Here is the BBC report on the fire I told you about on Sunday. There is a second one now, not that far away. I suppose the investigation department will be busy deciding if the fires are arson, or if they are connected in any way.

Our MDT computer system is failing at least complex wide at the moment - we have been told to use radio communication as a back-up. Is this another virus on the system, or some failure of the entire infrasystem?

Tomorrow I have a *groan* two day teaching course, based around "guidelines". We are moving away from protocols and more towards deciding what we want to do on the fly. At least that is the idea I've been given by those who have proceeded me on the course. I've also been told that it is immensely boring - i think I'd rather be at work.

I worked for eight years for a hospital trust that got Zero Stars for two years running. It was almost a point of pride for us, we knew it was bad and there was a type of blitz mentality which kept us all working there instead of moving to a "nicer" hospital.

Newham General has been both slammed and praised, for those that are interested this came from the Newham Recorder.

THE bosses of Newham General Hospital have been hit with the worst scores nationwide for patient satisfaction, treating them with dignity and their confidence in doctors.
In other rankings based on patients' views, the Accident and Emergency Department was slammed as the second dirtiest out of 153 hospital trusts in the country, and outpatients' toilets the worst, according to The Sunday Times Good Hospital Guide.
But Newham Healthcare NHS Trust achieved a "startling drop" in the mortality rate from 16 per cent above expectation in 2001/02 to just five per cent above in 2002/03.
Death rates are a "critical piece of data" in measuring performance – and Newham's was the joint sixth biggest fall nationwide. This huge achievement pulled it into the middle ranks of trusts.
A&E waits are still too long, with one in five patients kept waiting longer than four hours during the period surveyed, it was said.
But the Trust won praise for prompt delivery of lifesaving drugs to heart attack patients, and scans for stroke patients within 24 hours of admission.


(I've deleted some of the stuff, not about the A&E so as to not infringe copyright Read the full article here)

Actually NGH isn't as bad as most people make it out to be, they saw 94% of all patients within four hours in the past two months, they cope as well as possible with perhaps one of the worst designed A&E's I've ever seen, and they have regular agency nurses who are generally excellent.

If I were ill I'd go to Newham. I'd stay away from the Royal London, have to drag me kicking and screaming into King George's and you wouldn't catch me dead at Oldchurch hospital.

Suw Charman has written this long but excellent article about copyright. For my particularly un-lawyer like mind this subject normally confuses and bores me, however Suw has written a clear description of the arguments for "loosening" copyright.

Go, read, digest.