Tuesday 28 May 2013

Gaviiformes Dixonii

Back in February I toyed with the idea of posting on some of the more lunatic personalities in Britain but the idea has sort of been on hold till now. I think I'll rectify that now and start with one of our own profession.
Michael Dixon, GMC 2496151
Dr Dixon practices as a GP at Cullompton in Devon. Among other things he chairs the NHS Alliance, and the College of Medicine. Superficially, to the uneducated these might seem like highly respectable positions in highly respectable organisations, indeed the College of Medicine has as it's president Sir Graeme Catto, past president of the GMC.

However closer inspection is more enlightening. The so called College of Medicine is a successor to the Foundation for Integrated Health of which Dixon was also a director. It's principal function is to promote all forms of complementary medicine and have woo in all it's forms available on the NHS. The NHS Alliance is a group gathering together people who approve of and have worked hard to implement the distrusted NHS reforms. You know, arselickers.

In his own practice premises Dr Dixon provides the whole range of pseudo scientific claptrap, homeopathy, chiropractic, waving of hands around and calling it healing, and some relatively unknown new varieties of bollocks such as "frequencies of brilliance."

GMC good practice guide states at paragraph 3(c) "you must provide effective treatments based on the best available evidence" There can be no doubt at all that Dr Dixon is flagrantly and consistently in breach of this requirement, so how come the GMC doesn't take an interest? Far be it from me to suggest that having friends like Catto, Hunt and Prince Charles makes him pretty much invulnerable, but it obviously doesn't do him any harm.

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Dermajuvenate scam

Another scam from the internet which is even more dishonest than usual. This one even lies about the "free" sample, the inevitable inducement with these scam products.
The usual glaring headlines are there "MUM OUTSMARTS BOTOX DOCTORS", Yeah yeah! and the usual implausible promises and photoshopped before & after pics.
Before

After

And of course you have to authorise repeated theft from your credit card.
But the most blatant lie lies in the small print. In the introductory page the crooks repeatedly highlight that they will give you a free trial. In the small print it says "We're giving you a trial bottle for only £3.79"  Not quite free then is it, especially when they add another £1.99 for "insurance". Still a total of £5.78 is no massive sum. But further on it says that if you do not cancel "We will bill you £89.31 for the trial bottle you received" So your "free trial" will actually cost you £95.09.
Perhaps they're using some definition of the word "free" that I'm not familiar with.
Oh and then there's the "Rejuven eye max" that you're supposed to buy as well, as the products only work when used together, obviously. That's another £69.95.
So that's £165.04 for two free samples. And then £159.26 every month thereafter.
I think I'd rather stay wrinkly.


Saturday 18 May 2013

Thursday 9 May 2013

The end

I started work in the NHS less than 30 years after it's inception. All my working life the NHS has been plagued by repeated and massive disruption at the hands of successive governments. The fuckers just couldn't leave it alone to get on with the job. And while the administrative and managerial part of the NHS has burgeoned the clinical capability has been cut and cut again.

We have been hobbled by increasing regulation, control and short sightedness. Only last week Gloucester Royal Infirmary came to a complete standstill because of a complete IT failure. So how did we manage to function in the days before computers?

And now it is on the verge of implosion. We are approaching a state of affairs where we will no longer be able to treat the sick. What a sad end to this man's worthy dream.


Saturday 4 May 2013

Oops!!!!!!

It's been shown on numerous occasions that when there is a disaster in the way a patient is treated it's almost never due to a single failing in the system. It's usually a series of errors and deficiencies that add up to the disaster, which could have been averted if just one step on the pathway had been rectified. If you are one of those who watches TV programmes about aircraft crashes you will be familiar with a similar phenomenon at work here.

Something similar has recently happened in the world of architecture. Here you have a building that was designed presumably by a team of architects. They will have submitted their design to their clients for approval. The design will have been examined by civil engineers, planners, building constuctors etc, scores, perhaps hundreds of people. Why did no-one say anything? Did they not notice?
What a cock up!