Maidstone CDiff Scandal
C DIFF/MRSA - CAMPAIGNERS CALL FOR END TO STAFF AND BED CUTS
Campaign group Health Emergency today set out and action plan for dealing with the root causes of MRSA and C DIFF in our hospitals in the wake of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells scandal:
* An immediate moratorium on the cuts-driven closure of beds and departments. In the past 18 months nearly 3000 front line beds have been closed across the NHS with many more in the pipeline. Bed occupancy rates are now at unsustainable levels with "hot bedding" rife.
* A review of staffing levels. 25,000 NHS jobs have been lost in the past 18 months with more planned. Hospitals are still using casual agency nursing staff as an alternative to maintaining their permanent staffing at viable levels.
* Removal of private sector companies from the provision of cleaning and other hospital support services. Cleaning has been seen as a soft touch for cuts in the NHS for more than two decades. We are now paying the price.
* An end to the target-led/bonus driven culture of NHS managment. Senior managers get bonuses for ticking boxes rather than delivering patient-led care. Patients are routinely shifted around beds in the early hours of the morning with no cleaning in between as bed capacity is juggled to hit targets.
Geoff Martin, Health Emergency Head of Campaigns, said today:
"Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells was a scandal waiting to happen and I have no doubt that a similar disaster could break out in any region of the country at any time. The appalling backdrop to Maidstone still exists in far too many hospitals today through a combination of inept local management and central Government diktat.
Hot bedding is rife in the NHS because of a shortage of capacity. Staff barely have time to change sheets let alone clean around beds and yet the Government are driving further reductions in bed capacity to hit financial targets and meet their key objective of centralising services, That has to stop and it has to stop now. You cannot deep clean wards if you have no spare capacity to decant patients into and Gordon Brown needs to understand that.
For over two decades hospital cleaning has been seen as a soft touch for cuts and it still is. Cheapskate contractors, paying the lowest wages and cutting every possible corner, have created the conditions for MRSA and CDIff to get a grip on our wards.
Successive governments have turned our hsopitals into infectious time bombs. We would welcome corporate manslaugher proceedings against those found to be responsible but it should not stop at the hospital gates."
Campaign group Health Emergency today set out and action plan for dealing with the root causes of MRSA and C DIFF in our hospitals in the wake of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells scandal:
* An immediate moratorium on the cuts-driven closure of beds and departments. In the past 18 months nearly 3000 front line beds have been closed across the NHS with many more in the pipeline. Bed occupancy rates are now at unsustainable levels with "hot bedding" rife.
* A review of staffing levels. 25,000 NHS jobs have been lost in the past 18 months with more planned. Hospitals are still using casual agency nursing staff as an alternative to maintaining their permanent staffing at viable levels.
* Removal of private sector companies from the provision of cleaning and other hospital support services. Cleaning has been seen as a soft touch for cuts in the NHS for more than two decades. We are now paying the price.
* An end to the target-led/bonus driven culture of NHS managment. Senior managers get bonuses for ticking boxes rather than delivering patient-led care. Patients are routinely shifted around beds in the early hours of the morning with no cleaning in between as bed capacity is juggled to hit targets.
Geoff Martin, Health Emergency Head of Campaigns, said today:
"Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells was a scandal waiting to happen and I have no doubt that a similar disaster could break out in any region of the country at any time. The appalling backdrop to Maidstone still exists in far too many hospitals today through a combination of inept local management and central Government diktat.
Hot bedding is rife in the NHS because of a shortage of capacity. Staff barely have time to change sheets let alone clean around beds and yet the Government are driving further reductions in bed capacity to hit financial targets and meet their key objective of centralising services, That has to stop and it has to stop now. You cannot deep clean wards if you have no spare capacity to decant patients into and Gordon Brown needs to understand that.
For over two decades hospital cleaning has been seen as a soft touch for cuts and it still is. Cheapskate contractors, paying the lowest wages and cutting every possible corner, have created the conditions for MRSA and CDIff to get a grip on our wards.
Successive governments have turned our hsopitals into infectious time bombs. We would welcome corporate manslaugher proceedings against those found to be responsible but it should not stop at the hospital gates."
posted by Geoff Martin at 1:09 AM
1 Comments:
We are running a major C-diff scandal rally in Maidstone next Monday evening (7.30). We would like to talk with team who ran C-Diff demonstration at Westminster last week.
Dennis Fowle 01622 727717
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