Government at its worst
I HOPE you all have been enjoying the endless delays caused by the Chapel Road roadworks in Worthing and the attempts to rat-run around Christchurch Road/Stoke Abbott Road and trying to find your way around road closures.
I also hope you have been enjoying dodging the thousands of potholes in virtually every road in the town, and which get bigger and bigger every week.
Here, in all its glory, is local (and national) government at its very worst. Take a good, hard look at it, folks, because you're paying for it, big time.
The Chapel Road "improvement" scheme is costing 850,000 and involves widening the pavements, creating "pinch-points" everywhere and providing street furniture for the purpose of slowing down traffic and reducing accidents.
No-one bothered to analyse the Chapel Road accidents and realise that many were caused either by drunken twits rolling out of night clubs into the path of traffic, or people wrongly thinking that Chapel Road was a pedestrian precinct and stepping in front of vehicles.
The road "improvements" will do nothing to prevent the former, and may increase the possibility of the latter. We'll wait and see.
The numerous road works around the county has come about because of a glut of cash given by the government on road schemes to be spent before April.
That's why we've got road closures, diversions and temporary traffic lights all over the place, all for the most dubious "improvements".
But there's no cash to get a work force doing what should be done – get the pot holes filled in. So our cars are being shaken to pieces and, no doubt, there will be a rash of compensation claims from drivers for damage to cars or accidents caused by the poor condition of the roads.
Local government at its worst.
Now, let's turn to government and the NHS at its worst. The government insists on performance targets and put huge pressures on those hospital trusts in debt and what happens – the frightening episode at Mid Staffordshire hospitals where these policies may have led to up to 1,200 deaths.
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Instead of putting patients first there was an "appalling standard of care".
We've heard of reception staff judging the seriousness of the condition of patients being brought to A&E, poorly-trained nurses turning off equipment because they hadn't been taught how it worked; patients left for hours in soiled bedclothes and newly-qualified doctors left to care for patients at night recovering from surgery.
Doctors diverted from serious cases to treat minor problems because it made the figures look better and prevent it breaching the government's four-hour waiting time target.
Thanks a bunch, Labour government. I'm now going to tell the government there is only one meaningful NHS target – and that is the success of making a patient better.
Only now has it emerged that mortality rates in emergency at Mid Staffordshire were between 27 per cent and 45 per cent higher than should be.
It's that figure that the NHS and government dimwits should have picked up on.
And apparently, some of these so-called managers who should have spotted the failings and raised an alarm have now been promoted to key jobs in the NHS and health care regulation.
I hope, for all our sakes, they haven't found their way to our local hospitals.
And now let's look at British government at its worst. The International Monetary Fund says that the slump in the UK will be longer and deeper than any major country in the world.
Thanks a bunch, Labour, and don't forget who's been at the helm first as Chancellor and now PM in the lead-up to all this mess.
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Weather for Worthing
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 12 C to 19 C
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