In a recent post we talked about the push for patients to take responsibility for their health and their use of healthcare services, working in partnership with healthcare professionals to ensure that they receive good quality care. As I discovered this weekend, however, that it is almost impossible to do this if you find yourself in the position of needing to access out of hours GP care, via the NHS 111. Such is the state of crisis in the NHS, it is almost as if the vultures are circling, looking to pick over the corpse of a national healthcare system. That is not the intention of this post. Rather I want to draw attention to the poor performance of private sector providers, commissioned to provide services like NHS 111. These companies, often driven more by financial bottom-lines than patient care, rather than alleviating pressure on professionals, with poor levels of performance are actually creating additional burdens upon statutory providers. This is the real scandal of NHS 111…………. Click here to read the full post on the Cost of Living Website.
