Save the NHS!

It needs a government prepared to look beyond the next general election.

They do not exist.



The governments have been selling the NHS off bit by bit. And this is the way they are doing it.

I bet the tory party will bring in one of their mates in to help out ;)
If it ever goes private god help everyone.
 
Having worked for the NHS for 12 years, I can confidently confirm that this joke is scarily close to the truth.

The NHS Competes in a Boat Race

Once upon a time, the NHS and a Japanese company decided to have a competitive boat race on the river Thames.
Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance.
On the big day, they were as ready as they could be.
The Japanese won by a mile!

Afterwards the NHS team became very discouraged by the loss and morale sagged. Senior management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, and a project team was set up to investigate the problem and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion: The problem was that the Japanese had eight people rowing, and one person steering. The NHS had one person rowing and eight people steering.

Senior management immediately hired a consultancy company to do a study on the team structure. Millions of pounds and several months later the consultancy company concluded that: Too many people were steering and not enough rowing.

To prevent loosing to the Japanese again next year, the team structure was changed to 'four steering managers, three senior steering managers and one executive steering manager'.
A new quality performance system was set up for the person rowing the boat to give more incentive to work harder and become a key performer.

"We must give him empowerment and enrichment, that ought to do it".

The next year, the Japanese won by TWO miles!

The NHS laid off the rower for poor performance, sold all the paddles and cancelled all the capital investment for new equipment.

They halted the development of a new boat, awarded high performance awards to the consultants and distributed the money saved to senior management.
 
The governments have been selling the NHS off bit by bit. And this is the way they are doing it.

Show me proof of something that has been "sold off".

Pre-2008 5% of NHS funding went to private contractors, the figure now is 6.8%

- The only hospital turned over to private management is Hinchingbrooke, which was initiated under Labour's Andy "only 3 days to save the NHS" Burnham. Circle Group have turned it from one of the worst to one of the best performing hospitals inside 2 years.



The main problem with NHS isn't front line nurses and doctors.

- Bloated admin/management structures full of jobsworths and people sidelined into paper-pushing due to incompetence who can't be fired because the procedure to do so is almost impossible.
- No real incentive to save money
- Inefficient procurement
- Lack of effective project management
 
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So, what's been sold off? What building? What bed? What employee has been transferred under TUPE rules?

This isn't "sold off".

The NHS often uses a private company to provide the service cheaper/more effectively. It's blatantly untrue to say that private suppliers were only used to manage waiting lists. I worked for a private supplier contracted to the NHS to provide front line pharmacy services for the 8 years before I joined the NHS itself.

Honestly, I don't care who provides the service. As long as it remains free at the point of use, which it still is, and that it''s provided in the most cost effective way possible whiclst providing good care.
 
Show me proof of something that has been "sold off".

Pre-2008 5% of NHS funding went to private contractors, the figure now is 6.8%

- The only hospital turned over to private management is Hinchingbrooke, which was initiated under Labour's Andy "only 3 days to save the NHS" Burnham. Circle Group have turned it from one of the worst to one of the best performing hospitals inside 2 years.



The main problem with NHS isn't front line nurses and doctors.

- Bloated admin/management structures full of jobsworths and people sidelined into paper-pushing due to incompetence who can't be fired because the procedure to do so is almost impossible.
- No real incentive to save money
- Inefficient procurement
- Lack of effective project management

I said bit by bit. Around me only the nursing staff and some doctors are on the NHS books.
The cleaning\postal and other services are run by a security company. Were as years back it was all in house.
 
Vote UKIP/BNP to save the NHS?

I didn't say that but if you come from central Asia and your child has D and V then for many people they would expect potentially death from such an event. Therefore, the would treat it as an emergency which to their usual thinking it is.

I bet I could give say 5 scenarios of what constitute an emergency on these forums and most of the laypeople moaning about timewasters would not be able to sort them into any sort of priority or even indicate which ones were necessarily an emergency. As I am sure everyone else could.

I am not saying there aren't timewasters (but that in itself needs addressing) just that needs proper examination and sometimes the A+E label people unnecessarily presuming they are wasting time. I've had this myself and had to explain to a young chap who barely looked old enough to have done his GCSEs that maybe he was wrong. I've also had to explain to a young lady that she would be wasting everyone's time when she delightfully informed me my son had a enlarged heart when she was too stupid to check whether the chest was expanded on the x-ray. Cuts both ways is all I am saying. Staff waste a lot of time too.

The main problem with NHS isn't front line nurses and doctors.

It soon will be though won't it if pay doesn't increase quite sharpish and if we don't use British trained staff.
 
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Surely the NHS should stick to healthcare, cleaning services should stick to cleaning, and postal services should stick to post?
 
Honestly, I don't care who provides the service. As long as it remains free at the point of use, which it still is, and that it''s provided in the most cost effective way possible whiclst providing good care.

Exactly, but the staff want to remain working for the government in order to receive guaranteed annual pay awards (irrespective of performance) and gold plated final salary pensions.

So of course, all NHS staff are going to say that private = bad and public = good, despite what the facts are.
 
There is vast money wasting in all aspects of the NHS and I get tired of hearing the same old statements that they have increased the budget by x amount. In my experince you do not necessarily solve a problem by flinging more and more cash at it.

Due to me having had a long running complaint against woeful care/treatment I received for throat cancer which left me with life long problems. I have had to use the Freedom of information act to get the information I needed but the amount of bureaucracy I encountered was quite phenomenal. There seem to be managers with the most odd job titles for every conceivable part of the health board from bebpans to public relations.
Why is, when surely health boards nedd to buy in bulk serm to pay elevated prices for everything? My own health board has millions of pounds of empty property, not newly empty but some going back 20 years.

My health board spent 7 and a half million quid on equipping every room, virtually, with a computer and centralised access and a software program they discovered could not speak to the many other syestems all ready in place. So if you needed to request your medical records then it was necessary to submit the request to several departments then wade through the 6 inches of paper work to weed out the duplicates, triplicates and quadruplicates.

I would imagine each health board has it's own money wasting instances, couple this with the constant pointless targets and meddling reforms and we have a service that is dying and in need of major reforms uf it is to survive.
 
Hmm what about cleaning which was contracted out except the staff doing the cleaning won't deal with human waste spillages (H+S) and that is left to the nurses. Hasn't all the evidence shown that the environments are cleaner when the staff are employed and attached to the hospital wards not private contractors. And I was thinking maybe cleanliness is hospitals was rather important ...

It's not a either or argument and anyone who pretends it is and argues it is needs to actually think for a while.
 
I'd imagine the answer being "They'll get sued" but why don't the A&E departments just turn the time-wasters away.

"A bad case of dandruff? Hop it!"

Has anyone gone to A&E with dandruff? I don't know.


Be interesting to see at what days and times they miss targets badly.

I wouldn't mind betting it is Friday and Saturday when admissions rise massively due to people being intoxicated.

A part of UK society that needs to change and would boost peoples health, reduce crime, free up limited NHS and police resources.

The laws are already there but just need enforcing like being drunk and disorderly, drunk and incapable and more importantly enforcing the law against serving somebody alcohol who is already intoxicated.

Maybe the only addition I would add is fines for people who allow admission to their establishment who is intoxicated who later needs to have police attend.

Ok this is only one reason A+E departments get overwhelmed but it is a start and would improve conditions for staff who go through hell every weekend.
 
So, what's been sold off? What building? What bed? What employee has been transferred under TUPE rules?

This isn't "sold off".

Well if you'd bothered to read the article, dermatology services at Nottinghamshire NHS Trust has been sold off to Circle.

Honestly, I don't care who provides the service. As long as it remains free at the point of use, which it still is, and that it''s provided in the most cost effective way possible whiclst providing good care.

Honestly I really do care about the NHS and the impact that changes made have on it holistically. You might think, yay I don't have to wait as long for the knee operation now, but I just think that's not much consolation if it means A&E services become totally adequate as they are doing. I also think that the more the private sector is involved in providing NHS services the earlier it'll be when the NHS ceases to be free at the point of use.
 
They certainly should be charging people who go to A&E because of intoxication.

Unfortunately the people they would be charging would be the least likely to pay or able to pay so I am not sure how it would solve anything.

I just wish they would massively increase the price of alcohol and use that to make fruit and veg free. Not that this would stop people getting intoxicated they pay enough in the bars and the clubs as it is but it would do some good.
 
Unfortunately the people they would be charging would be the least likely to pay or able to pay so I am not sure how it would solve anything.

I just wish they would massively increase the price of alcohol and use that to make fruit and veg free. Not that this would stop people getting intoxicated they pay enough in the bars and the clubs as it is but it would do some good.

Oh I didnt say I had a workable plan on how to charge it :p.
 
Surely if this is the preferred way of receiving GP services, perhaps the Hospitals should put a GP service in front of the A&E?

Which I think is a pretty good idea, but needs to be carefully implemented so it doesn't replace the local GP practice. It's already happening in some places:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...nt-need-hospital-care-remarkable-results.html

Oh noes a link to the daily fail! Interesting quote in that article is that 25% of people are completely unaware that out of hours services exist.

They certainly should be charging people who go to A&E because of intoxication.
Charging for self-inflicted conditions is a dangerous area. Where do you draw the line? Even defining "because of intoxication" would be hard.

Hmm what about cleaning
Cleaning, maintenance and all of the "auxiliary" functions need to be carried out by the same body that runs the clinical staff. NHS hospital should mean NHS cleaners. Cleaning is such a vital part of minimising HAI it is just as important as nursing IMHO.

Edinburgh's infirmary is PFI (everyone else said no don't do it, NHS lothian said yes, Scottish govt said "ooh shiny hospital") and there have been no end of troubles because of the split. You need cleaners, doctors, maintenance folk and nurses to be accountable through a similar path. Otherwise they do maintenance on theatre electrics during surgery and the only recourse is all the way to the top of the organisation and through a contract.
 
Unfortunately the people they would be charging would be the least likely to pay or able to pay so I am not sure how it would solve anything.

I just wish they would massively increase the price of alcohol and use that to make fruit and veg free. Not that this would stop people getting intoxicated they pay enough in the bars and the clubs as it is but it would do some good.


Well if they have money to go out and drink themselves stupid then they must have access to funds to pay fines.

I would increase the price of alcohol after a certain time, like 11pm when other services whack up the price. Strongly enforce fines for those who have people on their premises who are drunk and incapable or continue to serve drunk people.

Ok I know some would say they will just buy alcohol and drink at home but they would be off the street not falling over hurting themselves or starting trouble.

I see a bit of success with this in my town were transport costs rise after 11:30pm by 50%. Might not seem a lot but you will be amazed how many people choose to end their evening before this to avoid the increased cost of getting home.
 
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