 FORGET the spin, reporter SOPHY RIDGE worked two weeks at West London's Hammersmith Hospital to learn the shock truth about life on the NHS frontline... IN just a fortnight serving meals at Hammersmith Hospital I uncovered a scandalous catalogue of failings that put patients at risk. At first sight it's a clean, modern, well-run complex. But its reliance on overworked, underpaid staff means corners are constantly cut in a way that could cost lives. The hospital's hard-pressed staff: FAILED to verify my references or check criminal records before taking me on. IGNORED safety regulations designed to beat killer MRSA infections. ENDANGERED lives by serving undercooked meals. ALLOWED a diabetic patient to go without food for so long he was forced to dash out to the shops to buy a meal. Just two days after applying to work as a ‘hostess' for hospital domestic firm Medirest, cooking and serving food to patients, I had full access to the wards with NO formal training, NO background checks and NO jabs for deadly infectious TB, tetanus and hepatitis. I could have been a thief, a sex offender or mentally ill. The only training was on the job, shadowing other hostesses—discovering how some serve undercooked meals. Every meal should be tested with a temperature probe to ensure it is at least 75 degrees and bugs have been killed. Most workers, who earn £5.55 per hour, condemned this as "a waste of time". Disgrace One told me: "Only bother doing it if there's an inspection." Another didn't even know what the temperature was meant to be. Thanks to faulty equipment, meals are regularly served hours late. One day food for lunch was delivered to the ward kitchen an hour behind schedule. Then the oven broke down. Another hostess said: "This always happens. Try giving it a bang." By the time I served lunch, it was nearly two hours late. One desperate patient shouted: "Where's my food? I'm diabetic. I need to eat at set times. This is a disgrace!" Worried he might fall into a coma from low blood sugar, he stormed out of the hospital to buy his own. Despite all this Hammersmith has a great record. The Healthcare Commission rated its services "Good" and it meets targets for reducing deadly superbugs MRSA and C Diff. The measures to control infection are all in place—bug-killing alcoholic hand gel is at every ward door—but it is often ignored. Many staff failed to use it and few visitors bothered. Risks were even taken with infectious patients on isolation wards. Anyone entering must use hand gel and wear an apron, gloves and, in some cases, masks. One hostess told me: "Don't worry about the apron and gloves, as long as you use hand gel you'll be fine." Some didn't even bother with the gel. The Trust said: "We are very grateful to the News of the World for highlighting this issue. We believe this is an isolated issue which we will be taking up vigorously with Medirest." PM UNSHACKLES DOCS IN BID TO STOP ROTPRIME Minister Gordon Brown may be poised to make the most revolutionary changes to the NHS in 60 years—but it's too late for thousands of disillusioned staff who have given up on it and quit the job in droves. Mr Brown's sweeping moves, revealed today by the News of the World, hand day-to-day control of the NHS to a completely independent management board. Premier Brown acted after doctors and nurses warned him the health service is on the point of collapse, putting lives at risk. Deputy Political Editor JAMIE LYONS has also been talking to dedicated but disenchanted medics and managers. Here they tell why they have finally had enough of the promises, red tape, cutbacks, sham targets, poor training and never-ending stress—and have all walked out on the service. We also give the moving story of a patient racked with pain but forced by waiting lists to abandon hope of treatment paid for with a lifetime's taxes and cough up yet again for private surgery abroad. And reporter Sophy Ridge tells the shocking inside story of life on the front line— revealing how overwork, poor management and small acts of neglect can endanger lives. It'll make you angry—and show Mr Brown this sickly NHS needs much, much more than a headline-grabbing shot in the arm. THE SURGEON: OFF TO NEW ZEALAND FOR PROPER TRAININGTRAINEE surgeon Clare Cooke is quitting the NHS because she says its "dumbed-down" training is putting patients' lives AT RISK. New rules mean doctors must specialise early. And that means they are not trained in other vital areas. Now Clare, 28, is leaving Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey for New Zealand to get the all-round training she needs. She said: "This new system, where you have to choose a specialist field just two years out of medical school, is a scandal. The old way produced well-rounded, better-qualified doctors. Not any more, and I think it's dangerous. "Of course brain surgeons need to know about brain surgery. But they also need to know how to deal with other problems like heart attacks etc. Shafted "Today's training is totally dumbed-down. And every old-school doctor is furious about it." Clare insists she did not want to leave Britain, but had no choice. "My friends, family and life are here," she said. "All I've ever wanted to be is a doctor but I wouldn't be able to be a true, well-rounded professional if I stayed." Clare says the government is destroying the NHS. "It's chronically underfunded," she added. "But the main problem is that it's run by politicians and bureaucrats, who don't understand it. You can't run the NHS as a business. "Morale among the doctors and nurses is so low. Everyone's been shafted by the government and everybody hates it. And an unhappy doctor is a dangerous doctor." THE NURSE: PATIENTS ARE DYING OF NEGLECT STAFF nurse Patricia Beeden walked away from the NHS after 38 years saying staff are too overworked to look after patients properly. She insists patients are dying because staff don't have the time to care for them. Patricia quit the Lincoln hospital she loved last year to work for a private agency and told us: "The pressure on NHS nurses is just unbearable. I regularly worked 12-hour shifts without proper breaks for 10 days in a row. "Nurses are burning out. They know there's nothing they can do to change the situation. And patients suffer due to the understaffing. Swamped "Everyone's rushing around and mistakes are made. I've seen our elderly suffer in hospitals over the last 15 years. Patients die unnecessarily because of neglect. The resources aren't there and the will has gone. Nurses are fed up and demoralised—that's why so many of us are getting out. "On top of it all they're swamped by paperwork and forced to carry out doctors' jobs that they're not trained for," added Patricia, 63. "Nurses are exhausted, physically and mentally. That's one of the reasons MRSA spreads. Nurses don't have time to make sure everything is spotless." THE PATIENT: COULDN'T WAIT SO LONG FOR HIP OPPENSIONER Graham Whettam has given up on the NHS—after being told he would have to wait up to a YEAR in agonising pain to get a hip replacement operation. The 69-year-old composer from Gloucestershire was forced to plunder his life savings for £10,000 and fly to Malta to have the vital surgery done privately. Angry Graham said: "I've paid into the NHS all my life. But just when I needed it they weren't there for me. It made me feel very bitter. "I was told last September that I'd need the operation. But the earliest they said they could possibly do it was this July, and that was only if they'd sorted out the backlog. "My GP pleaded for me to get treated at a private hospital on the NHS. "But they said no. I just couldn't wait, I was going downhill. There was no cartilage left in my hip and I was in so much pain. "When I found out that I could go across to Malta and get it done my doctor said ‘Go!' "So thankfully I had the operation in April." Graham said that new Prime Minister Gordon Brown MUST make sorting out the health service his top priority. "There is such a shortage of money in the NHS," he said. THE GOVERNOR: CASH FOR CARING WENT ON QUANGO DAWN Adams quit as a hospital governor, strangled by government red tape. She resigned from Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust saying the targets culture got in the way of patient care—and money that should have gone on curing the sick was being spent on management. After two years in the post, similar to a school governor, Dawn said: "The constant bombardment of the trust management by government white papers and policy changes makes it impossible for patients to be cared for in the way they choose. We were being sucked into another layer of costly bureaucracy, just another quango, the costs of which should have been used for frontline care." Dawn said the result was ministers rather than local health chiefs decided how hospitals were run. "It saddens me but I felt I was no longer able to do the work for which I was elected—to represent the concerns and NHS experience of trust members," she added. "I didn't feel I was able to influence the strategy of the board of directors on their behalf. "Under the circumstances I felt it was the right time to resign." She wasn't the only one. Her colleague Dr Tony Withers quit in protest at government cuts which led to the closure of a local hospital. Dawn said the £40million snatchback in Gloucestershire was a key reason behind her decision, too. "The cuts in local health services have devastated all of us," she said. | 
