And so it continues

Private call handler Harmoni (owned by Care UK) have been sending ambulances to deliver painkillers etc. In fact the South West Ambulance Service (the pilot) have seen an increase in emergency calls, many funnelled to them by Harmoni.

Yet another tory cost saving exercise that will end up costing the NHS more and leaving less for care & treatment

And so it continues

Private call handler Harmoni (owned by Care UK) have been sending ambulances to deliver painkillers etc. In fact the South West Ambulance Service (the pilot) have seen an increase in emergency calls, many funnelled to them by Harmoni.

Yet another tory cost saving exercise that will end up costing the NHS more and leaving less for care & treatment

Thanks to The Kings Fund for a simple animation explaining how the NHS is being reorganised

"No top-down reorganisation" and "cutting red tape and beaurocracy"? Don't make me laugh

Thanks to The Kings Fund for a simple animation explaining how the NHS is being reorganised

"No top-down reorganisation" and "cutting red tape and beaurocracy"? Don't make me laugh

We've been here before with the mis-reporting of statistics at the Leeds Childrens Heart Surgery Dept over the Easter period, mis-reporting driven by an enquiry with a pre-determined conclusion that was so poorly constructed that despite having cost a couple of million pounds was severely criticised by a high court judge and scrapped in its entirety, at the time the Medical Director of the NHS, Sir Bruce Keogh, who initially ordered the immediate suspension of the unit on the strength of the incorrect stats, then stood up and took on the chin the fact that his committee had mis-led him and declared the heart unit no worse, no better than any other in the country - when the correct stats were taken into account.

Well now its happened again and once again Sir Bruce Keogh is going to be forced (probably tomorrow) to heavily criticise news media reporting on extrapolated statistics, quoting as hard facts something that a statistician has used as a "what if" model.

Original Telegraph story here The original story being that 13,000 patients HAVE died needlessly since 2005, a claim which the current government has used to have a pop at the previous incumbents, side-stepping the fact that the numbers have not decreased in the three years of their governing.


What Sir Bruce Keogh is ACTUALLY saying is reported here and whilst he is keeping his tinder dry for another day its fairly obvious that once again he has been seriously mis-quoted, and once again its embarrassed him and his department.


You have to ask yourself why - why do seemingly sensible reporters and editors take a decision to extrapolate tiny chunks of data from huge and complex reports and present them in a sensational manner, making a story where a story does not exist in order to score political points for a party currently in power - is this another example of an extremely compliant media doing the governments propaganda work - and making a bloody good job of it in the process, far better than any government press office could do ?


How much more attacking of the NHS can the NHS stand before, as suggested in that second link, the current incumbents will appear to be doing us all a favour to put the NHS down for its own good like a sick old dog - and how much reporting will be done on Sir Bruce Keogh's denial of the sensational story, this will be the true test, how will The Telegraph report Sir Bruces denial of their "facts" and will Labour grow some balls and shut the clamour for their own heads to roll by pointing out that the mis-reporting seems to have initiated on the other side of the Commons ?

We've been here before with the mis-reporting of statistics at the Leeds Childrens Heart Surgery Dept over the Easter period, mis-reporting driven by an enquiry with a pre-determined conclusion that was so poorly constructed that despite having cost a couple of million pounds was severely criticised by a high court judge and scrapped in its entirety, at the time the Medical Director of the NHS, Sir Bruce Keogh, who initially ordered the immediate suspension of the unit on the strength of the incorrect stats, then stood up and took on the chin the fact that his committee had mis-led him and declared the heart unit no worse, no better than any other in the country - when the correct stats were taken into account.

Well now its happened again and once again Sir Bruce Keogh is going to be forced (probably tomorrow) to heavily criticise news media reporting on extrapolated statistics, quoting as hard facts something that a statistician has used as a "what if" model.

Original Telegraph story here The original story being that 13,000 patients HAVE died needlessly since 2005, a claim which the current government has used to have a pop at the previous incumbents, side-stepping the fact that the numbers have not decreased in the three years of their governing.


What Sir Bruce Keogh is ACTUALLY saying is reported here and whilst he is keeping his tinder dry for another day its fairly obvious that once again he has been seriously mis-quoted, and once again its embarrassed him and his department.


You have to ask yourself why - why do seemingly sensible reporters and editors take a decision to extrapolate tiny chunks of data from huge and complex reports and present them in a sensational manner, making a story where a story does not exist in order to score political points for a party currently in power - is this another example of an extremely compliant media doing the governments propaganda work - and making a bloody good job of it in the process, far better than any government press office could do ?


How much more attacking of the NHS can the NHS stand before, as suggested in that second link, the current incumbents will appear to be doing us all a favour to put the NHS down for its own good like a sick old dog - and how much reporting will be done on Sir Bruce Keogh's denial of the sensational story, this will be the true test, how will The Telegraph report Sir Bruces denial of their "facts" and will Labour grow some balls and shut the clamour for their own heads to roll by pointing out that the mis-reporting seems to have initiated on the other side of the Commons ?