Column

The great shopping cure

Eric is definitely on the same wavelength as the government’s latest hotline scheme

Let’s face it-the NHS has had more than its fair share of the incompetent and the indecent. The big problem has always been how to flush out the feckless, the fraudsters and the fondlers in a service which protects its rotten apples with the embrace of red tape and professional collusion.

The means has always been at the disposal of medics themselves, but it looks as though it will take yet another concerted heave from the government to inspire the will to use it. The latest wheeze is called ‘Peer Review’ and it’s guaranteed to get results. Take the typical case of the boozed-up old groper-probably exactly the sort of person the government had in mind in launching this initiative. Instead of wandering down some futile bureaucratic dead-end complaints procedure, fellow doctors will now be free to employ the decisive intervention of Peer Review: ‘Stop fondling our patients!’ shouted across a crowded waiting room should do the trick.

Naturally, it will need to be adequately resourced. In particular funds will need to be set aside to deal with cases where criticised medics are mischievous enough to resort to litigation. But here the government is one step ahead of the white-coated O.J. Simpsons and their legal teams. A confidential hotline on which conscientious doctors can alert employers to the dodgy deeds of their colleagues should see many of them caught red-handed and removed faster than cones from a motorway.

Like all excellent schemes, it is open to abuse. While the hotline should serve as an artery through which the life blood of decent standards can flow freely, there are those who will clog up it up with distractions. Neither is the introduction of a Peer Review culture intended to encourage complacency. It is no good to resort to the hotline to whinge about ‘cuts in services’ and ‘understaffing’ while overlooking serious shortcomings in one’s own performance-such as breaching confidentiality by failing to shut up and keep your nose out of other people’s business.

I confidently predict that the government is on to a sure-fire winner with this one. Like all good schemes it may take a while to get going but I expect people will soon get into the swing. It won’t be long before we’re counting those ‘Shop-A-Doc’ days till Christmas.