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Well,... watching the news tonight looks like the NHS will be needing even more TAX imput from us all !!

God bless the public sector !!!

Well this has all been discussed before and this goverment is pouring money into the NHS with no idea how the money is being spent, with agencies being paid ?1000.00+ to supply a nurse to cover for 1 shift and the poor old nurse is paid just a fraction of that,and outside contracts being awarded for cleaning and catering to firms that are not up to the job but still rake in the money then the tax payer will always be expected to cough up more dosh, Gordon Brown prudent? all he knows is how to rob us of our money and waste it.

It would be interesting to see exactly who owns or sits on the boards of these agencies that are used so often and paid so much. I wouldn't at all be surprised to find out that government ministers or their friends/families had something to do with them.
When I worked in a school, the one years published accounts that I can remember seeing showed that the school had spent more than ?80,000 in 12 months on supply teachers from agencies. We could have hired THREE full time teachers to just sit in the staff room and drink coffee in between covering lessons for less than that.
The public services are full of horrendous inefficieny, waste and corruption. If someone was to do a full public audit of all the public services then many heads would roll I'm sure.

Im sure that the old backhander system is flourishing very well in the public service sector even more so these days as so much of the work is now contracted out to private firms, dont get me wrong i have nothing against anyone making a few quid but not when its taxpayers money, mind you proving it could be difficult.

It's spent in the wrong areas , it's alright the tories groaning that they're pouring more money in and the government quoting how many more nurses and how much has been taken off waiting lists , but what about the white collar increase and all the other useless fuckers they employ , we'll need to cut back and lay people off , get rid of some managers that you don't need , sat talking about it rather than staff that actually do usefull jobs . Can't see the wood for the trees , about time some of the fuckers in these sort of government positions took their blinkers off . !furious! . JJ .

If you want to know a lot more about how you're money is getting into the wrong pockets read Private Eye.
Seems like nothing ever gets decided inside a public body these days. Everything needs "Consultants". And it doesn't matter how many fuck-ups occur. Yes, its hard to believe that many of those outside agencies would go on being employed if it wasn't for backhanders. Remember too that there's the revolving door...leave politics or the civil service and Bingo, a few months later you're on a board of directors.

Mart

Royal pay ?32 per hour for nurses

I work for a small company who supply equipment to the NHS.

I'm happy with the work but hate the attitude of 'how much can we get away with charging'. From the purchase costs, overheads and sale invoice values the overall pre-tax profit must be around 40%. If I did not know first hand I would not believe this was happening.

Then the NHS make things worse by ordering errors requiring items sent by urgent courier rather than standard plus at least twice a month by same day courier (taxi) at ?1/mile return rate and this can be 300 miles. Linked to this is having no spare equipment for breakdown cover so requiring 'loan' equipment which is covered by adding to the already excessive repair bill.

Another issue is staff knowledge. Staff seem to get far too little specialist training in the hospitals leading to endless phone calls and visits, the cost again being included in product price.

The issue of contracted work has already been mentioned. Numerous patients who are at home and should be cared for by District Nurses are contracted to agencies. Hence an extra management tier and a company run to make a profit. These agencies often have to quote a fixed price but no doubt build in a signficant safety margin. NHS managers priorities often seem to be to get costs off their specific budgets rather than minimise overall spending.

But while this company, whose prices are 'competitive', could be much kinder to the NHS and indeed every tax payer the root of the problem is that the oppertunity exists. If the work was done by an NHS department the cost would be the component purchase costs and the staff cost with a saving I estimate around 40%.

However we have a Labour Government Health Minister who has been heard on TV news to say
'Profit is not a dirty word'
in connection with the use of private hospitals so until the attitude at the top changes realistically can we expect any change?
Sure the health service can never have too much money but with the existing overall budget if all the money that was drifting out to private companies and agencies was used to provide treatment the service would be better and the balance sheet would look much healthier.

planeterotica wrote:

> Im sure that the old backhander system is flourishing very well



it works with me. i send my GP and all my NHS services a nice xmas hamper every year.

"what! i cant get an appointment????? does ur area manager know u are excepting un authorised gratuities????"