Apologies for the current blog silence. Deadlines are looming out of the mist like monsters in a horror film and life is pared down to the bare essentials.
Here’s another in our occasional “Forget the shoes, Daddy needs a new laptop” series.
In the Guardian this morning:
A £12.4bn programme to modernise IT systems throughout the NHS in England is running years behind schedule and failing to prove it is value for money, a committee of MPs said today.
The most vulnerable newborn babies are being cared for by a service that is so acutely understaffed that less than 4% receive the level of care the government admits they require.
A survey of all 224 neonatal units in the UK reveals that on average they are understaffed by a third. An extra 2,500 neonatal nurses are needed to meet the levels of care set by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, and endorsed by the Department of Health.
Meanwhile, The RCN warns:
The debt crisis facing the NHS is “real and entrenched” and has resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs…According to the study, entitled Our NHS – Today and Tomorrow, some 22,300 health jobs have been lost across various trusts as a result of redundancies, freezes on recruitment and post closures. In addition, almost three-quarters of newly-qualified nurses have been unable to secure jobs
And talking of laptops, just spotted this one:
I’ll tell you what also really annoys me: how much money my school spends on technology.
We all have to have laptops – my year is the last in which they weren’t compulsory – and there are interactive white boards, and flat-screen televisions outside the assembly hall that show the netball results, and ones outside the gym that are supposed to show sports games but mostly they just show music videos on mute – how stupid is that? – and then flat screens outside the IT department that say “Can so and so in Year 7 please come and collect her laptop”.
But we’re not allowed to print off our homework at school because, guess what? The school doesn’t have enough money to buy paper.
The ARCH Blog 