas known for mass immigration from the indian sub-continent - so don't try and make this an debate about race - IT IS NOT!.....the problems in at ELT are about appalling management by those in charge of running the trust and they can be white, black, brown, red, yellow or polka dot - incompetence is no respecter of colour or creed.

I see what you're saying, what I have an issue with is the term unnecessary deaths...

Lets say, for argument sake, that the deaths where indeed unnecessary, who would be classing it as such? Surely for such a conclusion only a coroner could say that following investigation?

In which case if the Coroner was saying that on a regular basis, then something would have happened to address that by now.

I've no hesitation in accepting that mistakes can & do happen that result in patients dying but I also can't help but think...the doctors & surgeons etc are required to take risks at times that can often tip the balance. So if we have them too scared to take those risks for fear of litigation or poor mortality rates...then that rate will surely increase would it not??

Re diet etc...poor diet & inherited problems etc all add to a patients risk factors for recovery...so whilst not wholly the issue, it does impact on the rates. We cant blame surgeons or hospital managers for that.

For me, this is one of those issues where I genuinely can't see it being as black & white as painted.

http://www.telegraph

.co.uk/health/health

news/9854030/3000-mo

re-patients-have-die

d-needlessly-in-hosp

ital.html

http://menmedia.co.u

k/accringtonobserver

/news/s/1598925_east

-lancashire-hospital

s-to-be-investigated



http://www.bbc.co.uk

/news/health-2135890

5

http://www.newshour2

4.com/2013/02/07/125

222-3,000-more-patie

nts--died-needlessly

-at-five-NHS-hospita

ls--in-the-past-two-

years.htm

the words that consistently appear are "died needlessly" or "unnecessary"

i could include other titles but when you copy stuff from the sun and mail it is then assumed to be some polemic rant.

believe me - i have been told from the horse's (perhaps inappropriate in today's news) that these are unnecessary. - this is not just from a headline press statement.

Death in transit is another good excuse also.

Protector I would like to shake your hand for speaking out, it's a shame you cannot saying this to the bullying management, the comment that was removed if was on parr with this one (the truth) would have no doubt got their backs up. It's a disgraceful culture what happens in that trust, I left a few years ago as I could see which direction nursing was going and I decided it was not for me anymore. My ward manager & colleagues did nothing but grind me down until I quit & then I received a very poor quality reference, which my current manager showed me a year after I started my new job as she said I could have grounds to sue. I'm not that kind of a person so I choose not too. The doctors & nurses do their best with a very poor situation, often staying late or no breaks or toilet breaks on 12.5 hour shifts. Please don't comment unless you have first hand knowledge. Personally I think management should be lined up in public & made accountable!

Find the truth wrote:
Protector I would like to shake your hand for speaking out, it's a shame you cannot saying this to the bullying management, the comment that was removed if was on parr with this one (the truth) would have no doubt got their backs up. It's a disgraceful culture what happens in that trust, I left a few years ago as I could see which direction nursing was going and I decided it was not for me anymore. My ward manager & colleagues did nothing but grind me down until I quit & then I received a very poor quality reference, which my current manager showed me a year after I started my new job as she said I could have grounds to sue. I'm not that kind of a person so I choose not too. The doctors & nurses do their best with a very poor situation, often staying late or no breaks or toilet breaks on 12.5 hour shifts. Please don't comment unless you have first hand knowledge. Personally I think management should be lined up in public & made accountable!

I'm very sorry to hear about your experience. I wholeheartedly agree with you and The Protector.... it is disgraceful!! I too have first hand experience the bullying culture. I bet a few people could probably guess which area you worked in also!!

Lets just hope that something constructive comes of all this and the bullies get kicked out and the trust adopts a better policy for protecting frontline staff!!!

Thank you so much Find the truth. I am sending you a virtual handshake and a hug! I am so sorry to hear that you too have suffered at the hands of the new management regime of East Lancashire Hospitals. I see these "bullying" tactics time and time again in ELHT. Frontline staff being screamed out for refusing to take extra patients that they know that they cannot care for because they are already understaffed and cannot care for the patients that they have already got. Excellent nurses, doctors and other allied healthcare professionals driven out for speaking out.

The managers in ELHT are completely obsessed with targets and achieving Foundation Trust Status. Patients and staff are at the very bottom of a very big list of their own priorities. We have patients that are moved out of warm beds and rooms onto "cold" corridors to wait for a bed so that they do not breach and so the Trust can achieve the 4 hour waiting times. This is what I call "sub standard" health care. I have several friends working oversees now as qualified nurses and doctors because they have lost confidence in the NHS as a result of their experiences at ELHT. My friends have said to me that "they came into the NHS to care, not to be target driven". There are other Trusts out there in the UK that manage to balance achieving targets against delivering high standards of patient care. It can be done. I have friends working in different Trusts up and down the country with the same illnesses and diseases to contend with. Their patients are not dying unnecessarily. I blame ELHT management for the their own high mortality rates and for the loss of excellent front line staff. The Trust Executives, Directors and Senior Managers don't care if they lose good staff. They just replace them with "cheaper" and "less" experienced staff. They then put these savings in their pot so it looks as though they have balanced their books and stayed within budget. This ticks another box on their Foundation Trust Application Form. They call this Cost Improvement Savings (CIP's). This money does not go back into frontline services. It is very sad to think that Find the Truth and many others have left the Trust as a result of this mismanagement. This "autocratic" style of management is now "entrenched" within the culture of the organisation and will take several years to dilute. I have no confidence in the healthcare provision within East Lancs and as a result I discourage my family members and friends from using it. They now access other NHS Trusts under the Patient's Choice system.

Sunday Politics on BBC1 today (10th February 11:00-12:25) about an hour into the programme talked about the damming Francis Report for Staffordshire Hospital and the 5 other Trusts that are now under investigation as a result of their high mortality rates; ELHT being one of them. They had visited Salford Hospitals for this programme and the difference was very visible. This has just "blown the debate wide open". Salford has the same illnesses and diseases to cope with. There are deprived areas in Salford too; however, they are managing to run a safe and happy ship. Their death rates are one of the lowest in the country. They are within the top 5 performing Trusts in the country and as a result have been awarded Foundation Trust Status. This programme defined the reasons why a Trust will have high death rates. The reasons were just as I had identified in my comments yesterday.

1. Inadequate staffing levels leading to unnecessary deaths
2. Lack of leadership by a stable Chief Executive
3. Underperformance of the Directors and Senior Managers
4. Poor leadership by insufficient managers

They interviewed a Consultant at Blackpool Hospitals as part of this programme who said that he had compared Blackpool's staffing levels with Salford's and that "Salford's staff to patient ratio was much higher than the levels at Blackpool". In ELHT the staffing levels seem to mirror the staffing levels of Blackpool. After all, we have inherited failing senior managers from Blackpool who insist that we do things the "Blackpool way". Eileen Dover made an extremely important point yesterday and stated that these failing managers should be pushed out of the NHS, not moved on to the next Trust. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens. They just move on and reinvent the wheel in another NHS Trust. They should be stopped!

Finally, I just want to point out a very important factor, a Coroner decides whether a death is expected or not. This is not the decision of some "lay person off the street". ELHT's Mortality statistics will have been collated from the Coroner Reports too. If a death is unexpected it has to be reported to the Coroner by law. It is then up to the Coroner to decide whether the deceased should undergo a Post Mortem or not. The cause of death is then reported. The deceased cannot be laid to rest if the Coroner is not satisfied. Therefore, a Death Certificate can only be granted if the Coroner is satisfied with his/her findings. If the Coroner feels that the death could have been avoided he will report this fact in his/her findings. This is why ELHT could not cover their tracks. It has nothing to do with them being "open and honest" about their mortality rates; they were caught out with the other 4 failing Trusts. ELHT are legally bound by these processes of reporting a death. Hence, if the Coroner is not satisfied he/she will not issue release of the body. As a result the deceased would not be allowed to be laid to rest.

In ELHT patients have died because the front line staff have been too stretched and too busy to notice that their condition has deteriorated. I have witnessed this time and time again. The on-call doctors in their minimal numbers have been too busy to get to the patients that have started to deteriorate and by the time they are able to get there the patients have deteriorated beyond saving. These are just a couple of examples of many from ELHT. This is particularly bad "out of hours" when the staffing levels are reduced by the management to save money. This includes nights, weekends, evenings and Bank Holidays. The Urgent Care Centre at Blackburn is closed after 1am every night to save money too. All of the remaining patients are then "shunted" over to the already very busy and very "overstretched" Emergency Department. This is yet another "cost cutting" exercise. I was speaking to a doctor a few weeks ago who was doing a Locum Shift at Royal Blackburn Hospital and he said "I have never worked in a hospital as bad as this, and I will never come back here to do another shift again because it is a complete shambles". "He said that it was like going back a hundred years because the processes are so primitive". I was extremely embarrassed because he was right. I had to agree with him because that is exactly how I and others feel. This is why I will not support my family and friends to access ELHT health services. I hasten to add that I don't use our services neither. I too access safer Trusts when I need to.

I need to be clear about one thing, I do not blame the Front Line Staff. You are "powerless" and have absolutely no control over where the money is spent. I know that you all go home after your shift feeling guilty and wishing that you could have done things differently. I know that some of you often cry because a life has been lost that could have been saved if the staffing levels were adequate. You can only work with the rationed resources that you have been awarded by the managers of ELHT. Try to hold on in there! Your patients and colleagues need you. We have to hope and pray that as a result of this investigation that things will get better and the Executives, Directors and Senior Managers will be shown the door!

I welcome this investigation and I hope that "heads will roll" as a result of it's findings.


Warm Regards,
The Protector

Protector .... I too would like to shake your hand for speaking out .... I bet there are many frontline staff reading this that agree with everything you say and welcome your honesty!! I wonder if any of the directors/senior managers are embarrassed to read your comments or whether they are too hard faced to even care!!!!

Chris P Bacon wrote:

itsjaynehere wrote:
The staff are too blame. All too often problems are passed upwards when incompetent, uncaring, lazy ward staff are directly responsible for neglect on the wards. It isn't rocket science to know when a patient is in pain, has no water, isn't eating etc it's basic common sense. The caring element no longer seems to be present - based on a number of personal experiences.
They took nurse training out of the hospitals and into universities and somehow removed common sense and empathy.
The sooner 'grassroots' staff were held personally accountable for their actions or inactions, the sooner the service will improve.
Stop blaming senior management for all the ills. They do have some responsibilty of course but it wasn't the CEO who left Mrs Smith without water!

That's not staff. That's management. The staff can only do what they are told or trained to do. If the people who KNOW what to do and have been trained to do it are binned because someone can do the job for less money, that is a MANAGEMENT matter. And above them, a GOVERNMENT matter. If you can only see the face of the staff member immediately in front of you and try to blame them, that is a lack of knowledge and intelligence on your part.

I have seen the staff face to face. i have seen them all clustered around their little desks gossiping. I have heard their very productive use of shift time discussing their social lives and patients confidential issues to be overheard by anyone in earshot.
What training is needed to show common sense? How many qualifications does it need to see someone has no water, is in pain, hasn't bathed.....I could go on.
Surely if people haven't got that basic level of common sense and empathy for their patients what the hell are they doing in the job????

?

Please dont believe that the longer you have been a nurse the better the care, i have witnessed nurses of 20 plus years showing little sympathy towards pain etc, as they know they wont be held accountable. I have worked with nurses of 20 plus years who cannot work a computer, these same nurses use old outdated clinical skills as they dont access the online training. These same nurses of 20 plus years like to belittle anyone new to nursing who happens to have a degree. 3 years at university for nurse training = 50% at uni and 50% on placement. Whilst on placement the student nurse SHOULD be taught the way to be a "proper" nurse but spends most of their student time waiting for the nurse of 20 plus years to stop moaning about how hard done by they are and how nursing is not how it used to be. I have had fellow students leave the course because they challenged what they saw or heard whilst on placement, yes they felt bullied and feared they would never get a job once qualified. To many staff at ELHT get away with picking a choosing when to do the right thing and are never held accountable. If you get on with your ward manager and a complaint is brought against you its swept away, if your not in the circle of friends then be prepared to write a statement and have an IR one raised against you. These nurses should be encouraging students to flourish not put them off nursing for the rest of their lives.

In the office in which I work there are five people of whom I am afraid. Each of these five people is afraid of four people (excluding overlaps), for a total of twenty, and each of these twenty people is afraid of six people, making a total of one hundred and twenty people who are feared by at least one person. The company, in other words, is a pyramid of potential panic, ready to topple when someone whispers, “Games up.”