NHS Networks weekly news: - someone's having a laugh!

[Not so ancient mariner]

The actual message as received!!


-----Original Message-----
From: NHS Networks [mailto:websupport@networks.nhs.uk]
Sent: 12 April 2013 03:23
To:
Subject: NHS Networks weekly news

Over to you

Next week the Department of Health will write to patients reminding
them that the new NHS is more patient centred, outcomes focused and
transformational than ever before and that patients and the public
are, in a very real sense, at the heart of things.

NHS Networks has obtained a copy of the letter, which is reproduced
here in full.

Dear Citizen-patient

As you know, you are now in charge of the NHS. This is partly because
the people who used to run it weren’t up to the job but, more
importantly, because we think the NHS is too important to be left to
politicians, civil servants or managers.

You may feel you lack the clinical and managerial expertise to take on
a public service with a budget in excess of £100bn a year. Don’t
worry, we’ve thought of that. You will be working in partnership with
your GP, someone who knows all about medical matters and running their
own business, admittedly on a slightly smaller scale.

The new arrangements, which took effect earlier this month, mean that
you will be making all the important decisions that affect your care.
You and your GP will be able to decide exactly how the NHS budget is
spent and where. You will have the power to close underperforming
hospitals, commission new services, redesign care pathways and hold
local providers to account – all of which you’ve told us you can’t
wait to do.

You can find everything you need to run the NHS by following the links
at the end of this letter. They give you access to lots of
regulations, guidance, directions, policies, procedures, contractual
frameworks, procurement rules, commissioning guides, toolkits,
clinical guidelines, spend and outcomes data and more. Don’t worry if
it all seems a bit daunting at first – if you follow the instructions
carefully, you’ll soon get the hang of it.

Of course not everyone will have the time to get involved on a day to
day basis. If your GP is in the driving seat, think of yourself as in
the passenger seat telling him where to go or in the back of the car
quietly watching a DVD or listening to music on your iPod. It’s up to
you.

But whatever your level of participation in running the NHS, we know
you will want to be involved in your own care. “No decision about me
without me” is our way of saying that nobody knows more about heart
disease, diabetes or rare tropical diseases than you. So if you think
that the digoxin is interfering with your renal functions or the
amlodipine is giving you headaches and causing your ankles to swell
up, make sure you let your doctor know. Because she will be busy
getting to grips with funding flows or renegotiating the contract for
outpatient dermatology services with the local hospital, she may not
have noticed.

The best thing you can do to help the NHS is not get ill or injured in
the first place. Looking after yourself, eating the right food,
cutting out alcohol and cigarettes, giving up dangerous sports and
taking lots of long walks are just some of the ways you can save
yourself and the NHS money.

If you must use the NHS, please do so in moderation and remember that
by making just one less trip to A&E or thinking twice before asking
for expensive cancer drugs you will be saving resources that may be
put to better use somewhere else. Reorganising the NHS for your
benefit has already cost upwards of £1.5bn. Inevitably that has meant
cutting back in less essential frontline areas, but you can do your
bit too.

You kept saying it was your NHS. Well now it is. Over to you.

Comment on this blog
(http://www.networks.nhs.uk/editors-blog ... o-you/view) . . . . . .

(Links removed to save space)

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