Prepare for Patsy!

Patsy (Best Year so Far) Hewitt will be patronising, deceiving and just lying on Question Time tonight at 10:35pm. Please will the rest of the Panel (William Hague, Charles Kennedy, Oona King and Tim Collins) giver her the kicking she deserves.

Some of these stories might help for some hints.

Meanwhile if you haven't voted, get out there and do your democratic duty.


Question Time | This week's panel

Patsy lying and dying in House off Commons

According to Dr Crippen , Patricia (Best year so far) Hewitt is lying and dying in the House of Commons this afternoon.

According to an E-Mail from a BBC producer

Patricia Hewitt is speaking in the House of commons right now - apparently the MTAS security breach was Channel 4 News' fault because they left 2 hours between finding out about it and contact the DoH press office.

She also just said 'there is no evidence that members of the public, or any other authorised people, other than ITN/Channel 4 News accessed the data',. This got enormous laughs and cries of 'yer what? Yer what? Yer what yer what yer what?' from the opposition benches.

Dr Crippen ends off as follows:

Hewitt is being both dishonest and disreputable.

* I am not a junior hospital doctor.
* I am not registered with MTAS.
* In this context I am a member of the general public. I was able to access details of applications on the MTAS site, and did so.
* Many others did so too.

The security of the MTAS site was appalling. Victoria Macdonald is a highly respected Channel 4 journalist and the attempt somehow to blame her, or Channel 4, for the MTAS problems is disgraceful.

This now goes beyond political rough and tumble. Hewitt has lied to the House of Commons.

Time she resigned.

I can only echo those sentiments and judging by the traffic I am getting to this article from the NHS so will many Junior (and other)Doctors.

NHS Blog Doctor: Hewitt on the ropes in the House of Commons

Daily Mail website still down.

I see this Daily Mail website is still down.

You should have a quick look here as Adam Boulton riles Patricia (Best year so far) Hewitt.

MTAS is currently unavailable

MTAS - RIP for the moment

You've probably seen this on the news or in paper somewhere, but the systems that was being used for Junior Doctors to apply for Training Jobs in the UK has had to be shut down as it had serious security problems. This came at the end of a long list of problems that have beset the system and its implementation.

I have also blogged on it a number of times see here. Dr Crippen has also blogged on it a number of times see here.

So now you maybe wondering who the guy is in the picture, well he's Paul Dacre and that name should ring a bell, he is the editor of the Daily Mail which is part of the Associated Newspapers Group (AN) and is on the Board of the Parent Company DMGT (Daily Mail and General Trust PLC).

So now you are wondering what this has to do with the MTAS system. Well the AN group also owns a few other companies including those who have websites here. One of these is Jobsite which you might have used, whilst looking for a job (clue here!). They also run, for the NHS, the website used to search for jobs in the NHS for England and Wales. It was this experience that gained them the contract along with Method Consulting for the MTAS system. Jobsite actually host and run the website for the NHS.

It is interesting to note that if you search the Method Consulting website here for MTAS, MMC or NHS you get no relevant results, are they ashamed or what?

The MTAS terms and conditions on their website used to have the following (It's not available at the moment!)

This web service is provided by *Methods* *Consulting* Ltd and Jobsite UK (Worldwide) Ltd for the Department of Health as a service for the NHS. The service is subject to the contract between the Department of Health and *Methods* *Consulting* Ltd as construed in accordance with English Law and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales.
These terms and conditions apply to all users of the website.
While the Contractor intends this site to be continuously available, virus free, and to contain accurate information, the Contractor does not guarantee that it will. The Department and the Contractor accept no liability for any consequences arising from inaccuracies, viruses, the unavailability of the site, misuse of the site, or any User's inability to access or use the site.

Not bad so far apart from the continuously available bit. It then goes on with the following

Data Protection Notice

The Contractor records statistics about visits to the pages of this site to help us administer and improve the site. The personal data provided by an Applicant on a submitted application form will be passed to Recruiters in order for them to consider the application; it will be stored securely in the site's database and will not be available to other Applicants. The application data held on the site will be deleted 13 months after the end date of the recruitment round for which it was submitted. Appointing Employers will retain the application forms for appointed Applicants separately as part of their staff records.
Statistical data on recruitment activity will be provided to the Health Departments and Deaneries for campaign management and workforce planning.

Maybe that should should read slightly differently as it appears the site is open to all comers to do with as they like.

So what has the Daily Mail got to say on MTAS and the system. The latest article is here, no mention of any link here to the fact the Daily Mail might be in anyway linked to the mess that is MTAS. In fact checking through the Daily Mail site we find no link between MTAS and the Daily Mail or Jobsite. As one commentator in the latest article says:

"This is a system that was obviously failing as a project. They had to produce a very quick and dirty result in order to serve their customers. They didn't even do that properly in terms of the most elementary form of password protection.

"This has to be one of the worst types of public sector security failure that I can think of."

This sort of incompetence on top of all the other problems is nothing short of unbelievable.

Worse is the fact that as Dr Crippen reports

And now a trivial matter. Or a matter that seems consistently to be treated as trivial by the department. What happens to the doctors? MTAS, for all its failings, is their source of information about forthcoming interviews and appointments. There is nowhere else for them to turn.

And finally a quote from Mr Eugenides on this as my language does quite stretch to his levels:

Just stop and think about that for a moment. If I could access someone else's internet banking simply by changing the account number in the requested field, someone at RBS would be fired by close of business. In no other field of endeavour is incompetence and waste so routinely shrugged off as par for the course as it seems to be in the governance of the country.

Imagine a pile of shit so large it could be seen from space: the air black with flies for miles in every direction, rivulets of stinking liquefied effluvium wending their way from the base of the huge cack-heap into every nook and cranny of this land; an all-pervading stench so horrendous that it put families from Inverness to Exeter off their food. Wouldn't you expect someone to clean it up? Wouldn't you expect the arses that had deposited this great heap of filth to at least acknowledge their part in creating it? Instead, Patsy tells us that "fewer beds are a sign of success", that the NHS has just enjoyed its "best ever year" (presumably 2007 is already on course to be a fucking triumph), and that MTAS is the best thing since banana Nesquik.

What has this pile of cack cost us, well apparently over 5 years it will have cost us 6.3mm pounds. Its real cost will be in the damage it has done to Junior Doctors.

Heads must roll for this debacle starting with Patsy (Best year so Far) Hewitt.

NHS Blog Doctor: MTAS - what next?

The Brown Bottom - How to lose 2 billion pounds

I wrote earlier on the Iraq Dossier problem that has been awaiting release of information under the Freedom of Information Laws. Now we have details of another fight with the Labour Government and in particular the Treasury to release information about the selling of Gold back in 1999 that has cost this country an estimated £2 Billion.

The article says

The Sunday Times has been battling the Treasury for 18 months to obtain documents revealing the advice it received on the sale of gold, writes Holly Watt.

Under freedom of information laws, the paper has asked for statistical information relating to the decision to sell gold; minutes of ministerial meetings; official correspondence and studies into the aftermath of the decision.

Before the 2005 election the Treasury rushed out comparable information about the Conservatives’ darkest economic hour, Black Wednesday, but it took it five months to turn down this request, although it is required by law to respond within 20 working days.

Among five exemptions it has claimed to block publication is that “such information relates to the location (past or present) of the UK’s gold holdings, which, if made known, could increase risks to security”. This information is on the Bank’s official website.

Seems that Labour don't like these laws now as they are exposing their soft underbelly as we see the lies and spin they have been using to deceive us during their 10 year reign.

According to the article we have a wonderful new name for the lowest gold price in 20 years, it's now referred to as the

"Brown Bottom".

No jokes about nappies now please!

Another Minister involved in this story was a rather more junior Patrica (best year so far)Hewitt who according to the Times in answer to a written parliamentary question placed by a Labour backbencher.

“Today we are announcing a restructuring of the UK’s reserve holdings to achieve a better balance in the portfolio by increasing the proportion held in currency. This will involve a programme of auctions of gold,” she said.

“The Treasury intends to sell 125 tons of gold, 3% of the total reserves, during 1999-2000, with the Bank of England conducting five auctions on the Treasury’s behalf. Auctions will be held every other month starting in July.”

The answer was later shown to be wholly misleading as the government actually planned to sell 400 tons before 2002, representing more than half the country’s gold.

Hewitt’s figure of 3% referred to “total reserves” which, apart from gold, included tens of billions that the government borrows on the international currency markets, rather than the gold reserves actually owned outright by Britain.

So as usual Patricia has been bending the figures to suit Labour's needs.

Just another example as to why no-one should vote Labour in the upcoming elections.

Goldfinger Brown’s £2 billion-News-Politics-TimesOnline

All Good Hope abandon ye who enter here

The supposed text at the entrance to Hell according to Dante's "Divine Comedy" is

"All hope abandon ye who enter here".

Maybe that is the new motto for the NHS, when we read stories like the the attached article reported succinctly in the Times today as follows:

Cleaners at an NHS hospital have been told to turn over dirty bed sheets rather than use clean linen. Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham advised its staff to “top and tail” used sheets to cut the £500,000 annual laundry bill.

Posters instructing staff that this procedure would save 0.275 pence for every sheet re-used were pinned on cupboards and doors leading to the A&E and maternity departments. A health worker said that new patients were being given the same sheets as the previous occupant.

A hospital spokesman denied the practice. He said the posters had been issued three years ago but had since been removed. John Baron, Tory shadow health minister, described it as a concern given that MRSA was such a problem in hospitals. Good Hope recorded 36 cases from April last year to January.

Now you might think that it is a bit too far on the scale of unbelievable cuts in New Labour's NHS, but I had a little story told to me by a close relation, who is an ex-nurse, of how some nurses she know's prepare if they have to go into an NHS hospital.

Apparently they pack two cases, one with the clothes and bits and pieces for their stay, and the other with cleaning equipment and sheets for their stay. Before they use the bed they will strip it, clean it and use their own sheets rather than put up with a dirty bed and the NHS supplied "clean" sheets.

Little wonder they do this when we hear stories like this. The full poem by Dante as translated by H.F Cary makes you wonder if he was thinking of the NHS when he wrote it back in the 1300's

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:
Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.


Hospital ‘orders’ reuse of sheets-News-UK-Health-TimesOnline

Where to have your Piles done - NHS Choices

Patricia (Best Year so Far) Hewitt has released details of the scheme to allow "Patient Choice for All"

This appears to be some sort of "super" website that will (it's not available just yet!) allow us the customer to choose when and where we get our piles done. Now for me the choice is either Private or NHS in Aberdeen, my piles will be too inflamed from sitting on them to get to any other Hospital. (Not that I have piles of course).

Patricia then waxes on lyrically about the benefits of "Choice":

We are determined to put patients at the heart of the NHS and making sure patients can access and share information about health services is a crucial part of that. Patients will soon be able to choose, with the click of a button, where they want to have their treatment. Our new choice website will allow the public and clinicians to access a range of information through one super site that will act as a gateway to navigate NHS services.

"Patient choice is about people being in control. Patients needing a hospital appointment should have the right to pick and choose their time, date and place. To make this happen, we need to invest in facilities to help patients take control. Using public libraries and the internet is an ideal way to support patients, families and carers with information."

Actually we used to have this sort of ability many years ago prior to the current Labour Administration, We went to the Doctor and he had the ability to find or more likely know the best treatment, the best person to find out more or the best local Hospital for your need and sorted out the details. Unfortunately Labour then took this ability away when it stopped GP fundholding.

What Patricia has announced here is a dumbed down version of this whereby we "the customer" can now do this all by ourselves thanks to that wonderful internet thing. Just pop down to your local library explain to the old dear there about your piles and she'll help you find your best local hospital to have them sorted out. Just hope she's not too deaf when you try and explain your requirements. Dr Crippen has more on this here.

The Telegraph has more on this here with the last words being from a British Medical Association spokesman who said:

"They are spending an awful lot of money on things like new websites when patients would rather the resources were used to make sure their local hospital was of a good standard, clean and offers the right quality of care."

And remember NHS IT costs are so very reasonable.

GNN - Government News Network: "NHS Choices"