An expensive gesture?

"Dr. Crippen" posted on Conservative Home over the week-end. As usual, his points were to the point.

On 1st April, 2008, the Countess of Chester Hospital announced proudly that it had completed its deep-cleaning programme. You will remember that the Government set aside £57 million to deep clean all our 1,500 hospitals.

On 3rd April, 2008, the Countess of Chester Hospital was reported in the local newspaper as having closed down two wards due to an outbreak of Clostridium Difficile!

We take no delight in the experience of the hospital, and level no criticism. We have realised for some time that the initiative announced by Bottler, just before he bottled out of the Autumn election, was just a scam to tip fortunes in an election.

It has become apparent since that nearly half of the money was to come from the hospital trust themselves, (at a time when they are making severe cut backs to meet their budgets.) There has also been administrative bungling at various levels, so not all the £30+ million that Government has promised to actually pay has been used.

The Countess of Chester Hospital is to be congratulated on the speed with which they undertook their deep-clean. Many other hospitals are well behind.

As Dr. Crippen reminds us, many doctors were sceptical that the initiative would produce anything worthwhile and saw it as a pre-election gimmick. To reduce the incidence of dangerous germs in our hospitals, - elimination completely seems a dream, will require much more money and over a long period of time. Above all it will require re-organization of hospital services, and the removal of outside encumbrances such as targets. A small amount of money thrown at the problem was always going to be pathetic.