Baby deaths at Shrewsbury NHS

Daily Mail 31.3.22 “UNTIL WE ADMIT THAT THERE’S SOMETHING ROTTEN AT HEART OF NHS, SCANDALS WILL NEVER STOP” by Stephen Glover.

Many NHS doctors & nurses do a great job – but the long-lasting disaster at Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust will happen again somewhere else. There’ll be many needless deaths at the hands of the NHS. We can be sure because it’s happened so often in the recent past. There is secrecy & mendacity (untruthfulness) as NHS authorities try to block inconvenient questions by relatives & journalists. If 2 brave mothers hadn’t had the temerity to take on the might of Shrewsbury NHS we’d almost certainly be unaware of this scandal. There were some 1,200 unnecessary deaths at Stafford Hospital in 2005-2009. The appalling Mid-Staffs NHS Trust fought to keep its disasters behind closed doors. A 2018 report found that in Gosport War Memorial Hospital over 450 lives were shortened by doses of diamorphine given to patients without clinical justification. At Bristol Royal Infirmary in 1990s 35 children died needlessly who would have lived with proper treatment for heart problems. A huge example of NHS failure is contaminated blood. A Public Inquiry is still taking evidence. 1,000s of NHS patients were given blood infected with HIV & hepatitis. As many as 30,000 people may have been infected & some 3,000 have died. In 2020-21 the NHS paid out £2.2 billion for clinical negligence cases – about 1.5% of the entire NHS budget! Former Health Sec. Jeremy Hunt said on Radio 4’s “Today” that if our maternity services were as efficient as Sweden’s, 1,000 lives would be saved every year. Yet they spend only marginally more than us on health care. A 2018 report in “The Lancet” analysed 37.5million patients with 18 most common cancers. UK performed badly in almost every category. Latvia, S. Africa & Argentina had better survival rates for pancreatic cancer, yet spend far less than UK. Romania, Turkey & Malaysia had better survival rates for stomach cancer than us. Healthcare isn’t determined by how much money is put in. It has to do with efficiency. Despite rising resources poured into the voracious NHS it remains cumbersome, bureaucratic & antiquated.

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D. Mail 31.3.22 “JUST 2 MIDWIVES ARE STRUCK OFF & BOSSES WALKED INTO LUCRATIVE NEW POSTS” by Andy Dolan & Liz Hull.

None of the bosses in charge at Shrewsbury & Telford NHS Trust were named & shamed despite presiding over decades of needless mother & baby deaths.

Ann