[caption id=”attachment_1464″ align=”alignright” width=”231″ caption=”Voting in the Edinburgh South West ;
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[caption id=”attachment_1464″ align=”alignright” width=”231″ caption=”Voting in the Edinburgh South West ;
I seem to remember a great little blog called ShootUp featuring a link to a report last year that discussed how the NHS could cut costs without simply culling everyone with a chronic disease. Hopefully whoever gets in power will take the time to read it http://www.shootuporputup.co.uk/2009/06/dealing-with-the-downturn/
It’s true – us chronic illness people are a real drain on the country. Bah to the lot of us!
Let’s just blame us Chronics for the recession. I honestly never have felt guilty when picking up my free prescriptions.
For real cost cuts look no further than Trident.
Massive savings from chewing gum
“look no further than trident” – I wondered when the first non-diabetes things would crop up in the comments.
I think we should get rid of Trident and replace it with a massive James Bond style laser-beam device. That would be far cooler and very good for jobs at BAE Systems, etc.
The key to making savings in the NHS lies with the management system. There has got to be a real problem somewhere when there are more managers than beds, maybe it’s time that NHS managers were offered a choice between resigning and summary execution?
why upgrage your nuclear stockpile?!
Badly maintained nuclear bombs are a lot more scary.
That’s what I call deterrent.
@alex – he he he! Yes, Britain could also leave its stockpile in a shed with a dodgy lock. Very scary! 🙂
lol, think you blinked Tim… Lothian’s waiting list is somewhere around two and a half years now!
@aileen – 2 1/2 years?! Seriously?
Yip, over the last few months the people who have been in touch with iPAG said they are being advised up to 3 years now! It appears none of the Health Boards are getting what they wanted in their business plans so waiting time is becoming longer. The new Diabetes Action Plan is due out soon and it may give a better indication of what’s happening throughout Scotland.
@aileen – holy cow! At iPag do you have any stats on waiting lists from around the country? See my post here:
http://www.shootuporputup.co.uk/groups/shoot-up/forum/topic/waiting-lists/
The stats we have are old and more than likely not accurate (health board responses to the government) We know some areas have no pump funding at all for the coming year so some have an indefinite wait! There doesn’t seem to be an option to go to another area even if you can’t get a pump locally… still lots of detective work needed to find out what is going on .. or not in the pump world in Scotland : (
@aileen – rather than thinking about stats for postcode shopping for a pump, it might be an opportunity to allow for reasonable comparisons to be made between PCTs.
@Tim – the only problem with that is you get into endless arguments about whether the data is accurate, plus you end up with people being proud because they’re not quite as bad as the rest. I’d use published guidelines as the benchmark and if your PCT isn’t meeting them, you drive them to deliver. Whether your PCT is better or worse than another is just a distraction, they should be meeting the guidelines. Full stop.
@alison – a very fair point; by arguing about how the data is collected one is effectively playing the player not the ball and it is a distraction. Would you say the NICE guidelines would be the most appropriate benchmark?
One problem in Scotland is NICE TA’s are not mandatory as they are in England. SIGN is wishy washy and doesn’t give any real guidance, it’s too open to interpretation so unless you have a very pro-pump health board it’s unlikely to be beneficial. The government say the expect Health Boards to implement NICE but then say it is up to each individual board. (to do what they want)
The link to DUK manifesto and to email your MP’s http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=82&ea.campaign.id=5859
Getting back to election stuff, I emailed all my prospective mps, using the handy link someone (I think it was Alison, possibly just above here, but not sure, tired, apologies…) posted, which was great. I added in a section to the standard letter about how brilliant my new pump is, and asked what they intend to do about pump funding if they are elected. I recevied the reply below from one of them:
“I have studied the Diabetes UK Scotland manifesto, ‘Improving Lives’. I was shocked to discover the scale of the problem.
I will certainly work as hard as I can to make the issue taken seriously at Westminster.”
Of course, that’s if he gets in, and I’m not planning to vote for him, but it was good of him to write. It was incredibly easy to email them all using the link. Does someone who knows where it is want to repost it here?
@aileen – duly sent a modified version of the standard email. I would suggest anyone else out there with an interest in diabetes does the same thing.
@caroline – it’s up above in aileen’s post – http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=82&ea.campaign.id=5859. I’ll do a separate post in the blog about it too.