Damning report into the NHS reveals major issues

As some may have seen this morning, the Ovbserver is carrying a story that at least 11 NHS hospitals are at the centre of national safety scandal which is detailed in a report by Dr Foster, an NHS partner organisation.

Scarily the report, which I have seen a copy of, details incidents of so-called "wrong-site" surgery - that's operating on the wrong part of the body. It also found that 5,024 people who were admitted with a "low-risk" condition died in hospital last year, almost 20% of which were under the age of 65.

These included appendicitis admission, something that I have a personal experiences of with my other half only three weeks ago.

You've all probably seen the the Act F.A.S.T on stroke adverts, well, if you act fast, but you unfortunately live in an area of 10 NHS Trusts identified in the report, don't expect the hospital to follow your lead, as 40% of stroke patient don't receive a scan within 24 hours.

Another of the finding of the report is that last year alone the NHS spent £1.5bn on people who were being readmitted to hospital within a month of discharge. "Foreign objects" get left behind too, although the number is low, 209, five of the Trusts in the report could not even provide figures for these sort of occurrences.

The entire report is pretty much a damning indictment of all the horror stories and complaints you hear in your daily lives about treatment on the NHS. There will, of course, be those that say it's running down the goo work the NHS does, the problem is that for those that receive poor treatment such comments are a tad hollow.

Dr Foster have produced a web based guide to NHS hospitals here which allows you to see just how your local Trust's perform.