staff confidence in NHS

There's been a lot of interesting news in the last 24 hours. Results of a Health Commission survey show that the majority of NHS workers questioned said they would not be happy to have treatment in their part of the NHS. Maybe this is something to do with the fact that their GP won't be getting a discharge report (see the last blog entry). More likely it's due to staff awareness of the flaws in NHS service. However as with all media reoprting there's likely to be a bias in this information. Might it be that staff would chose not to go to their local hospital because they want treatment at somewhere that they are not known ? It might have nothing to do with care standards and everything to do with avoiding receiving treatment from colleagues. Would you really want to be working with your colleague who has just performed your colonoscopy or D&C? I'm not so sure that physios would mind receiving physiotherapy from collagues. During training we seemed to spend large amounts of time going around in just our underwear so few of us would have an issue with the dignity side of things (if that's the correct term for it!) However it would be interesting to find out just how confident we would all be about our collagues abilities to treat a problem.

Another bit of news is about NHS staff being attacked. It would again be interesting to know how physios fit within this. It's hard to envisage this happening in hospitals under normal circumstances (Emergency Rooms/A&E Depts excepted). Physios who do home visits are at risk and we should be asking wht forms of protection these vulnerable workers are being given. Someone might phone you if you don't turn up for wotk the next day but who knows what could have heppened before then