Tuesday 18 November 2008

Death on the NHS

Sad little tale in the Mail over a pensioner dying from the medicine prescribed by a foreign locum GP who ignored what she was told because there was nothing on the computer system indicating an allergy to penicillin.

I wonder how many more will die as the roll out of the NHS super computer system means that GP's (who are often either locums or in large group practices and so may never have see that patient before) rely on what is in the system rather than what the patient tells them, or on the old fashioned medical notes system that has managed so well for decades?

Especially if their English is not brilliant.

Oh well, makes a change from C Diff or MRSA I suppose.

The Penguin

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I personally think it's great that the government is so adept at coming up with new and exciting ways to kill the old, the young and the defenceless. Thatcher was rubbish at killing the vulnerable; Labour do it much better.

Hacked Off said...

Oh come on, credit where credit is due, Harold Shipman was getting the waiting list down pretty well for a lone GP.

But I agree, NuLabour have done a much better job at institutionalising the hard but necessary job of sloughing off some state pension liabilities...

The Penguin