Wednesday 20 March 2013

Francis Report & all calories are not equal

A  cold snowy morning! Time to get things done that don't involve leaving the house!

So, I've been following various reports about the Francis Report before I decide what I think and how it should affect me and my practice. Yesterday I listened to the BMJ round table podcast with Mr Francis himself and various other senior figures in the health service. Only one piece of journalism in the mainstream press gave me pause for thought. It was by Roger Taylor who also has a book coming out about the NHS.

He described how a successful hospital can still have thousands of adverse events reported including serious injury and death due to medial error and still be thought of as a good hospital. So, for people working in a system and there being more than an 'acceptable' number of errors not spotted, isn't so surprising really.

He also mentioned a consultant in Mid Staffs who was running an exemplary department and managed to do so through the crisis, but unfortunately this wasn't expanded on. It strikes me he is the has something valuable to contribute to the debate.

The round table was interesting, but didn't really come up with anything above and beyond what has been extensively written about. It seems a pity to me, with so many senior figures in one place they couldn't come up with some answers.

Much more interesting was a San Franscisco Medic on another BMJ podcast, discussing how all calories are not equal and how processed foods trigger insulin release and further cravings for more calorie dense fattening foods. He went pretty fast and I found it hard to keep up so I might have to listen to that one again! The basic message was cut right down on processed foods, high fibre foods help digest sugars hence whole fruit and whole grains being preferable to anything in a packet.

This is useful to me and my family personally as I have time and resources to cook good food. Helping my patients? I guess it's a question of encouraging people to buy fruit and veg and eat more home cooked food. Although with no fresh fruit and veg shop locally and many of my patients having no cooking skills at all, I'm not sure how far I will get with my more deprived patients.