Somebody just kindly pointed me to a ‘corrections and clarifications’ section of yesterday’s Guardian, in which the paper – which recently became the first mainstream paper to put some of the truth around Stafford hospital into the public view – achieves another first:
It seems the paper, which last month published an article (a little after the SKWAWKBOX!) highlighting the fallacious nature of the media claims of 13,000 ‘needless’ deaths in just 14 hospitals, has finally twigged that if the mortality claims were wrong about those 14 hospitals, the claims about deaths at Stafford hospital are just as false for exactly the same reasons.
It’s about time. And – as someone commented on Facebook in a humorous but sadly accurate commentary on the state of the UK’s media and the resulting skewed priorities of many people – since the correction was just before a correction about the new Dr Who, it might just get a wide readership!
It would be nice to think that the Guardian is just the first of many papers to correct such a blatantly misleading statement. However, I wouldn’t hold your breath if I were you.
The right-wing rags and the suborned BBC will continue to propagate the ‘needless deaths’ falsehood for as long as it’s considered politically convenient by a government trying simultaneously to undermine public affection for the NHS and to dislodge Labour from its position as the only party that can be trusted with the future of our health service.