April 2008

In healthcare and government leadership, responsibility and direction has more or less been driven by the need for a healthier nation. For the larger part this means ensuring living for a long time.

So it is somewhat shocking and revealing to find this article that provides a new and significant departure from what might be considered traditional medicine.

In this article it is clearly stated:

People who have more birthdays live longer

What implications is this astonishing fact going to have on healthcare for now and the future?

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Yesterday I drew attention to this news report.

Eight out of 10 nurses say they have left work distressed because they have been unable to treat patients with the dignity they deserve, a poll suggests.

Today, a different poll of nurses revealed another concern.

A poll of 1,752 nurses found that a fifth of the time of a standard nurse is spent doing non-essential paperwork.

Hmm, could these two issues be somehow…related? I stroke my imaginary beard.
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Let’s see what’s been happening this week on the nursing blogs.

To nominate a blog for future editions e-mail zarathustra at mentalnurse dot org dot uk
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This report from the BBC today.

Eight out of 10 nurses say they have left work distressed because they have been unable to treat patients with the dignity they deserve, a poll suggests.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) poll of more than 2,000 UK nurses cited washing and privacy as key issues.

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Okay, you impatient lot. Here is the weekly round-up of mental health blogging.

To nominate a blog e-mail zarathustra at mentalnurse dot org dot uk

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It’s the question The Shrink is asking over there, so I thought we ought to ask it over here as well.

Seems like all the good doc’s patients want to be called - well - “patients”. Not clients or users or service users, but patients.

“Service user” suggests the voluntary exercise of choice. I choose to use the services of BT Yahoo for my broadband, for instance. if I am unsatisfied with their service or want something they can’t offer but another service can, I am free to take my custom elsewhere. For many, many patients, this kind of choice is just not available, so describing them as service users is mendacious.

“Client” is just awful. It’s something a prostitute has.

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Tuesday

I could not sleep last night. I was tossing and turning in bed, careworn by all the disgraceful oiks in the world who are not doctors. I mean, how stupid can somebody be not to go to medical school?

As I lay awake, a pixie suddenly appeared in my bedroom. “Who are you?” I demanded. “You’d better not be snooping around for New Labour.”

“No, Dr Crippen,” said the pixie. “I have come to answer your prayers. Today I am casting a Master of the Universe spell. For on this day, people will all have to act according to your view of how things should be.”

“Oooh goody,” I exclaimed, clapping my hands with glee. “Today is going to be so much fun.”
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Time to look at the week’s output from the nursing blogs.

To nominate a blog for future editions e-mail zarathustra at mentalnurse dot org dot uk
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John Redwood MP has, like many MP’s a blog. Those of you old enough to remember the heady days of Thatcherism and the fag end of Tory rule under John Major will remember John Redwood and his anti European stance as well as his challenge for the leadership under Major

Lampooned as Dr Spock’s less humorous older brother in 1995 while Secretary of state for Wales he returned £100,000,000 of Wales’ block grant to the UK treasury unspent following efficiency savings and cost-cutting measures, this is usually forgotton unlike his attempt to sing the Welsh national anthem at a public event despite obviously not knowing the words.

In his current post on Milband’s travails he makes what I think are a number of telling and intelligent points about the differences between the public and private sector.
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I get up this morning and all I can see in the live chat box is people going, “We want a round-up, Zarathustra! Do a round-up! You’re so good at round-ups! We want another round-up! Round-up! Round-up! Round-uuuuup!”

Honestly, you lot. Bunch of fusspots. Fuss fuss fuss.

So anyway, on with This Week in Mentalists, which coincidentally is six months old today. Time flies, eh?

To nominate a blog for future editions e-mail zarathustra at mentalnurse dot org dot uk
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Southern Cross Healthcare operate 710 care homes in the UK. They’re keen to trumpet their commitment to eradicating abuse of the elderly. They’re key contributors to this campaign, launched by Action on Elder Abuse.

John Murphy, Chief Operating Officer commented on behalf of Southern Cross Healthcare, ‘Our commitment has been unwavering to protect people and staff in our care. We continually strive to improve our provision of training to raise awareness and welcomed the launch of the Dignity in Care Campaign in November 2006 as it clearly reinforced the need to continually highlight that indignity in health and social care must be eliminated. We are proud to be part of this unique pilot helpline project and have the full support of our stakeholders – our staff, our services users and their friends and families”

Since they’re so keen on treating people in care with dignity, they might be horrified by this court ruling.
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I thought I would share this with you.

I am relocating to Happy Valley from the dark satanic mills of nether glooming and have been applying for numerous nursing posts in and around the region for the past three months. Yesterday I attended at Anytown for an interview with their crisis team; at least I thought I had. I only applied for the post two weeks ago so when the letter came through my door the other day inviting me for interview the day after tommorrow! I thought wow! That’s efficient. I should have realised that something was wrong when I saw that the interview was for the post of a Community Psychiatric Nurse but no mention was made on the letter of the team or the grade of the job so I thought hey ho CPN is a generic term for a psychiatric nurse who works in the community and that’s me so maybe that is what they call their crisis team workers over there, CPN’s.
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Since the rules are about to be changed to make it harder to claim incapacity benefit (presumably in order to fend off the hordes who are supposedly bleeding the system dry claiming spurious illness), here’s an account (reprinted by permission of the author) of a mental health service user’s tussles with the DWP.

She doesn’t mention her diagnosis, but since she’s on Quetiapine and has just been discharged from the Crisis Team, I’m going to take a wild guess and suggest it’s not a mild case of the psycho-sniffles.

Anyway, she writes to inform us that her bank balance currently stands at the princely sum of £1.01. Here’s why:
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For those of you with a classical education you may like these Latin sayings which I found here . My particular favorites are:

QUI ME AMAT, AMAT ET CANEM MEAM
Love me, love my dog.

LUKE SUM IPSE PATREM TE
Luke, I am your father.

POTESTATEM OBSCURI LATERIS NESCIS
You don’t know the power of the dark side.

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Danny is a rather troublesome 9 year old, and his parents are convinced he has ADHD. They know this because he won’t behave himself, so that must mean he has ADHD. They come to us, wanting a diagnosis and medication.

In clinic, Danny isn’t displaying any signs of hyperkinesis or inattention. We get Danny’s parents to fill out a Connors Questionnaire. Their answers score him as horrific. We send another Connors Questionnaire to his teacher. The teacher scores him as a moderately naughty kid. We carry out a school observation. In class he’s able to focus on tasks, doesn’t fidget in his seat, doesn’t get up and wander about, gets told off occasionally by teacher for playing pranks on the other kids. In the playground he’s a bit of scrapper who likes to play rough. Nothing majorly untoward.

We break the news to Danny’s parents. No, your son does not have ADHD. Are they pleased to hear that their son does not in fact have a debilitating and chronic neurological condition?

Are they bollocks.
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