“As many as one in seven hospital procedures are unnecessary, leading to “profligate” waste in the health service, a senior NHS official has said. …
… 500 million a year could be saved by reducing the use of “low value” treatments and procedures such as cataract and hernia operations and tonsillectomies. Currently the NHS carries out more than 300,000 cataract operations a year at a cost of just over a quarter of a billion pounds a year, 79,000 hernia repairs at £147 million a year, and 52,000 tonsillectomies at £63 million. …
… £36 million a year could be saved if the NHS stopped over-treating patients dying of terminal illnesses such as cancer in hospitals. It would be better, and cheaper, for dying patients to receive expert palliative care outside of the hospital environment …”
So, if you can’t read or drive because of your cataracts, you can’t work because you have a hernia or you can’t die at home because there are no palliative nurses available – tough up!
IF some operations do not result in improvements, surely we should be training doctors to make better decisions with more care, not blaming them. Does anyone really think doctors offer these operations just to waste money?
East Devon Watch 