Medical Mystery

Name me a medical condition that affects 2% of the UK population, that has no NICE or SIGN guidance, that only offers only a partial screen and bloods on the NHS, that has only one medicine approved for treatment for the RCP, (which was never formally trialled, but was 'grandfathered by the FDA) and where doctors who attempt to give their patients other medications that work for them are reported by other doctors to the GMC.
Stuck? Watch this video or if you don't have time, here's the transcript.
Can anyone explain this?

Chocolate Survival Rate on Wards

It's always amused me that in the Harry Potter books, the cure for depression caused by Dementors (horrible creatures that suck all the happiness out of you) is chocolate. A group of doctors have taken this a step further and conducted a study on the median survival rate of a chocolate on a ward, whether Quality Street was preferable to Roses and who were the biggest guzzlers. I'll leave you to find out the answers here.
Now where did I put that Tunnock's teacake?

Why so Shy?

Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone. I've polished off the last of the chocolates and felt like a class traitor for watching Jools Holland on Hogmanay instead of BBC Scotland's offering, but it's their own fault. Can anyone at the Beeb please explain to me why it is that when all the Scottish/Irish bands in the world are congregating on Glasgow for the Celtic Connections Festival, that they can't invite some half decent bands on their channel? Brewery/ piss up etc?

Anyway, enough of that. As it is, I would like to ask the Beeb something else of a little more import. This article cropped up on Christmas Eve re a nursing home in Halifax called Elm View. It's the usual depressing story of neglect/sub-standard care. What is unusual about it, highly unusual, is that the care owner and the care manager got 12 month jail sentences.

Whoah! 12 months? When did that last happen? I think it was Mid Stafford and that took a massively raised mortality rate for that to occur. So was this a major news article?

Well, no. It stayed on the regional page, quite low down the Beeb's list of articles and by Boxing Day it was buried. I kept an eye on it in case it was just a matter of them garnering more details, but no. It hasn't re-appeared since. The local paper has more detail on it here.

So what's going on? The Beeb and others have revelled in stories of neglect of old people in homes and how the Can't Quite Cope Care Commission have been toothless tigers. Now they've found their teeth and it's banished to a back page? Isn't this what you wanted and isn't this a good sign that finally the law is starting to take the care of old people seriously? What's going on?

Answers on a postcard please.

I Think Continually of Those..

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

(Stephen Spender)

Rest in peace, Madiba.

Haw Naw...

Haw naw,  h-aah n-aah (Scots). A different outcome was expected.

I thought that someone would have announced this by now, but nobody has. So just in case you missed it, Prof Steve Field has become the chief inquisitor, - sorry inspector of GPs for re-validation.

Right, I'll go and get my coat now...

The Importance of Being Honest

A solitary truth-seeker who is unsupported either by tradition or community will degenerate into

mere eccentricity, eventually to be intimidated and crushed by the organized power of
 untruthfulness.

Read this and more here. Courtesy of Cybertiger in the
 comments section at Dr Aust's Spleen.
 Relevant in science, Stafford and politics too I might add.


Update: yes, I've noticed the wonky font, but left it because it added
 to the message. 

Good Lord! Crowding the House..

I said in my previous post that health politics had become interesting again. Well, hard on the heels of the Lewisham victory, another interesting thing has happened. Jeremy Purvis has become a Lord. He was one of a batch of three Scots consisting of Annabel Goldie (former leader of Scottish Conservatives, quite fun and tells naughty jokes when she's had a sherry, or so I'm told) Willie Haughey (gave £1million to Labour) and the aforesaid Jeremy. So who is he, I hear you ask?

Well, first of all, he hasn't been a leader, not even of the Lib Dems of which he was a member in Scotland. Nor is he rich (not as far as I am aware). And he's not even 40 yet; he's a bit young to be in fair round belly with good capon lined. But he is known for other things. He put forward the bill 'Dignity in Dying' in Scotland a couple of years before Margo McDonald took up the standard. And at first I thought this was why he had been made a lord. But recently he has become involved with an organisation called Reform Scotland. This is a sister to  Reform  in London. Both are rather ill disguised right wing think tanks although they both insist that they are independent. Jeremy Purvis's involvement at the moment is with a campaign called 'Devo Plus' which basically doesn't want to go the whole way on independence, but would like greater fiscal powers for Scotland (though they are rather vague on what those would be. I am not sure if Jeremy Purvis is a full member of Reform Scotland; when I clicked on his name on their website, no biography came up..

 But devolution isn't the only thing Reform Scotland has an opinion on. They produced  this report 'Patient Power' in 2009. In it they support abolishing GP boundaries, setting up tariffs, creating a purchaser/provider split in the Scottish NHS, ending the ban on commercial companies taking over GP practices and introducing insurance based (sic) funding for health. (Apparently National Insurance doesn't count; they mean private insurance, but I think they don't  want to use the 'p' word). Oh, and to have not-for-profit commissioning trusts acting as honest brokers. Sound familiar?

Now this is all rather predictable from Reform Scotland (and from Reform).  What would you expect when its director and head of research were both political advisors for the Scottish Conservatives? What isn't so predictable is Jeremy Purvis' involvement in it, let alone being sent down to the Lords. And I wonder just exactly what is going on, but I feel it's nothing good. This is going to be one to watch for the Scottish NHS rather than England. And watch we will. As one of the less friendly churches in the neighbourhood said above its door,' You have been photographed twice and identified.'..