It was so disorienting observing David Cameron "bravely" attacking the nursing profession, saying the supposed unsayable, that, for a moment there, he almost got away with it.
After a series of highly critical reports on patient care, particularly in relation to the elderly, Cameron is to announce an initiative making nurses take better care of patients, with an emphasis on hourly ward rounds, and patients – ordinary members of the public – assessing and inspecting hospital standards. Cameron said: "The vast majority of nurses do a brilliant job." However: "Politicians frankly have done nurses a disservice by not talking about this. Such is our respect for nurses that we have almost hidden away concerns about this."
Mr Cameron was strangely reluctant to explain how, with the "vast majority" of nurses doing "a brilliant job", there is a big enough problem, in these straitened times, to warrant setting up what could amount to an unworkable patient-Stasi.
What Cameron did say was that, now was the time "to speak up and act".
So what do we have here? Cameron telling it like it is, refusing to kowtow to the national "sacred cow" of the nursing profession? Or just the prime minister once again demonstrating that, even though he's well placed to understand the NHS, and to lead his government from the front, as one of the new breed of "Caring Tories", with any necessary toughness balanced by fairness and empathy, he, erm, hasn't bothered. In fact, with Tory NHS-dismantling and services-slashing back in business as usual, it looks like he's blown it.
I do not doubt that there are people with devastating complaints about how nurses have treated them, or their elderly relatives. However, in basic terms, Cameron's plans would require much more money for many more nurses. Indeed, Cameron seems to be suffering a disconnect – he wants extra nurses running around the wards, all these hourly bed rounds, but is he going to pay for it?
Right now he's telling the nurses off for problems (being under-staffed and overworked) for which he and his ministers are responsible. His "bravery" then is to speak up about a situation that is quite possibly his government's fault. And some of you might say, well, what do you expect from a Tory? But there's the rub: in my heart of hearts, I suppose I did expect just a little more from David Cameron.
Of late, there has been an emphasis on the narrow background of many politicians, their lack of real life experience. Without wishing to be mawkish or offensive about Cameron's severely disabled son, Ivan, who died in 2009 aged six, we have in Cameron somebody who has suffered an awful, tragic experience. He is someone whose privileged background may not have given him automatic empathy with, say, the beleaguered NHS but whose life experiences surely had.
I remember being horrified when there were widespread accusations of "political capital" regarding the Christmas card showing Cameron lovingly cradling Ivan. I thought it was sick and cynical to criticise Cameron in this way. No parent, however wealthy, could have been left untouched by such a brutal life blow, which could not fail to impact positively on Cameron's leadership. What he must have observed during those dark times – his hard-won insights and compassion – would be priceless.
Now we're where we are: with the NHS increasingly targeted and unprotected, and, recently a bill pushed through taking money away from many families with disabled children. As for Cameron – he's "bravely" criticising nurses, in the spirit of plain speaking.
In my opinion, there was a lot of plain speaking that Cameron could have unleashed on his own hatchet-swinging ministers, before he got around to nurses.
What's happening now is a massive political and moral failure for David Cameron.
Ladies, is this really the best you can do?
Beauty retailer Feel Unique has surveyed 9,000 women to make a celebrity-based composite of the Ultimate Woman. It is routine to mock the efforts of men when they participate in these Ideal Woman composites, since the result so often resembles crazed Playboy centrefolds, who look as though they might, against expectations, actually have a bunny boiling away in a saucepan somewhere. The version put together by women had to be far superior. Right?
Sadly not. First, the lady composite features all brunettes, apart from one blonde (Gwyneth Paltrow – for the chin). One blonde, then, and no redheads. Ladies, this cat-fighting via the medium of hair colour is, quite frankly, beneath us. As well as Gwynie's chin, there are Cheryl Cole's eyes, Megan Fox's eyebrows, Kate Middleton's hair, Angelina Jolie's lips and so on. All very attractive individually, but, when put together, the result ends up resembling Pete Burns after a heavy night out.
To conclude: women's Ultimate Woman resembles a plastic surgery-obsessed male pop star from the 1980s, struggling with the world's filthiest hangover. Are we sure? Try as I might to give this a feminist spin, I can't pretend we've covered ourselves in glory.
The silence of the Eltham women
The country feels at least partially cleansed by the justice meted out to two of Stephen Lawrence's killers. Respect must go to his loved ones, with Doreen Lawrence quite rightly the female focus.
But then, on the other side, there were those other women, and not just the mothers of the accused. There was railing about "injustice', talk of "our Eltham men". Not to mention the almost blanket silence from girlfriends, past and present, of all five men associated with the case. Generally, the women stayed completely mute, not talking to the press, some taking down their Facebook pages.
Five men, 18 years – that makes for quite a few relationships, trysts, encounters, et al, but the silence was deafening. It would be easy to wonder: is this what modern "moll"-ism looks like – cancelling Facebook, stopping Tweeting, stifling the modern confessional urge, to stand by your man, even if he isn't your man any more? It's all very dramatic, murky, and Krays-sounding – or is it?
The silence probably has more to do with the climate of fear, which might even extend to the men themselves. In such a situation, surely everyone would work themselves up to be terrified of each other, ever-mindful of the consequences of any kind of "blabbing", on behalf of themselves or their families?
If you found yourself mixed up in all that, then most probably keeping quiet wouldn't be about old-school loyalty, being a moll, Krays-style street lore, or anything else fanciful and dramatic we in the media like to dream up about communities we know bog-all about. It would be all about fear and self preservation: just plain old being scared. Who wouldn't be?
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8 January 2012 12:13AM
Typical Tory, can't be trusted to make the right or honest decisions on the NHS. David 'charlatan' Conman is full of mealy mouthed platitudes but doesn't really mean or deliver on any of the warm words he spouts.
8 January 2012 12:15AM
...........................Cameron didn't need to; he just had to announce the strategy from one of the many hospitals where the nurses are able to look after their patients with care and respect.
When it's come to pass that nurses in my local NHS hospital have purchased private health insurance to keep them away from their colleagues, one presumes, if they get ill, I think sorting out NHS nursing is rather a priority.
8 January 2012 12:25AM
Shame on this Bullingdon Bully for bare faced cheek in dismantling the NHS and misleading the nation. A lie for which he and the LibDems will never be forgotten.
8 January 2012 12:28AM
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8 January 2012 12:33AM
A good conclusion to a very decent & fair critique - but has the time come to put "fair and balanced" (the motto of Fox) behind us and say it unstinted. This is another savage assault from one who was weaned on deceit and double dealing. Give no quarter dealing with Cameron for none is earned.
8 January 2012 12:35AM
I have a solution to funding the N.H.S.I well remember watching my wife die,and having to fumble about to find change to let me out of the privatized car park.I am sure the queen had the same problem with Phillips recent problem, much worse with a helicopter.What I suggest is not unsimilar to the trend in health care.A meter similar to a parking meter should be attached to the bed,after 24 hours a penalty is imposed,so the patient pays the excess or is removed.Nurses in their spare time of which there is much,could offset their cost by working on chat lines.There is no alternative!
8 January 2012 12:35AM
All nurses are not angels, all soldiers are not heroes..happy to see politicians start to accept this publicly..
8 January 2012 12:41AM
I can't trust myself to speak on the topic of Cameron and his "empathy", most recently shown by treating Tourette's syndrome as a punchline - a horribly ableist thing to say. He is the lowest of the low. "Compassionate" Conservatism? Excuse me while I laugh myself to death.
As for the "ultimate" (sarcasm alert!) woman, never mind hair colour - they're all remarkably, um, pale, aren't they? One more brick in the wall of the culturally constructed beauty archetype as white (and youthful-looking, slender, high-cheek-boned etc etc etc). Sigh. As someone who does genuinely think beauty comes in all kinds of forms, it's depressing yet illuminating to see the Frankenstein's monster-ish processes working behind the scenes to make people (especially women) feel inadequate.
8 January 2012 12:55AM
No, they offered appalling care, before 2010. People were already getting killed in NHS hospitals, through callousness, neglect and incompetence. Stop treating hospital staff like heroes.By and large, they were good at their jobs, when I was very young, but that was a long time ago.
Like the teaching profession, it has become full of people who don't care and who are just there for the money and because they can't get such an easy ticket anywhere else. The staff at private hospitals put most NHS nurses to shame.
8 January 2012 12:58AM
Populist posturing from a man who started out in PR and can't let go of spin and the manipulation of facts in order to get a headline. Get Cameron to shadow a nurse on her/his shift and, at the end of it, make a statement on time management, then perhaps his speech might have some impact based on truth.
Currently it will just be seen as paving the way for more private intervention, and over worked nurses are just canon fodder to be used in the propaganda to persuade the public that privatising the NHS is the only way forward.
8 January 2012 1:02AM
With the majority of the media rooting for this smooth devil I don't think he will have much trouble. He is about to finish what Thatcher had started.
8 January 2012 1:03AM
Call me stupid, but I think the problems with the nursing profession have been well enough documented by now. Too many of you want to hide behind desks and play on computers when there are thousands of bed pans that need emptying.
Britain is facing a financial crisis of historic proportions, and its up to each one of you to dig yourselves out of this mess. If we are to satisfy our corporate sponsors and increase our already massive defence budget, we need to squeeze a few billion more out of health. Its simple mathematics, which is about the extent of Gideons competency, so i'm backing Gideon on this one. He folded towels in Selfridges before I handed him the economy to manage, and he insists that if he can fold towels in addition to managing the economy, then nurses simply must buckle down and get on with it.
8 January 2012 1:09AM
That was foolish. What do you expect from a Tory?
8 January 2012 1:11AM
Barbara Ellen
The fact that many nurses and care assistants are over-worked and under-paid is no excuse for the culture of abuse and neglect that has taken root in too many hospital wards and nursing homes.So whilst i despise Cameron and most of what he stands for for i do think there is a problem within the nursing profession that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. For one of the things that comes out from the numerous undercover operations in hospitals and nursing homes as well as the many personal testimonies of ordinary people is that a significant number of nurses and care assistants have a total lack of empathy and respect for the people they're supposed to be caring for.And as i said before this cannot be attributed to the fact that nurses and care assistants are often over-workerd and under-paid.
8 January 2012 1:11AM
hypocrisy dominates coalition policies, Cameron seems to be in a terrible vacuum. Nurses are the cutting edge of the NHS and it's very naive to blame them for less caring...
8 January 2012 1:11AM
Actually a lot of the problems over nursing care began before the cuts. The fact is that after every scandal or successful or even nearly successful act of litigation another piece of paperwork is added to the daily pile that nurses have to complete. And so more and more time is spent writing and less and less time is spent on actual face to face patient care. The new hourly rounds proposed will all have to be recorded of course so that we can evidence them in the event of any future litigation/scandal. The attitude is that "if its not recorded its not done" which leads to pressure to record things that actually haven't been done by nurses but by auxiliaries who report to nurses who write it down.
The answer to the problem of good quality nursing care is only partially about numbers. Its also about sensible managing of time and kicking the habit of a risk averse fear of litigation about extraordinary events in order to allow nurses to deal more freely with ordinary ones, like having the time to hold someone's hand and reassure them.
8 January 2012 1:13AM
Cutting 46,000 nurses,yet expects the remaining nursing staff to do hourly rounds?
Do the maths Cameron,I forgot you let Gideon do that,even he can't add up.
8 January 2012 1:13AM
Side note: the picture desk have excelled themselves with the photo used to illustrate this piece. Look at Cameron's shark-like eyes, brimming with faux-compassion, his pursed mouth, his (hilarious) posh-boy combover. He looks like he was grown in a vat (which would explain his stunning lack of empathy).
8 January 2012 1:16AM
Nurses usually organise their working pattern to ensure as far as possible that during visiting time they don't have to carry out routine tasks with patients. The upside is that visitors get plenty of uninterrupted time with their loved ones. The down side is that the same visitors think that nurses are bone idle chatterboxes because they can combine tasks like writing and making phone calls or labelling specimens with speaking to their colleagues.
8 January 2012 1:18AM
Well dig into Olympics, more than £9billion of public funds poured in by the Government to help pay for the Games, and £500million more is available if necessary, just for two weeks and the legacy unknown yet...
8 January 2012 1:18AM
No-one's saying that all nurses are "angelic" - total strawman. But Cameron's cuts to the NHS will make it even more difficult for nurses to act like "angels" than it is currently; more stress, worse pay, more awful conditions, more check-lists and loss of autonomy mean that even the saintliest of nurses will be driven to the brink. His "reforms" will make nurses' jobs harder, not simpler - and it is nurses and patients who will suffer.
Cameron's policies will exacerbate current problems within nursing, rather than help solve them. That's the real issue, don't you think?
8 January 2012 1:32AM
Brilliant as ever SB, I hope you get loads of recommends :)
8 January 2012 1:33AM
After leaving the nursing profession after 25 years, I can tell you first hand what the issue is, especially with regards to the aged care sector: The public and politicians want a top-notch, university-trained, highly-professional nursing team in every ward and unit but don't want to pay for it.
They don't want to money into recruiting the best people, they don't want to put money into training them (which needs to go on throughout the duration of a nurses career) and they certainly don't want to pay an appropriate wage. So what happens? Your most capable nurses will get fed up with working understaffed and under-equipped and get more sick of bearing the brunt of doing the workload of 4 people (and copping abuse when this proves impossible) and leave to do something more rewarding, where there labours are actually appreciated.
The attitude that we should 'just get back to emptying bed pans' belittles what is a serious issue. Eventually the status of RN will slip from what was once one of the most respected to one of the most dreaded and the quality of people attracted to the profession will be at a terrifying low. The crisis in Aged Care is just a taste of things to come.
8 January 2012 1:34AM
I've been a nurse for 30 years.
Successive governments of both colours and reforms have eroded the professional knowledge and wisdom accumulated over the years. We are left with leaders who are third rate management apparatchiks more interested in clinging on to their positions than in making a stand for patient care and quality nursing.
These so called reforms return us to a Victorian age of routinised task oriented care varnished with a modern sheen of even more crippling bureaucracy. The average staff nurse spends more time accounting for what they do than actually doing it. And this bitterly ironic state of affairs is cynically touted as progress.
It was the Thatcher years that ushered in the radical doubt in the self regulatory power of professions. This latest round of puff and spin merely chips away even more at the idea of professional nursing care.
8 January 2012 1:38AM
Then we have the relatively new conservative state government in Victoria, Australia, saying that nurses have it too easy and their workload must increase. Nurses were promised to be the best paid in the country before the election, but that has somehow been forgotten. Meanwhile, police used their muscle to get a generous pay increase in return for 'bankable' productivity improvements -- yet no one can explain what they are.
8 January 2012 1:40AM
I saw "shame on you" in the title and didn't read any further.
8 January 2012 1:41AM
What sort of worker's council approved haircut would you suggest instead?
8 January 2012 1:48AM
In my fortunately limited experience of hospital life I've never been massively impressed by the performance of nurses finding that they often preferred the comfort of the nurses' station or whatever it's called to interacting with the patients and yes they did treat my dying father badly in his final days.
As a teacher, however, I can find empathy familiar as I am with disparaging comments from the public and politicians alike ( and from commentators like Barbara Ellen). I don't know the whole situation with nurses but I suspect that their workload is massive. There will be many people like myself though who may have less than positive experiences of hospital life and Cameron knows that hoping to divert attention from the cuts.
8 January 2012 1:49AM
It is stunning to compare Cameron's promises on the NHS being safe in his hands and his great appreciation for it, and the sterling care that his son received and everything.. Then compare and contrast with what he is doing now. He is a fraud and a hypocrite. He stooped so low to use his personal sadness and misery of his little boy to make a political point that he proceeded to break once he achieved power. Ghastly.
8 January 2012 1:52AM
Cameron is right. Spend time in an NHS ward and you observe nurses spending most of their time chatting and having a cuppa and occasionally racing around for 5 minutes tend ing to patients before getting back to the social huddle
about time someone addressed this.....
8 January 2012 1:53AM
(I posted this in a recent thread too)
I can only go on my experience - as do we all. I slept in a chair next to my gravely ill daughter in a Bristol hospital for about three weeks. I watched the nurses day and night. Man! They never stopped. They worked hard and continuously amidst vomit and blood, pain, grief, confusion of all kinds, demands both reasonable and unreasonable, pressing schedules and set-backs, dangerous drugs and dangerous people... and I knew that I couldn't do that and I would always be on their side from then on.
Put a lot of people together in an organisation - police, teachers, army...you're gonna have some dross and procedural defficiency but to let that dross define your reaction to the organisation or exploit their presence for poltical point scoring is hugely destructive in so many ways.
I'll believe Dave's sincerity when he does an exercise to find which information currently gathered about patients is unnecesary in this litigious society. I'd also like to see him admit that the quality of patient care is dependant in staff morale which is plummeting under this government of disconnected, independently rich Hooray Henrys'
8 January 2012 2:02AM
Listen to Cameron when he talks about the NHS.and listen closely,there is absolutely NO sincerity in his voice,none whatsoever. Cameron doesn't care about the NHS,he despises it,you can tell by his voice,exactly the same as when he talks about the trade unions,there is a deep hatred simmering under the posh cut glass accent.
8 January 2012 2:08AM
I'm sorry my mother pretty much felt abandoned on her hospital ward. She was just glad she could go to the toilet herself and did not have to stay long. She saw plenty of other people on the ward being taken care of by their relatives. It just seems that patients get in the way of Nurses duties these days.
8 January 2012 2:12AM
The public never wanted University educated nurses, the nursing profession did. it was part of the continuing 'professionalisation' of our lives by the public sector for their own nterests. What he public wanted was people to care for thei sick realtives. Nurses love it of couse, they don't have to get their hands dirty and they can be even more authoritarian. In my experience, nurses are very well rewarded, get regular promotons, get a god pension and can retire early. However, as pay and conditions have improved, the quality of care has lessened. Nurses plead resources (which they've largely taken for themselves - Blair got nothing for our as) but are in denial about poor nursing.
8 January 2012 2:17AM
The man is a scoundrel. Shame on him and his whole wretched party.
8 January 2012 2:21AM
"Only together can we protect the NHS." - David Cameron, 2010.
A lying Conservative? Who'da thunk it?
8 January 2012 2:36AM
"Right now he's telling the nurses off for problems (being under-staffed and overworked) for which he and his ministers are responsible."
Well, how come one ward in Oxford runs very well, while one in Swindon is full of nurses with a bad attitude who seem to prefer putting their feet up on the nurses station?
I've worked in enough places to know that people often have quite different perceptions of "hard work". In fact, the strange irony is that the people who most often talk about how hard they work are often the people who don't.
8 January 2012 2:38AM
Maybe the coalition should get off their back sides and come and talk to a member of the public every hour ... that way they may get some real feedback from the general public on how they are doing .... or instead they could continue to listen to focus groups and lobbyists at their peril
Pity the UK for having such an inept bunch of public school educated / out of touch people running our great country with little or no experience of the real world
8 January 2012 2:42AM
jonana,
What cuts? Total spending this year is 105.9 billion, last year it was 103.8 billion. It will rise by 0.4% in real terms until 2014-15.
8 January 2012 3:12AM
Tories aren't happy unless they are:
A. Stuffing their pockets with tax payer's money.
B. Attacking/undermining the latest section of the public sector that they have targeted in order to achieve another round of A
8 January 2012 3:14AM
JeremyinOz-----------
I am recently retired ( early) degree qualified nurse and have accessed my "gold plated" pension.
For more than 30 years I practised in Accident and Emergency and I can tell you my hands were always "dirty" and my ears full of foul mouthed abuse directed toward me and my colleagues by the intoxicated, drug fuelled general public who , of course knew their rights.
The recent attacks on the Nursing Profession ----------lead by the media and fuelled by ignorant people such as yourself are a disgrace and extremely hurtful to the vast majority of the Nursing profession who undertake their responsibilities with kindness, compassion and great skill
The conditions under which the nurses work deteriorate by the day with massive pressure on the demand for inpatient bed and incompetent management who refuse to see the difficulties they create for nurses and the risks to which patients are exposed.
I really feel for my colleagues who work on acute medical and orthopaedic wards, because this is where most of the elderly demented patients are to be found. These unfortunate people are demanding in the extreme and many if they are to be kept safe and well cared for require constant supervision. Current staffing levels do not allow this level of support and hourly ward rounds together with another tick box form will not alleviate the underlying problem.
8 January 2012 3:19AM
He says that Ward Clerks should be doing much of the paperwork that nurses are tied up doing. What ward clerks? Most NHS Trusts disposed of these vital assest in previous cuts to the NHS. There are very few around and as his government is hell bent on reducing the management costs of the NHS, there is little chance of them coming back. By the way the management costs of the NHS are already under what most private companies have and also what the Houses of Parliament have.
Just shows the government doesn't know what is happening in the NHS. Sack Lansley and put somebody in charge who cares about the NHS not private companies.
8 January 2012 3:26AM
Nurses are no different to anyone else except for some they still retain some elevated status as being the a noble profession full of vocational saints. I presume this status was bestowed on them for past deeds because the reality today is that for the vast majority of people who have had the misfortune of having to stay, or worse having an elderly relative stay, in a NHS ward they are a disgrace.
Maybe its red tape, maybe its lack of numbers but whatever it is nursing standards in our hospitals are unacceptable, I would have thought if they were under pressure and having to prioritise then the priority would be the patients, evidently not. I am not happy to see anyone suffering as a result of the cuts however please do not single this profession as being somehow worthy of any greater degree of sympathy.
8 January 2012 3:35AM
So because someone is a nurse they cannot be criticised? I have met plenty of nasty nurses who have NO business being in the "caring" profession. You need to get a grip and relaise that just because someone works for the NHS, does not make them infallible or a saint
8 January 2012 4:28AM
That's all he had to say and then shut up.
But no, he doesn't understand why in then carrying on that his comments are mean, offensive and quite frankly full of shit.
I can't even figure out what fallacy he is making here, but it's clearly a slimy and juvenile thing to do.
What a total embarrassment of a leader.
8 January 2012 4:31AM
Then there should be clear professionally based systems to remove those nurses who do a bad job. It doesn't need mean-spirited platitudes from the Prime Minister. Perhaps if he spent more time solving problems than creating them he would earn some of his salary.
8 January 2012 4:38AM
So much pure hatred of Cameron and the Torys in this comment thread are clouding the issue. 'Nurses should engage patients with a sympathetic bed-side manner'. Yes they should. If they are not doing so at present, they should be re-educated to the standards of times past. All jobs now have a paper trail, however small. The paperwork cannot be used as an excuse not to forfill the primary duty. How would we feel if our airliner crashed because the pilots had their heads down in the cockpit filling out flight logs. Unacceptable.
8 January 2012 4:43AM
Nursing:
Always we criticise "nurses" as a group, but the problem is the management of those nurses.
The quality of front line management of nursing care is absolutely critical. Some wards are managed well, and some even in the same hospital, are managed badly. This is evident from the reported experience of patients.
Blaming the nurses themselves is like blaming the soldiers if they lose a battle; it is all dependent on the quality of front line leadership.
It is the responsibility of senior management in the nhs to ensure that front line management is effective and patient centred. This is not happening. In my view the whole edifice is rotten, but the rot is not the fault of the nurses as individuals.
The solution is not in paperwork, more forms etc. but in putting the right people in charge of wards. Sadly, 30 years of rotten management has driven many of those people out of the NHS, and all the resource spent training and developing them has been wasted.
8 January 2012 4:49AM
Oh, and I meant to add, Pete Burns picture! awesome. I'll stick with Megan Fox, thanks.
8 January 2012 4:50AM
I say let's get the public school educated war-criminal Blair and string him up by the nearest lampost for crimes against the ordinary working people of this country. The man has committed millions to die on the job as he stole our pensions and sold our gold reserves at rock bottom prices to pay for the bloated public sector and their fat pensions. SHAME ON LABOUR FOR LETTING THIS HAPPEN. SHAME ON THE CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS FOR DOING NOTHING IN OPPOSITION!