NHS Deficits

Furthur on the subject of deficits, we hear via this week's Panorama, that the budget deficit for the NHS runs to approximately £800 million and counting, vastly exceeding Patricia Hewitt's pronouncements of 2005 that the projected deficit for this period should amount to some £200m.

OK, so this won't help us a great deal when it comes to limiting local authority and government interference in our lives, not least because the "Every Child Matters" programme is to be predominantly funded through local authority budgets, on which I have still failed to get any details. However, this huge NHS deficit will soon result in yet more staff cuts and more pressure on resources, which could quite reasonably be expected to lead to more difficulties for the ptb with information-sharing and the database.

And Amen to that, I say, for not only does information-sharing most often involve breaching doctor/nurse/other practioner/client confidentiality, it also means that professionals disseminate the responsibility, which in turn makes the Climbie disaster more, rather than less, likely because none of them feel ultimately responsible for any one particular case. (OK, so I have forgotten my very recent source for this rather significant point...I think it was the British Medical Journal...will go and look it up.)

So, all in all, I won't be replying to the letter I received today from our local Primary Health Trust, demanding to know which school Ds goes to. The health services they offer through the schools are pretty paltry anyway, you can access them from any friendly GP, high street optician or dentist, and I fail to see what difference it makes to any clinical treatment my son may require that they should know what school he does or does not attend.