Save the NHS!

[Destination]

As dr pain says procurement is quite insane, they argue nothing, a privatised procurement dept would save the nhs loads for a start.
One local hospital i am aware of, the largest in northern ireland, pays more tna ten pounds extra per box of local anesthetic than we do, a small company employing less than twenty five. We argued a better deal, and they must use tens of thousands or more of such materials in a year.
It basic madness.

 

[Dave M]

Important things like what? Your local cardiac department which will almost certainly close as it's not cost effective to keep it open now all the profitable heart work get done at the private company down the road. Great if you are lucky enough to have a profitable heart condition, not so great if you don't.

No.

Important like palliative care for cancer patients at the cost of me having a blood test at Asda instead of my doctors surgery or neurotic mothers taking their kids to a pharmacist rather than their highly paid GP every time he swallows a slug and feels bad.

 

[Dolph]

You can't run any organisation, let alone one the size of the NHS, without number crunchers. I wonder how many number crunchers somebody like Microsoft has?

Of course not, but that doesn't mean that the NHS has the right number at present...

 

[No1newts]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10375877

I guess you'll be apologising?

Efficiency was measured by looking at total national spending on health as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), as well as the amount spent on health administration and insurance.

NHS wastes loads of money so its efficent?

Did they get the special school to write this report?

I'll save my apology for someone who doesn't think overspending and waste on bureaucrats equals efficency.

LOL

 

[sigma]

Not to mention:

Karen Davis, president of The Commonwealth Fund and one of the report's authors, cautions that there are limitations in assessing countries' performances using the perceptions and experiences of patients and doctors.

"They do not capture important dimensions of effectiveness or efficiency that might be obtained from medical records or administrative data," she said.

"Patients and physicians' assessments might be affected by their experiences and expectations, which could differ by country and culture."

 

[scorza]

Good lord that is a corker!

You should do stand up, it's sig worthy at the least!

My apologies, I should have said second most efficient (after Ireland): http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most-efficient-health-services

 

[sammo62]

NHS wastes loads of money so its efficent?

Did they get the special school to write this report?

I'll save my apology for someone who doesn't think overspending and waste on bureaucrats equals efficency.

LOL

So you decided to gloss over these:

The UK performed well when it came to quality of care and access to care.

"The UK has relatively short waiting times for basic medical care and non-emergency access to services after hours, but has longer waiting times for specialist care and elective, non-emergency surgery."

If you'd prefer the American system you are quite frankly an idiot as I've lived there and it is beyond terrible. The UK is very good at short term, immediate care. I definitely agree we need to improve on longer term treatments such as treating cancer patients etc.

 

[Dave M]

And back in the real world where the bottom line is cost.........

If you were right everyone would be driving a KIA, the reason they don't is choice - people choose to spend more on certain things for reasons that are completely personal.

What would a government produced car be like?

 

[scorza]

NHS wastes loads of money so its efficent?

Did they get the special school to write this report?

I'll save my apology for someone who doesn't think overspending and waste on bureaucrats equals efficency.

LOL

Uhm no - it means we waste less money because the money we do spend on healthcare tends to be spent on actual healthcare services and less on healthcare administration and insurance.

 

[No1newts]

So I can get basic medical care and pop along after hours for a few stitches after a **** up but I will still be waiting for specialist care, which is generally along the lines of cancer treatment, heart conditions, you know the kind of stuff that saves your life.

That's a great deal!

Uhm no - it means we waste less money because the money we do spend on healthcare tends to be spent on actual healthcare services and less on healthcare administration and insurance.

Efficiency was measured by looking at total national spending on health as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), as well as the amount spent on health administration and insurance.

 

[sammo62]

If you were right everyone would be driving a KIA, the reason they don't is choice - people choose to spend more on certain things for reasons that are completely personal.

What would a government produced car be like?

A car is different, if you can't drive to work it's not the end of the world to cycle or take a bus. If you can't get healthcare because your income is too low you die. Some semblance of fairness should be at the heart of medical care.

 

[Judgeneo]

I'm finding it difficult to unravel what these reforms actually are, can someone try to summarise them for me?

 

[sigma]

My apologies, I should have said second most efficient (after Ireland): http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most-efficient-health-services

I haven't got time to read that paper fully but at first glance they seem to have mainly looked at the falling in deaths? Surely that could be down to any number of reasons?

They even say:

It is acknowledged that the precise reasons of the
differences between countries’ outcomes are
beyond the competence of this paper and would
require nation-specific analysis.

and:

This study cannot account for the variables that
may have contributed to the differences between
countries. In particular, to what degree might the
role of predominately public healthcare systems,
compared to the mainly private healthcare
system, influenced the results? Future research
should look at possible socioeconomic factors, in
particular the potential contribution of differential
levels of relative poverty and whether there are
variations between adult and children’s outcomes.

 

[Danthus]

If you were right everyone would be driving a KIA, the reason they don't is choice - people choose to spend more on certain things for reasons that are completely personal.

What would a government produced car be like?

I agree you get what you pay for. But the Government looks at the bottom dollar.

 

[Glaucus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10375877

I guess you'll be apologising?

Thats five countries, not the world and none of them are particuly high up in the world rankings. The highest two are Netherlands and uk at 17 and 18th world ranking.

Save the NHS and don't complain about the reform.

 

[No1newts]

I haven't got time to read that paper fully but at first glance they seem to have mainly looked at the falling in deaths? Surely that could be down to any number of reasons?

They even say:

They also said;

This means, the paper says, that dramatic NHS improvements have led to a situation where that there are now 162,000 fewer deaths every year compared with 1980.

Slow clap, 30 years in the future and the advances in medicine that entails we can manage to save an extra 162,000 people a year. People who were probably dying because the advances in medicine were not in place to cure/treat relatively basic (in todays terms) conditions.

 

[sigma]

Slow clap indeed.

Scorza will do the usual thing of ignoring any posts that point out the obvious.

 

[scorza]

So I can get basic medical care and pop along after hours for a few stitches after a **** up but I will still be waiting for specialist care, which is generally along the lines of cancer treatment, heart conditions, you know the kind of stuff that saves your life.

That's a great deal!

Efficiency was measured by looking at total national spending on health as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), as well as the amount spent on health administration and insurance.

That quote doesn't say that more money spent on administration and insurance equals more efficiency, just that it was looked at as part of the equation. By every definition of efficiency the more money you spend on overheads, such as administration and insurance, the less efficient you are.

 

[sammo62]

As long as healthcare is free for all paid for via taxation and not for-profit insurance I'm happy with adopting whatever means necessary. I'd be 100% against an American system though.

Privatisation of services is a double edged sword. Sure it's often cheaper and more efficient, but often the savings are made in the wrong places. Look at NHS cleaning contracts - the overall standard of hospital hygiene plummeted because the bottom dollar was the only concern.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Not to mention:

Entirely logical - perception and expectation define satisfaction.

If somebody in Kenya was to go into Hospital for a minor operation and emerge a month later alive, they might be highly satisfied and doctors convinced they are doing great work.

If somebody in the UK was to go into Hospital for the same operation but be kept waiting for an hour and was 3 hours late home the next day, they may be deeply unhappy despite receiving a service many many times better than the satisfied patient from Kenya.

We see this all over the place - why do you Skoda owners are so happy in JD Power surveys yet Audi owners whinge despite being sold fundamentally the same product with the same level of reliability? The expectations are lower and thus easier met..