clifftaylor
Absolutely retired!
From my own point of view, I've seen such horrendous waste with absolutely no result. This appears to be primarily a case of clinicians being afraid of not following NICE guidelines to the letter. There seems to be a fear culture that overrides the application of common sense. How do you get common sense back into a nationalised industry? What would happen if you stripped out some of the levels of management and gave those funds to the medical professionals?
I've only been with the NHS for 10 years (Pathology, so we only get to see patients in small pieces!), and I know what you mean re common sense - however, two of the problems are that we live in an increasingly litigious society, which makes Trusts very nervous about doing anything other than following all guidelines very closely, and the other is that there's a marked difference between appearing at a Coroner's Inquest (for example)and saying "We followed NICE guidelines", and saying "We applied what seemed to be common sense".
I'd love to see more common sense used in the NHS, but getting from Here to There will be difficult.