It has been hot on the news in recent days that Gordon Brown is planning a 'deep clean', certain images do immediately spring to mind but unfortunately these instinctive thoughts are not exactly what Gordon means. His government and the Department of Health have both failed dismally in tackling MRSA and hospital acquired infections, in fact the UK has pretty much the highest MRSA rates in Europe. Gordon's 'deep clean' is akin to a sticky plaster being used to close a gaping abdominal wound, he wants to be seen to be doing something when he clearly is not.
The reasons for our failure to tackle hospital acquired infections and MRSA are complex, but arguably revolve around a complete failure to tackle the problem in an all encompassing manner; our government has been using multiple sticky plasters, when in reality the patient needs to return to theatre to have a proper sorting. In fact superficial measures enforced by fascist managers that have no decent evidence base are the routine in the NHS. Gordon's deep clean in the latest in a very long line of crappy gimmicks.
The battle against hospital acquired infection is being lost largely because the government's top down targets force patients to be pointlessly moved from ward to ward so quickly that infection gets the opportunity to spread, and because bed numbers have been on the fall meaning that we do not have the capacity to isolate MRSA carriers and high risk patients from others. The gathering of targets based for political propaganda are more important to Mr Brown than designing a holistic approach to these complex problems.
I suggest that Mr Brown should conduct a vigorous 'deep clean' of a few New Labour orifices that are resting a little closer to home, as I am getting rather tired of their misinformed faeculent deposits. Mr Brown would be better off getting his own house in order and letting medical experts, not politicians, decide how to best manage medical problems. Possibly Mr Brown is a little scared about what might turn up if he gave the New Labour colon a thorough cleansing; who knows, there may be a peerage or two impacted together in a rather hard to reach crevasse?