A top UK hospital has claimed it is the first in the nation to publish all of its death rates. Hoorah and full points for issuing a press release about setting such a precedent for openness.

St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south-west London, is already one of only a few hospitals in Britain to publish the results for individual heart surgeons, a controversial move opposed by many elsewhere. The Guardian used the Freedom of Information Act earlier this year to force hospitals to reveal these figures. See earlier posts.

The latest statistics don’t list the performance of individual surgeons and doctors but do show death rates for more than 20 specialities, from birth to geriatrics. The Guardian states the measure will increase pressure on the rest of the NHS to follow suit, and not before time. St George’s should be commended for publishing such important data that is clearly in the public interest.

Many doctors have battled against such public accountability, stating that to publish such statistics was ‘oversimplifying’ the data. Yet St George’s managed to publish the data while taking into account risk factors such as age and diagnosis. What the obstructionists fail to realise is that censorship and secrecy are not the solution to oversimplification (if indeed it is a problem). Patients have a right to know more about those people to whom they trust their health. If more hospitals published their rates, surely this would remind the public that complex medical procedures carry a risk of failure or death, and enable patients to quantify that risk sensibly.

Here’s my prescription for avoiding oversimplification – a big hearty dose of extra informative data.

• Article in the Guardian: Hospital first to publish death rates
• BBC: Death rates data hospital first

Here’s something that we could really do with in the UK:
Kafka Savings – The Belgian government has saved 230 million euros over the past two years thanks to its web site ‘Kafka,’ which encourages people and businesses to submit examples of unnecessary bureaucracy in a bid to cut down on red tape, according to a report on the US web site ABC News. And occasionally, the government even agrees with complaints and reduces needless regulations. The site is named after the famous author who hated irrational bureaucracy:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=901586

The National Land Use Database provides information about two projects: Previously Developed Land (PDL) and Baseline. According to the website, PDL collects data on vacant and derelict sites and other previously developed land and buildings that may be available for redevelopment in England. Baseline aims to develop a comprehensive and up-to-date land use map.

I found the website a little hard to navigate but the main site data is found at http://www.iggi.gov.uk/nlud/nlud_default.asp

You can select a council from the drop-down menu and take a look at the derelict, vacant or previously developed land. This might be useful if you’re wondering about a building in your neighbourhood. The ‘summary’ gives actual addresses and general details about the land, while the ‘detail’ gives more information including the owner of the land (council or private), if the land has planning permission and what sort of development is suitable.

Here is an interesting story that local UK newspapers should try here. Police Chief and the Mayor in Portland, Oregon, USA claim that it’s legal to search somebody’s garbage without a warrant, and criticise a judge who declares the activity unconstitutional.

So then the local newspaper raids the Mayor’s and the Police Chief’s garbage! Needless to say, the targets are none to happy.

http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=3485

An interesting and forthright Government hearing published today by a Congressional Reform Subcommittee on “Overclassification and Pseudo-Classification” gives clear evidence why excessive secrecy is a danger to national security both in America and the rest of the world. See:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2005/030205overclass.html

U.S. Representative Christopher Shays (Connecticut) bluntly describes the very real danger to the American public resulting from excessive government secrecy: “Those costs are measured in lives as well as dollars. Somewhere in the vast cache of data that never should have been classified, and may never be declassified is that tiny nugget of information that if shared, it could be used to detect and prevent the next deadly terrorist attack. Recently enacted reforms should help focus and coordinate disparate elements of the so-called intelligence community to broaden our view of critical threat information.”

These statements are mirrored by the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission that it was overclassification and excessive compartmentalization of information among agencies that left the door open for terrorists to strike.

Citizens and politicians in America are fighting the trend of excessive secrecy with a public interest declassification board that has new authority to push for executive branch adherence to disclosure standards, particularly with regard to congressional committee requests.

You might well ask if our own UK government has an equivalent level of scrutiny. The answer is NO, even though British MPs and the general public have far less access to information about our intelligence services and police than our American counterparts. This country still labours under the archaic belief that we need to be secret to be safe. In this sense, President Bush is the most ‘British’ president since Richard Nixon.

In fact, as September 11th proved, we lose protection by too much secrecy. The true facts behind the London July 7 and 21 attacks may well show a similar failure to stop the attacks thanks to excessive secrecy and compartmentalisation of information. Already it has emerged that one of the bombers was known to US intelligence. What other information was known, not shared and therefore never utilised?

What is also forgotten in this rush to secrecy is that such behaviour is antithetical to a democratic society. As U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich said, “This climate of secrecy takes us toward a type of government which is not democratic, which is profoundly undemocratic, which has that kind of a stale, garbage-like whiff of fascism to it.”

Too true – but what are Brits going to do about it? The time for pontification and moaning has passed. Power hungry police and politicians have our civil liberties in their gunsights and the time is now to take action before it is too late. Write a letter to your MP or local/national newspaper – and demand more accountability from the police and intelligence services. They want more power and information about the public – make them pay for it with greater transparency! This is surely the best way to keep the country safe.