The misuse of numbers.

[Workingman]

The attacks on the NHS are relentless and the media is using numbers to prove just how crap it is.

So, we get the fact that 120 patients a day are being managed in corridors in 'some' places with 'some' dying prematurely. Horrific eh? But hang on. There are 135 Hospital trusts. Exactly how many are being treated in corridors throughout the NHS on a daily basis and how many die, prematurely or otherwise? Where?

We then get the alarming increase of 50% more hospital admissions than last year. That is a frightening rise... we will all die, probably in corridors. What? It rose from 4.89 per 100,000 to 7.38 per 100,000. The raw numbers, when we take into account 65 million of us over 365 days, are not that many, but a 50% increase.... HELP!

However, if those numbers do not get you the 78% increase in flu cases presenting to GPs surely must. It has gone up from..... 21 per 100,000 to 37.3 per 100,000. That's not 78% of all of us at the doc's with flu, just the increase from some other time. And let us not forget that some cases will be of Manflu or a 'sickie' for a duvet day.

None of this is our fault, though, it's all down to the NHS not being fit for purpose, eh, BBC?

[AliasAggers]

I think the whole question of the NHS operation need a thorough investigation.

All the blame cannot be put on NHS management. It appears that far too many people are turning up at hospital
emergency centres because of foolish and/or irresponsible behaviour, such as alcohol abuse. This can be tolerated
if the numbers are small, but it appears that far too many people are using this option, which results in the present
overcrowding of A & E centres. Until this problem is tackled, I cannot see how the present unsatisfactory situation
can be resolved, unless the people who fall inti this category are refused treatment, which I can't see happening.

[Suff]

Besides people using A&E for GP services, I hear the biggest money sucker out there is the huge volume of people suffering from "stress" who require consultants, Nursing and drugs to get through the day.

Now I'm not trying to belittle the people who really need it. But the NHS is not your "time off work" solution or your "don't want to work" solution. It appears that this has now reached epidemic proportions and the NHS is creaking at the seams with it.

A bit like the fact that once the ambulance chasers got onto the "holiday sickness" bandwagon, the UK suddenly experienced a 20% increase in holiday package sickness where NONE of the other EU countries were experiencing the same. Even though they went to the same packages and often in greater numbers.

The NHS is not a crutch. It is a critical service which should be treated as such.

People need to get over themselves.

#1 daughter told us that when she returned back to work after the break, she found that the Finance department had 2 more people off on long term sick (total of 5) and two had handed in their notice.

Small wonder.....

[cromwell]

The attacks on the NHS are relentless and the media is using numbers to prove just how crap it is.

The NHS is being used as a stick to beat the government with, as per usual.

If they want to really know why it's in the mire do some investigative journalism about PFI projects. In particular how much the hospital cost to build, how much money the private sector will have made from it by the time it has been paid for, the amount of money the NHS is charged to change a lightbulb or paint a wall and how many beds the old hospital had compared to the new one.

That won't happen though, because it doesn't fit the fashionable narrative.