Category Archives: Government

Britain, Government, Health, Medical

Nursing code of conduct under review…

NURSING RULE BOOK AND THE NEED FOR ‘COMPASSION’

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is to overhaul its code of conduct, an eight-page handbook setting out good practice. This comes in the wake of a damning report into the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal which has ordered the profession to show more compassion.

While for many people it would seem a prerequisite for the job, nurses could for the first time be ordered to treat their patients with compassion. The word is not mentioned anywhere in the profession’s current official code of conduct.

Such an obligation could lead to more nurses being struck-off or suspended for failing to care properly for patients or by treating them with dignity.

Last week, concerns over nursing standards were raised in two separate reports.

One, into the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway, said many nurses were ‘callous and brutal’ in their treatment of dying patients. The other, into needless deaths at 11 failing hospital trusts, found nurses did not have time for basic acts of compassion such as holding the hand of a dying patient.

Professor Judith Ellis, a member of the NMC council, said the new code of conduct would be drawn up this autumn. She said that a working party has been looking in depth at the code which needs to be reviewed because ‘it can get out of date.’

Introducing a requirement to show compassion would send a powerful message to the profession, reminding nurses of their basic duties which could see more staff being struck-off or suspended if they fall short. At present, very few nurses are disciplined just for not being compassionate – the most common offence for those disciplined is for physical abuse, followed by failing to keep adequate records.

The chief nursing officer for NHS England, Jane Cummings, has backed the move, saying:

… It is appropriate that compassion is reflected in the code of conduct.

Baroness Emerton, a retired nurse and crossbench peer, said nurses should not be put out at being reminded to show compassion. But she also added:

… You would hope that all nurses have compassion but it can be difficult if patients are aggressive… I do not think any nurse should be offended by being told that in difficult circumstances they have to stay compassionate.

A representative for Patient Concern, an organisation committed to promoting choice and empowerment for all health service users, said that whilst nurses should be reminded that they must be kind and considerate to patients, they shouldn’t be abdicating this responsibility to healthcare assistants.

WHAT NURSES ARE TOLD NOW

  • You must treat people as individuals and respect their dignity.
  • You must not discriminate in any way against those in your care.
  • You must act as an advocate for those in your care, helping them to access relevant health and social care, information and support.
  • You must treat people kindly and considerately.
  • Other sections of the nursing code tell nurses to maintain patient confidentiality, not to have inappropriate relationships with patients and to work well with other staff.
  • Nurses are also told to alert managers if they think staff are putting patients at risk, and to get patients or relatives’ consent before beginning treatment.
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Britain, Government, National Security, Politics, Syria

Engage in Syria at your own peril…

SYRIA: A RISKY VENTURE

The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, has hinted that hundreds of British soldiers could be sent to Syria to prevent a chemical threat to the West.

Mr Hammond has refused to rule out ordering troops to the war zone to rein in President Bashar al-Assad’s regime or seize stockpiles of illegal weapons.

He said it was ‘unlikely’ but no option was ‘off the table’ – in the most serious warning yet that the UK could deploy forces to Syria.

Mr Hammond gave his remarks after the outgoing head of the Armed Forces, General Sir David Richards, said Britain risked being dragged into the war.

Sir David, who has stepped down after three years as Chief of the Defence Staff, said ministers ‘would have to act’ if hoards of chemical weapons were discovered.

The UK must be prepared to ‘go to war’ if it wanted to stop the bloodshed inflicted by President Assad to crush a pro-freedom uprising in his country, he said.

At a ceremony at Horse Guards Parade in London to mark the end of General Richards’ tenure, the Defence Secretary said:

… I think it’s very unlikely we would see boots on the ground but we must never take any options off the table.

… It’s not our job to decide how and when and if to deploy forces but to make sure the Prime Minister and the National Security Council have the maximum range of options open to them.

General Richards revealed planning for a major operation led by Special Forces was under way. He said:

… The risk of terrorism is becoming more dominant in our vision for what we do in Syria.

… If that risk develops, we would almost certainly have to act … and we are ready to do so. Some could characterise that as war.

OPINION

The Prime Minister should consider very carefully the words of the outgoing Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards, before promising to give military assistance to rebel forces in Syria.

On leaving his post, Sir David has warned that plans under consideration to arm the rebels and set up a no-fly zone (NFZ) would be the start of a deeper and more dangerous British involvement. Stemming from that would invariably be aerial attacks on ground targets, followed by advisers to train the rebels, and, potentially, British combat troops on the ground.

Do we really know who these rebels are? Can we be confident that if they overthrow Assad, who has an advanced Air Force, they would govern any better? If Britain was to arm the rebels, could those weapons be used against British or other Western targets?

Syria has evolved into a pernicious bloody civil war with complex sectarian dimensions the West barely understands.

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China, Foreign Affairs, Government, Japan, Military, Russia, United States

Russian war games in a show of strength…

RUSSIA FLEXES ITS MILITARY MUSCLES

RUSSIA has just started the biggest military exercises since the Soviet era, involving 160,000 troops and about 5,000 tanks across Siberia and the far eastern region in a massive show of strength.

Throughout this week dozens of Russian Pacific Fleet ships and around 130 combat aircraft will take part in military manoeuvres. Part of those drills will be on Sakhalin Island in the Pacific, where thousands of troops have been ferried and airlifted from the mainland.

Russia’s deputy defence minister, Anatoly Antonov, has made clear and assured foreign military attachés that the exercises are not directed against any particular nation, though some military analysts believe the show of force is aimed at China and Japan.

A retired officer of the Russian military’s general staff, Konstantin Sivkov, gave an interview to the daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta and briefed that the Sakhalin part of the manoeuvres are intended to simulate a response to a hypothetical attack by Japanese and US forces.

Russia and Japan are currently in dispute over a group of Pacific islands, which Russia calls the Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories.

Russia tanks move across Sakhalin Island during military exercises seen by many as a warning to China and Japan.

Russia tanks move across Sakhalin Island during military exercises seen by many as a warning to China and Japan.

Mr Antonov said that Russia had warned its neighbours about the exercise before it started, and provided particularly detailed information to China, in line with an agreement that envisages a mutual exchange of data about military activities along their 2,700-mile border.

The Cold War-era rivals have forged what they have described as a ‘strategic partnership’ since the 1991 Soviet Union collapse, developing close political, economic and military ties in a shared aspiration to counter US power around the world.

Russia has supplied sophisticated weapons to China, and the neighbours have conducted joint military drills, most recently a naval exercise in the Sea of Japan earlier this month.

But many in Russia have felt increasingly uneasy about the growing might of China.

Russia and China had territorial disputes for centuries. Relations between Communist China and the Soviet Union ruptured in the 1960s, and the two fought a brief border conflict in 1969. It wasn’t until 2004 that Moscow and Beijing signed a new border treaty, which saw Russia yielding control over several islands in the Amur River. Some in Russia’s sparsely populated far east feared that the concessions might tempt China’s resolve or by teasing its appetite.

Alexander Khramchikhin, an independent Moscow-based military analyst, said the massive exercise held in the areas along the border with China was clearly aimed at Beijing. He said: ‘It’s quite obvious that the land part of the exercise is directed at China, while sea and island part of it is aimed at Japan.’

Mr Khramchikhin, who recently posted an article online portraying a grim picture of Russia being routed in a surprise Chinese attack, said that the war games along their shared border was intended to discourage China from harbouring expansionist plots. In his article, Mr Khramchikhin wrote: ‘China may now think that Russia has finally become more aware of what could happen.’

The manoeuvres are part of recent efforts to boost the military’s mobility and combat readiness after years of post-Soviet decline, but they have far exceeded previous drills in both numbers and territorial scope.

As part of the war games, held across several time zones, some army units have been deployed to areas thousands of miles away from their bases. Paratroopers have been flown across Russia in long-range transport aircraft, and some units were ferried to Sakhalin under escort of navy ships and fighter jets.

A decade of post-Soviet economic meltdown has crippled Russia’s military capability, with a lack of funds for building and maintaining equipment, and mass draft-dodging of soldiers due to corruption and bullying.

The Kremlin responded to weaknesses revealed in a brief conflict with Georgia in 2008 by launching reforms intended to turn the bloated military into a more modern, agile and rapid reaction force.

The government has also unveiled an ambitious arms modernisation programme, though this has come under attack by a number of analysts describing the proposals as ‘clearly insufficient’.

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