zombe on 20/10/2017 at 12:23
Don't know anything about the subject, don't live there, did not read the article ... BUT ...
Assuming "telegraph" is not garbage news source (well, every news source is from probabilistic point of view complete trash) and the story is not horribly tilted / misreported - here goes:
The word is that surgery failure rate for obese and/or smokers is very high - till the risks can be lowered (lose weight / quit smoking) the surgery should be postponed if at all possible (ie. not an emergency / postponing is not worse). Health profession has an obligation to do no harm. Surgery is harm that must be overcome/justified by the expected results and their chances.
Looks perfectly reasonable to me.
(if anyone has any actual knowledge of the actual details - i'm intrigued)
scumble on 20/10/2017 at 12:49
The telegraph has been around a long time as one of the established newspapers in the U.K. Allegedly reliable.
The source of this policy seems vague. Is it NHS management? Difficult to know what's going on without more detail.
nickie on 20/10/2017 at 13:44
Yes, the Telegraph is broadsheet not tabloid and has a conservative/tory inclination. As I understand it, this is one county out of 48 in England. There seems to be quite a lot of opposition, particularly from surgeons, so whether this will actually be implemented remains to be seen.
@ zombe's point
Quote:
West Hertfordshire Hospitals Trust medical director Michael van der Watt, wrote to the CCGs warning of “significant opposition” to the proposals at the trust. He said: “There is a wealth of evidence that does not support the theory that worst outcomes occur in patients with a BMI greater than 30”.
As to that, we need SubJeff.
zombe on 20/10/2017 at 13:51
My guess, still having not read the damn thing, is that in principle sane and justified proposed policies are worded inadequately rising possibilities for misuse - in extreme and highly hypothetical/unrealistic cases "(in effect) indefinite (unjustified) surgery denial". Something any sane surgeon would be overly critical about given the legal/bureaucracy burdens it would impose. OR. Just misunderstood.
Just a guess.
edit: @nickie
That is an interesting quote. One would expect new proposed policy of this kind to be based on solid evidence - yet the quote seems to contradict that.
Yeah, please, someone who knows what is going on - please speak up.
--------------------------
The article title ringed all the alarm bells for me (hence why i did not bother to read it and just scrolled over it for a minute or two).
"NHS provokes fury ..." - bad language.
"... with indefinite surgery ban ..." - blanket statement (essentially click-bait in disguise as the reader will have to read the damn thing in hopes to find the answer to the implied and preposterous question)
scumble on 20/10/2017 at 14:35
I don't bother reading news because it's often selling something exaggerated with little real information. Then people aligned with certain opinions repeat the "facts". How much can be learned from the news?
I hadn't noticed it was a particular trust making the suggestion. This would mean it's not a countrywide thing. The NHS is split into trusts with certain regions as far as I know.
zombe on 20/10/2017 at 14:37
Having now read the thing (much more like a news report, sans references, that i would have expected from the title):
There is something wonky in Hertfordshire ( one might even say that there is some zombe in Hertfordshire ;) ).
If true then from what little details there (*) are it indeed looks like a bureaucracy mess bound to harm thous it is claiming to benefit even if the justification of surgery failure chances were true (which is claimed by some dude to not be true either).
*) the article seems to have 0 web-references and the topic policy is not in the article either.
Pyrian on 20/10/2017 at 15:24
The NHS is going to have all kinds of problems and obnoxious attempts at solutions until its funding is restored. What we're seeing here is the classic "Sabotage a program, blame it for the failure" tactic that has taken root across the right wing. They can't win on the merits, so subterfuge is everything.
caffeinatedzombeh on 20/10/2017 at 19:50
Quote Posted by scumble
I hadn't noticed it was a particular trust making the suggestion. This would mean it's not a countrywide thing. The NHS is split into trusts with certain regions as far as I know.
Primary Care Trusts have been replaced by Clinical Commissioning Groups. There are apparently 207 of them and they as far as I can tell are the bit of the NHS that decides who to pay for what, where.
This particular CCG has decided that it does't like large people (not necessarily fat people, BMI takes no account of what your body is made of just how much it weighs) and has asked local people via a leaflet in GPs surgeries, local papers and various other methods what they think of this idea. Most of the people who responded were in favour of it and so they're going ahead with it even though when they asked the local hospitals they thought it was a daft idea.
For anyone who like me struggled to read the linked article in the telegraph that looked like it's been shoved through google translate in a variety of languages to get something as hard to read as possible
Original press release type thing is (
http://www.enhertsccg.nhs.uk/news/201710/east-and-north-hertfordshire-nhs-service-changes-–-decisions-announced)
and the actual thing it relates to is (
https://www.healthierfuture.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/2017/October/Joint-Committee-Papers-v1.pdf) (linked at the bottom of the above)
van HellSing on 20/10/2017 at 19:57
You know, I basically got roped into alcohol past 30, but I stilll can't understand the appeal of tobbaco.
