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1. Minimize Restraints in the NHS 
The use of physical restraints in the Niagara Health System is an issue of growing concern due to the goal of patient-focused primary care.
Typically, physical restraints are implemented as a cost-effective method of ensuring staff and patient safety (Harmers, 2005; Lewis, Heitkemper, & Dirksen, 2010; Potter & Perry, 2010). Until recently, the use of restraints has been viewed in an ambivalent light; although they deter patient autonomy, ultimately, they were presumed to result in the “greater good” for all involved.
However, recent research has demonstrated that restraint usage is associated with detrimental effects for both the patient and the health care system (Bradas, Sandhu & Mion, 2011; Eaton, 2000; Evans, Wood, & Lambert, 2003; Sandu et al., 2010). The use of physical restraints has been linked to risk of physically and emotionally maladaptive processes.
Such processes include:
- Increased infection
- Increased falls
- Increased social isolation
- Increased functional/physical deterioration
- Increased injury/pressure ulcers
- Increased death.
Thus, restraint usage result in billions of dollars of expenditures in wages and supplies needed to manage these sequelae.
This petition proposes that the Niagara Health System investigates cost-effective alternatives to restraint usage (i.e., employing patient-watch personnel, placing mattresses on the floor near the bed of those who wander). Further, the process of restraint application should be minimized, with efficient screening to ensure all other options are exhausted prior to their usage.
The use of restraints minimizes patient autonomy, health, and emotional well-being. Taking measures to minimize their usage can promote cost-effective, patient-centered care.
References:
Bradas, C. M., Sandhu, S. K., & Mion, L. C. (2011). Physical Restraints and Side Rails in Acute and Critical Care Settings. Evidence-Based Geriatric Nursing Protocols for Best Practice, 229.
Eaton, S. C. (2000). Beyond ‘unloving care’: Linking human resource management and patient care quality in nursing homes. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(3), 591-616.
Evans, D., Wood, J., & Lambert, L. (2003). Patient injury and physical restraint devices: A systematic review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 41(3), 274-282. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2685.2003.02501.x
Glezer, A., & Brendel, R. W. (2010). Beyond emergencies: the use of physical restraints in medical and psychiatric settings. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 18(6), 353-358.
Hamers, F. J. (2005). Why do we use physical restraints in the elderly?. Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, 38(1), 19-25.
Lewis, S. M., Heitkemper, M. M. & Dirksen, S. R. (2010). Medical-surgical nursing in Canada (2nd ed.). Toronto: Elsevier.
Potter, P. A., & Perry, A. G. (2010). Clinical nursing skills and techniques (7th ed.). Toronto: Evolve.
Sandhu, S. K., Mion, L. C., Khan, R. H., Ludwick, R., Claridge, J., Pile, J. C., ... & Dietrich, M. S. (2010). Likelihood of ordering physical restraints: influence of physician characteristics. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 58(7), 1272-1278.
2. Don't privatise NHS services in Kingston
Clinical Commissioning Groups are boards of local GPs who have power over the local NHS budget. They have the power to commission NHS services to private providers - effectively privatising the NHS.
We're calling on Kingston CCG to keep all NHS services in public ownership.
3. To all GPs in The Forest of Dean: Stop Privatisation of the NHS
The newly drafted rules governing GP-led clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), say that
contracts can be awarded to "a single provider without advertising an intention to seek offers from providers". In such cases, the rules add, "the relevant body [must be] satisfied that the services to which the contract relates are capable of being provided only by that provider".
Many residents of the Forest of Dean share the concern of others across the country that these rules open the door to competition because in the vast majority of cases there will be more than one organisation, including private firms, that are "capable" of providing the service.
So, the new rules are crafted in such a way to require the CCGs’ to include private providers in the process of tendering.
If, under the draft rules, a private provider can deliver the service at a lower cost than the NHS, then the CCGs are required to grant them the contract. Thus the regulations carry a huge risk of ripping the NHS wide open to private providers and load the dice in their favour by making cost the only factor. As private providers will not be bound by the fair, national wage structures that NHS providers must adhere to, they will be free to cut wages, staff and resources in order to enhance profits while undercutting NHS providers.
We are concerned that this will have serious adverse effects on the quality of healthcare we will all receive.
4. Create a Tongue-Tie Service for South Warwickshire
We are a group of parents in South Warwickshire with children who have had issues with tongue-ties. You can contact us via our Support Group on Facebook:
http://tinyurl.com/tongue-tie-warwickshire
Please note this petition can only be signed by those who live in the Warwick District Council and the Stratford-On-Avon District Council areas.
For further information on Tongue-Tie, here is a link to NHS Choices and a link to the NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) guidelines:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/tongue-tie/Pages/Introduction.aspx
http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/11180/31411/31411.pdf
Following Byron's PCT report into his death, we believe it to be a cover up of Medical Negligance. Byron was sent home from a Medical centre by a Senior Nurse who has 13 years experience in practising with Calpol and his mum told he had Chickenpox. Later that day Byron was rushed into the LGI with Meningitis. He lost his life that night at 20 months old.
Byron was rushed out of his consultation and his mum assured he had Chickenpox.
6. Stop government violation of medical records privacy
NHS proposals to compel GPs to discloses patient medical records to a centralised database without patient consent are illegal under existing legislation and should be abandoned without delay.
ECHR : Article 8: Right to privacy
Everyone has the right for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
7. Save Barnet & Chase Farm Hospital
There is concern from new figures which show that the number of people waiting longer than four hours for a bed in A&E at Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals has soared in the past year.
Despite a fall in admissions, the number of people waiting more than four hours for a bed once they were admitted has more than doubled in a year.
The arguments for retaining the hospital remain overwhelming.
If they close Chase Farm then Barnet Hospital will not be able to cope and people’s health will be jeopardized.
The new figures for Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Hospital Trust show that 1,092 people had to wait more than four hours for a bed between January 1 and July 1 2012.
This compares to just 492 people in the same time period during 2011.
This increase in waiting times has come at a time when admissions have actually fallen.
In the first six months of 2012, 14,443 people were admitted to the A&Es compared to 15,754 in the first half of 2011.
The new figures from England NHS Hospital Trusts place Barnet and Chase Farm in the top ten per cent worst performing trusts in England for A&E waiting times.
8. Stop the Sell-off and Cuts at the Whittington Hospital
The Board of the Whittington NHS Trust has recently decided to sell off £17 million of hospital buildings. They want to move much of their provision out of the hospital and into the community services that they now run. They want to make cuts so that their finances look rosy for their application for Foundation Trust status. Further details on the Capital Estates Strategy on http://www.whittington.nhs.uk/default.asp?c=12075
The Whittington Hospital serves the populations of Camden, Islington and Haringey. There is no NHS hospital in Haringey. The outcome of the sell-of means that the numbers of maternity patients will be slashed to 4,000, wards for the elderly will be closed and there will be no staff accommodation. All this will have a devastating impact on the provision of acute and other health services for this population.
We recognise that this massive cut is in line with the dreadful NHS cuts, closures and privatisation that are occurring across the country – an outcome of this Government’s attack on the NHS and welfare provision, in addition to the consequences of PFI on health budgets.
Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition stopped the closure of its Accident and Emergency, Intensive Care, Paediatrics and Maternity departments in 2010. We have always opposed the current Health and Social Care legislation.
We aim to stop this massive attack on our health services.
9. Give sacked nurse her registration back
North-east nurse, Nicola Cheyne, has launched a legal battle after she was sacked for picking up an apparently abandoned child off the street.
She has also been suspended from the entire nursing profession after she found the youngster running about on a busy road while she was on duty.
She decided to take the little boy – who had been jumping in and out of a parked car – to her next appointment and left a note on the windscreen to let his parents know he was safe.
Miss Cheyne, a mother-of-three from Aberdeen, who had been working at the city’s Garthdee Medical Practice, was later sacked from her post and an investigation by nursing watchdogs was launched.
But she said she had only done what any other caring person would have in her position.
Following a flood of support from the public – including from a local doctor and politicians – Miss Cheyne has vowed she will not give up “without a fight” in her bid to win back her registration.
“They said it was gross misconduct. They said I hadn’t taken the child into account,” she said. “But as far as I was concerned I did the right thing for the little one.”
Dozens of messages of support have been voiced for the nurse, slating the “heavy-handed” punishment handed out.
To support Nicola as she fights to win back her registration, please take the time to sign this petition.
10. Investigation regarding University Hospitals Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust
Joshua Titcombe died in 2008 as a result of failures at the maternity unit of University Hospitals Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust. There have been at least 7 deaths there recently.
Whilst there has subsequently been an investigation by the Care Quality Commission and currently there is a police investigation, information has emerged which shows various official bodies knew of serious and systemic failures at the trust, wider than maternity services, and did little or nothing about them. The trust was awarded NHS Foundation status in spite of this and information has been suppressed. This comes AFTER Mid Staffordshire.
It is vital that lessons are learnt about failures in the CURRENT system of regulation to protect patients in the future.
Action against Medical Accidents ("AvMA" - the charity for patient safety & justice) supported the Titcombe family with Joshua's inquest and continues to work with them to campaign for an independent investigation into the wider issues concerning the trust.
Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust are shutting 300 beds and ten wards. This includes the specialist cardiac Ward at Castle Hill plus ending of Neuro emergency beds at Hull Royal which has been condemned as "dangerous" by Prof. John Cleland, Head of Cardiology at Castle Hill.
Neurologists wrote the following this month. "We have voiced our concerns on numerous occasions at managerial meetings and our opinions and concerns have been disregarded and a dictatorial approach has been taken, with new changes to our service implemented against our advice."
NHS North West London is reorganising hospital services and is proposing closing four of the nine A&E centres in the area.
The ill-thought-out proposals would mean downgrading Hammersmith hospital by closing its A&E department.
Please also sign our 'Save Charing Cross hospital' petition.
13. Save Charing Cross hospital
NHS North West London is reorganising hospital services and is proposing closing four of the nine A&E centres in the area.
The proposals would mean closure of A&E services at Charing Cross and downgrading it to a 'local' hospital.
Please also sign our 'Save Hammersmith hospital' petition.
14. Petition to repeal the Health & Social Care Act ('NHS Act')
When the Health and Social Care Act was still a parliamentary bill, Dr Kailash Chand OBE (@kailashchandOBE on Twitter) started an e-petition on the government site demanding that the bill be abandoned.
The epetition.gov.uk site's rules state that any petition reaching 100,000 signatures or more must be considered for Parliamentary debate. The petition easily exceeded 100,000 signatures, at times averaging 1000 signatures per hour - a clear sign of the wishes of the British people.
The petition was closed, and the discussion never happened. The government - as it is technically entitled to do - let the motion disappear into a parliamentary black hole.
I believe we have to maintain the assault on all possible fronts, so I've started another petition.
However, while I've submitted the petition to the government site in case people look there, I'm setting up the main petition here on gopetition.com, for the reasons below:
1) The government site is likely to block the petition from even appearing on their site.
2) Even if it goes ahead, once it reaches 100,000 signatures, they close it. I believe that far more than 100k people will sign the petition - potentially in the millions - sending a far clearer and harder-to-ignore message to the government that we will not tolerate the selling-off of our most treasured national possession.
If you agree that the government's actions and plans are unacceptable, please sign the petition below - and get everyone you know to do the same.
(If you want to send an even bigger message, sign this petition too, for a motion of no-confidence in the coalition government http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/petition-for-a-motion-of-no-confidence-in-the-uk-coalit.html)
Thank you.
Steve Walker
Twitter ID: @skwalker1964
15. Behind Mr. Taylor We Stand
Newberg School District's choral director Jason Taylor was arrested on Monday, May 21st, 2012 for alegedy supplying a 19 year old ex-student with alcohol. His 200+ students, as well as many other Newberg citizens believe otherwise.
Mr. Taylor is at risk of losing his job, as well as destroying Newberg's best choir in history.
Stand up for him with me to help keep our choir program, as well as to help keep the love for music in our students' hearts.
16. Petition for a motion of no-confidence in the UK coalition government
As most of you will know, the UK government operates an e-petition website on the basis that any petition achieving 100,000 signatures or more must be passed forward for parliamentary discussion. The govt has repeatedly rejected an e-petition calling for discussion of a no-confidence motion in the current coalition government.
This government has repeatedly shown itself unfit to govern - sleaze,an all-out attack on the NHS and the public sector generally, inappropriate interactions with powerful media & corporate interests, opposing Freedom of Information requests and not least mismanagement of the UK economy, among many other issues.
If you wish to communicate to the government that it does not have the support or mandate of the UK people for its actions, please sign the petition below - and publicise it to your friends via Twitter, Facebook and any other means. The government may not listen, but the more people sign, the harder it will be for it to ignore!
17. Review the IVF Selection Criteria and make it Fairer
In June 2011 Criteria changed for IVF. Anyone who has been in a relationship for less than three years, is not allowed to have NHS Funded IVF.
We need you help to change it back.
18. Drop the Bill MK
The Government is planning the biggest re-organisation of the NHS since it began in 1948.
Everyone wants to see the NHS improve but not at the expense of its founding principles - good patient care, free at the point of need, not the ability to pay.
As a growing new city we need a bigger, better health service. Not these controversial reforms.
The reforms are opposed by the Royal College of GPs, the Royal College of Nurses, the Patients Association and many other groups. Even some Conservative MPs are calling on the Government to drop the bill.
But this is bigger than party politics: it is about protecting our local health service and stopping the creeping privatization of the NHS.
Please add your voice to the campaign and help urge our two local Tory MPs to put MK first and drop the bill.
Thanks
Andrew Pakes
19. Save local BSL interpreter service for Glos Deaf
(Following written by a Deaf person so shows Deaf/BSL word order and style)
Interpreter service. We want to keep BSL interpreter at GDA for things you need like doctors, appointments ok. But we have a problem, we might lose this service at GDA ok, why? Because NHS Gloucestershire want to put it together with other service like French, spanish translation team. That mean hard get good BSL in Gloucester if they have one big office somewhere else like maybe birmingham, anywhere cos cheaper for them save money.
Please sign this petition if you want to keep this BSL service at GDA and you know that good for us here in Gloucestershire.
Thanks
GDA = Gloucestershire Deaf Association
20. Keep Gloucestershire's NHS Public
Gloucestershire's community health services - nine community hospitals, nine health clinics, and other county-wide services (see list below) - have been scheduled for transfer out of the NHS by the Board of NHS Gloucestershire.
But Social Enterprise Trust or Community Interest Companies like Gloucestershire Care Services CIC, which has been proposed to take over the services, are not an alternative to the break up and privatisation of the NHS - they are part of that process. If the transfer goes ahead, services will be judged not on the basis of need and quality but whether they will be successful in the competitive market, staff terms and conditions will be attacked, patient care will suffer, and accountability to the public will be lost.
A legal case in Gloucestershire, supported by local anti-cuts groups, challenges the claim of management that there was no alternative to social enterprise. It puts the option of keeping staff and services in the NHS back on the table, if management want to consider it. Elsewhere campaigns have successfully defended NHS services.
The legal case can buy us time to campaign together against social enterprise, but we must put pressure on the Board of NHS Gloucestershire to make the right decision. They can legally keep the serives in the NHS and do not have to open services up to private sector competition. Integration with an NHS trust locally or nationally is one route, and as has happened elsewhere, it could be possible to set up a new NHS trust - there is no legal barrier to this (but it would be a matter of Department of Health approval).
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The services affected include District Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Specialist Nursing, and Out of hours medical and nursing services. Pharmacy, Sexual Health and Chlamydia screening, Podiatry, Dental services, Wheelchair services, Musculo-skeletal services, Telehealth and Specialist Domiciliary care are also to be transferred to Gloucestershire Care Services Community Interest Company.
Nine community hospitals (Stroud, Cirencester, Dilke, Fairford, Lydney, Bourton (Moore Cottage), Moreton, Tewkesbury, and the new Vale Hospital in Dursley) and nine health clinics (Beeches Green Stroud, Stonehouse Health Clinic, Cinderford Health Centre, Coleford Health Centre, Lydney Health Centre, Hesters Way Healthy Living Centre, Holts Health Centre Newent, Lydbrook Health Centre, Symn Lane Clinic (Wotton-under-Edge)) are also part of the plans.
21. Support and Respect for Dementia Sufferers
The NHS Lancashire Care Trust has announce a proposal that all dementia sufferers requiring specialist care in Lancashire be treated in Blackpool.
For people in the Rossendale and Burnley area this will mean an 80 mile round trip to visit their loved ones or friends. Most patients are likely to be elderly and the fact is that their husbands or wifes may not be able to drive.
This will put extreme pressure on the visitors in terms of time, expense and distress just when they need all the support that they can get. This is an inhuman way to treat people and cannot be in any way justified.
22. Nursing Shortage Campaign & Petition
The results of a nursing survey released on the 23rd September 2011 revealed that 75% of nurses fear for their patients' safety because of poor staffing levels.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) estimates that 40,000 posts across Britain will be axed within three years as trusts are forced to slash budgets under NHS plans to save £20 billion. Of the 600 nurses questioned for the survey, 25% said their biggest safety concern was identifying deteriorating patients, followed by drug errors, slips, trips and falls and insufficient nutrition and hydration. Four per cent worried about patients receiving the wrong treatment through misidentification. All levels of the profession were questioned for the survey published by Nursing Times magazine.
RCN chief executive and general secretary Dr Peter Carter said: "It is critical to patient safety that changes to staffing levels and skill mix are made in line with patient need rather than as a knee-jerk response to financial pressures.
"Nurses and health care assistants are telling us that reduced staffing levels are compromising their ability to provide high quality care, and we urge employers and the Government to listen to these concerns.
"We remain very concerned that with so many NHS Trusts making staffing cuts to save money, patient care could suffer as a result."
The Royal College of Midwives survey finds that further cuts will put women's safety at risk as maternity units, already under-staffed and over-stretched, expect further job losses.
The stark figures collated by the RCN in Scotland show fewer than 30% of Scottish NHS nurses now feel secure in their jobs. Only two years ago, 82% felt they had a long-term future in their posts.
Figures released at the end of August showed that across Scotland nearly 1000 nursing posts are set to be cut by the end of the year. The nursing cuts will take figures below that of five years ago, according to the RCN Scotland.
Evidence of a current nursing shortage that is impacting on patient care is clear and it’s going to get worse over the next three years, if there is not just a freeze on nursing job cuts, but an increase in the number of nurses training through incentive schemes such as a starting bonus. Josie Irwin, staff-side secretary at RCN said: "Coalition policy means that nurses face suffering a second year of pay cuts. This comes on top of unprecedented change and upheaval in the NHS, leading to low morale, uncertainty and insecurity. The RCN calls on the pay review body to recognise that further attacks on pay will only do more damage to recruitment and retention in the NHS."
The results of increasing training numbers now will not be seen until in 2014, so to bridge the immediate gap consideration should be given to three year visas for qualified nurses from abroad.
23. The Right Honourable D Cameron PM is not fit for public office
This petition is based on a number of my letters that were sent to MP Right Honourable David Cameron PM, which concerned an ever-rising number of unlawful deprivation issues to UK society. These irrefutable shown issues were presented to the current Prime Minister in requesting he uphold his public duty and the acts of UK law on behalf of UK society.
The Prime Minister has been made aware many times not only in these requests but also by an ever-rising many concerned other people of the UK by their lawful requests. Who have the same or similar concerns in the ever-rising deprivation towards UK society that is unlawfully/un-legislatively maliciously causing their unnecessary suffering? Where an unlawful willing malicious blindness to upholding any stated public duty or the upholding of the acts of UK law gives lawful rise to the petitions question
24. We love our NHS in Brighton & Hove
The Tory-led Government are forcing the NHS to make £20 billion cuts. As a result, waiting times are already increasing, including in Brighton & Hove.
While slashing NHS budgets, the Tory-led Government are planning a top-down restructure of the NHS. This is despite promising not to do so before they were elected.
As well as these changes having no mandate, they will bring more bureaucracy, waste and private competition to the NHS.
Join us in our fight to save the NHS and to keep it a public service organisation, not a free market.
25. Public Opinion - Whistleblower Pharmacist should be reinstated
Miss Neelu Chaudhari was struck off the Register of the General Pharmaceutical Council after a 27 year unblemished career as a senior pharmacist, for Whistleblowing.
The professional body accused her of bringing the profession into disrepute by her belief that the drug overdoses prescribed in a five week period, before her neice's death, were not errors but deliberate and should have been investigated by the professional bodies, independently of the Coroner, Police Primary Health care Trust, NHS Hospital Trusts and the hospitals.
The drug overdoses prescribed by the GP were continued by hospital paediatricians after admission to hospital and the baby was denied intensive care. She was then subjected to a secret "withholding withdrawing treatment", "allow to die" and "Do Not Resuscitate" medical opinion against her parent's wishes and without their knowledge.
The hospital doctors finally invited social workers to apply for a secret ex-parte Emergency Protection Order and Police arrest Warrant to isolate the baby in hospital, remove her mother from her cubicle and deny family visits to hospital in the last 6 days of her life.
The details of the drug overdoses were omitted by the Coroner, Pathologists and Police at the Inquest.
Neelu compiled an expert report into the drug overdoses and provided copies to the respective professional bodies yet no doctor, pharmacist or nurse has been properly investigated. Instead, Neelu has been struck off for doing what the professional bodies ought to have done. She is also required to pay costs of thousands of pounds to her professional body.
This petition seeks public opinion as to whether,
1. Miss Neelu Chaudhari should be reinstated as a pharmacist;
2. Whether the professional bodies should investigate complaints independently, promptly and without time limits;
3. Whether Whistleblowers should be compensated for their time and effort and commended for their courage, honesty and integrity.
26. Abolishment of Prescription Charges in England
England is now the only country in the so called 'United' Kingdom that pays prescription charges. Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland all pay nothing.
This is unfair and undemocratic. People who live in England have been taking it for too long.
27. Save the NHS
HELP US SAVE THE NHS!
We believe the coalition government's NHS changes will significantly damage healthcare in this country. Specifically, they're cutting NHS funding - you may have heard the recent announcement about ward closures at the Hallamshire hospital. Also, they're pushing a new NHS Bill through parliament. If this becomes law, private companies will almost certainly be increasingly involved in healthcare. This may mean a greater risk that other NHS services and hospitals will close. If enough people object to the government's proposals, we can persuade them to change their minds.
Please sign this petition now; and ask your friends and family to do so. In a few weeks time, we will send the petition (with the list of people who have signed it) to Andrew Lansley, the government health minister, urging him to take note of the points below. We'll also send a copy to Nick Clegg, the Sheffield MP and leader of the Lib Dems.
If you want to find out more or get involved in our NHS campaign, please e-mail info@sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk or phone 07842 374392.
Thanks very much
Sheffield Green Party
28. Demand NICE Remove Stakeholder Only Mental Health Service Users In Consultation Processes
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) consults on new draft quality standards and guidance on service user experience in mental health and patient experience in NHS services and has launched a new consultation.
HOWEVER an interested party has discovered that the only people able to contribute are 'Registered Stakeholders'. and finding out who these are, and being able to get your views represented is a process which guarantees little, if any success.
Some may not wish to provide personal stories to Registered Stakeholders (strangers), and there is no other facility to have YOUR important views heard.
This means the results cannot be fully representative of the Service User Community as a whole and we would call on NICE to consider changing the process by which they determine and gather the evidence they use in their guidelines.
This is especially important during this traumatic period of changes to the NHS, cuts in Mental Health Service budgets and an increase in cases of mental illness.
See http://www.nice.org.uk/newsroom/pressreleases/PatientExpAndAdultMentalHealthServiceUserGuidelineQS.jsp
29. Liverpool Care Pathway: A National Scandal
The Liverpool Care Pathway, (LCP), is in widespread use in the UK. It is flawed and dangerous. The Daily Telegraph has referred to it as the Death Pathway. There have been calls from victims families to have it banned. The old are particularly vulnerable because many of the so-called signs that are looked for to put a patient on the death pathway, such as frailty and declining mobility, are symptomatic of old-age in any case.
In fact, age is one of the factors also taken into consideration in putting the patient on the LCP! This petition is to call for its withdrawal. Every patient is an individual and deserves that individual consideration of their condition.
As it stands, anyone who falls into the clutches of the proponents of LCP and ticks all the boxes will be given assisted passage into the next world care of the NHS. This will apply particularly to the elderly who are, in any case, already suffering from that most terminal of all conditions - Old-Age! This will apply even contrary to the expressed wishes of patient and family, as this family has discovered.
According to Dr Peter Hargreaves, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, P. H. Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics University of London and others, in the year 2007-2008 alone, 16.5 per cent of deaths came about after terminal sedation through the, quote, disturbing blanket application of the Liverpool Care Pathway being rolled out across the NHS in the UK.
Currently, an estimated 20,000 patients have their lives taken each year while receiving care under the LCP which also prohibits administering artificial nutrition and hydration to those assessed as dying and states that doing so is ethically indefensible and, in the case of patients lacking capacity, is prohibited under the Mental Health Act.
To my comments that my mothers life was taken at Caterham Dene Hospital where LCP is in use, the NMC responded that I am, quote, at liberty to contact the police.
My mother was robbed of her life through application of the Liverpool Care Pathway. NMC registrants at Caterham Dene Hospital, even by the standards set out by that flawed measure of who is and who is not at Deaths door, were far too zealous in the liberal helpings of morphine they doled out to my mother. The PCT were actually required to set in place new practices at the Dene in regard to analgesics and their use on ward.
Following widespread application of the LCP, relatives of many hospital, nursing home and residential care patients have watched in horror as their loved ones are kept under sedation and food and fluids are withdrawn. Does the NMC therefore assert that, in like fashion, these relatives are, quote, at liberty to contact the police and that this is their advice to them? They make no reply.
The critic of the LCP mentioned above, Peter Millard Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, warns that there is a risk that elderly people with chronic conditions and disorders may be easily dismissed as dying when that may not, indeed, be the case. Certain media have even compared the LCP with euthanasia. Euthanasia is still against the law in this land. Perhaps, then, the advice of the NMC does stand in good stead and these relatives should be, quote, at liberty to contact the police. And is that their advice to them? The NMC makes no reply.
The Liverpool Care Pathway was a tool designed to be used with patients already diagnosed to be terminally ill; it was never a diagnostic tool per se to determine a terminal condition. It was designed at the Marie Curie Hospice in Liverpool specifically for the terminally diagnosed patient and to recognise when a point had been reached that death was near or imminent so as to provide as peaceful and gentle path from this world as might be provided. These patients were already diagnosed to be dying from cancer; the Pathway was not the tool used to make that diagnosis, but a means - a 'pathway' to follow - to determine that point.
A culture of death is pervading the NHS in the UK. A dark shadow is stalking our hospitals and care homes. The right to death is becoming paramount over the right to life. The LCP is providing a newfound legitimacy and cover to an unspoken policy that has, actually, been in place for decades! Will the NMC, if it will do nothing more, not add its voice to that of Dr. Peter Hargreaves and others and raise a hue and cry to get this Care Pathway rolled back and removed? Will the Care Quality Commission, the new body set in place to investigate such matters not step in?
The NMC have stated that any further correspondence will be filed, but not answered. Then, let it go on record that the NMC were asked to add their voice to denounce this scandal and declined to do so. Posterity will look back in anger and horror!
An afterword:
The Department of Health committed to investing 286 million pounds over the two years to 2011 to support implementation of this End of Life Care Strategy. That is 286 million pounds spent to assist people on their path to the next world while denying the necessary funding to keep them alive and well in this!
A Daily Mail on-line article outlines how we in the UK have the worst cancer survival rate in the western world. Doctors in our local surgeries, hospitals and health care centres are providing us with treatments based on our illness, our age, our families. The Daily Mail article explains how doctors tend to late-diagnose older patients or provide them with less beneficial treatments. The elderly are routinely denied surgery or drugs.
It is a duty incumbent upon every medical person to protect life and to do no harm. And yet, through the LCP, there is a policy set in place at Caterham Dene - and across the NHS - to make no great effort to intervene to preserve life, to let them go and even to help them on their way.
So much of the public purse to spend on death, so little to spend on life. There is something very wrong here. The elderly, suffering from the most terminal of all illnesses - OLD-AGE - are on the sharp end of this cutting-edge of end-of-life policies. A culture of death really is pervading the NHS in the UK. A dark shadow is stalking our hospitals and care homes. The right to death is becoming paramount over the right to life!
30. Drop The Bank Debt. Dont bail out the banks at the expense of society
Please support this as it can help everyone and hurt no one. The cuts are due to the debts caused by the banks failing and they are hurting society in a very serious manner.
The banks failed in their own eyes and by their own standards. Yet we are bailing them out at great expense and harm to ourselves. Our social infrastructure and societys across the world are being harmed. It is not necessary. If we Drop The Debt no lives will be lost no one will die and no buildings will disappear.
These debts are just marks on a piece of paper, cyphers in a computer. The Banks dont have and never did have the money we are paying them, they cant loose what they never had. As we pay the debt we harm every school and hospital every social structure and every family and every job. No one is free of the harm. They did not have the money they are asking us to repay. So if they didn't have it, why are we paying it back?
No matter what wealth is, its in the people and their work, not the banks, but when these said banks bankrupt themselves, one way or another, we get to pay. Their wealth is our work. Now their "fictional" debts are paid with our real work and lives. Economics is not like physics or chemistry, it is not a science. It is invented and shaped only by humans. We can shape it any way we want. If the nature of our economics is hurting us then we can simply change the nature of those economics. We have that power.
Banks wont be damaged by Dropping The Debt because to the banks the wealth is virtual, it is flickers on a screen, not like a house or food or cars or anything real, produced by work. They will not loose anything they actually had. No houses will disappear, no schools will close, no roads will go un-fixed, Nothing real would be lost. So when the banks change society for the worse because they messed up we could simply Drop The Debt. Remember wealth is not created by the banks but by people, by our work. The banks only create debt.
Banks are a private business. They exist to, and do, make vast profits for themselves at our expense. If they mess up its nothing to do with us. We owe them no loyalty. We should not be hurting society to give them "back" money that they never actually had. We can change that. So I urge you to Drop The Debt.
We did it before with third world countries and it worked very well, no one died, and lives were improved across the globe. Lets do it again.
Please support this as it can help everyone and hurt no one.