Cameron and Cleggie stiff the public over NHS

[David Johnson]

As all readers of this forum know, Cameron and Cleggie are known for their progressive and fair approaches to all government activities.

Can it be an oversight then that this doesn't apply to their plans for the NHS?

As you may know neither the Liberal Democrat nor Tory manifesto, nor the coalition agreement stated that, if elected, they would introduce the biggest re-organisation of the NHS since its creation in 1948.

In fact the coalition said the opposite i.e. there would be no top-down re-organisation and indeed had both criticised the Labour government for introducing too many initiatives.

How times changes, eh? The union, Unison today launched legal action against the Government over its health White Paper, claiming ministers failed to consult over its plans to "fundamentally change" the way the NHS is run. The NHS constitution enshrines the principle that the public, staff and unions have an absolute right to be consulted, and that means not only on how the proposals are to be implemented, but also whether they should go ahead in the first place.

But hey, the Lib Dem Con government is allowing us to suggest which laws we would like to see repealed. That's the main thing. Isn't it?

Cheers
D

[Von Boy]

The NHS wastes far to much money... an example that I see when I drive down to London on the M1

Nottinghamshire... The PCT trust offices, just off j26...employing in that building 1,100 people.... estimated lease on that size office building ?500k a year

Leicestershire PCT HQ.... Just off J21.. Employs 1200, lease estimated at ?650k

Northamptonnshire PCT HQ .... Off j15 down A45... basically same as Nottinghamshire set up

Bedfordshire PCT HQ... Business park near Bedford.... Newly built offices.... lease costs estimated at ?500k... employs 890

Hertfordshire PCT PCT HQ... Brand new... public private finance..... employes around 860 ... lease costs higher as build to spec....?700k per yr

Then you arrive in London... that little journey of around 100 miles shows the waste of money in the NHS... spent on offices and staff that will never treat a sick person.... YES you do need good admin... but not the vast amount just shown in that M1 corridor alone.

Maybe I am wrong.... But we do need to look at the NHS... it cannot escape cuts

Oh well here's to this winters skiing in the Alps!!!

[justincyder]

The NHS has to change, it no longer enshrines the original principals it was set up to do, noones fault, nobody could forsee todays problems when it was set up.

Services which are deemded uneccessary to health and loss of life should be cut. An example being IVF services. WIll people die without it or be affected drastically in their health. No. It's certainly terrible for those individuals and I do feel sorry for them but brutally speaking its not up to the public to ultimately fund those kind of services.

[Dylan Devere]

I work in the NHS. one in ten NURSES on some wards are being finished up with 90 days notice- no redundancy just finished up.

Wards are being closed- men are walking round with clipboards and asking staff to personally justify their jobs, and if they can't they are being layed off.

[Ned]

I wonder if his new baby was born in an NHS hospital?

[img]http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9431/1r4dn.jpg[/img]

[sparky]

I'm not going to comment on the political side of the current legalisation and proposed re-organisation of the NHS.

Until 4 years ago I worked for ten years for a private company manufacturing and supplying equipment to the NHS. While not solving any issues I am far happier no longer being involved.

What I do know is the markup on many items was massive.
If the NHS had an efficient division that bought the components directly including those from USA and far east, assembled and distributed them many costs would be at least halved.

Another issue was passing patient home care & support to private companies. All that mattered to the NHS was they had a fixed price for the care package. Since the companies inevitably wanted to be sure of a profit the prices quoted were way above the cost if the care was kept within the NHS. I know because my ex-employer supplied these companies and always a added a good margin to be virtually sure even if problems of at least breaking even every time.

Locally, although social services rather than NHS, the council care homes are reportedly costing 30% more per person than for those in private care homes.
So either the care in private homes is much poorer or the council homes are badly run. The council simply want to close their homes rather than getting to grips with the reasons since they ought to be able to provide better care for the same cost as the private homes since there would be no profit margin.

[David Johnson]

Von Boy quote
"The NHS wastes far to much money... an example that I see when I drive down to London on the M1. Nottinghamshire... The PCT trust offices, just off j26...employing in that building 1,100 people.... estimated lease on that size office building ?500k a year"

This post seems a bit confused. You are confusing expenditure with wasting money. Given the NHS is the largest employer in the land and responsible for the nation's health it is not surprising that the costs of administering it are high. Of course, there is room for improvement but the NHS has had umpteen re-organisations, all of which have a cost associated.

What we do know is that the Health Minister, Andrew Lansley plans the biggest re-organisation that the NHS has had since its inception. It has absolutely no electoral mandate given neither the Lib Dems nor the Tories mentioned it in their manifestos and the coalition document actually stated there would be no top down reorganisation.

What the re-organisation plans to do, at a cost of ?3 billion (government's own figures) is replace 162 PCT trusts with 600 GP consortiums responsible for commissioning health care for GPs' patients. Given that GPs are not necessarily interested in turning into business men, the people who run these GP consortiums will tend to be either private healthcare companies who will have their own agendas about which organisations are used to supply healthcare services or they will be people who have been made redundant (and getting a redundancy package presumably) from the soon to be abolished PCTs.

Will this change save money? No idea. Has Lansley any idea? I suspect not. His real motive is in line with what one of the Managing Directors of the health care companies stated i.e."This heralds the wholescale privatisation of the NHS".

"Oh well here's to this winters skiing in the Alps!!!"

This is what we call a non-sequitur in the blessed country that is the United Kingdom. Thanks all the same for the update of your social calendar. It saves me buying a copy of Hello magazine, I guess !happy!.

Cheers
D

[David Johnson]

"I work in the NHS. one in ten NURSES on some wards are being finished up with 90 days notice- no redundancy just finished up.

Wards are being closed- men are walking round with clipboards and asking staff to personally justify their jobs, and if they can't they are being layed off."

So much for the Lib Dem coalition claim that the NHS is ringfenced and that front-line services in the NHS will not be affected by the cuts.

Cheers
D

[David Johnson]

You make some good points here. I am sure the NHS is getting ripped off by private companies. I agree that a thorough overhaul of NHS purchasing procedures wouldn't come amiss.

With regard to patient homecare costs and the running of care homes, in the vast majority of cases that I have read about, the privatisation of these services has lead to an increase in workload for those employed together with a decrease in pay and employment terms and conditions.

There are many, many stories of people, formerly employed by the state who are forced to re-apply for their jobs with a private company on worse pay and conditions. And these people didn't get a fortune by any means when they worked for the council.

This allows the private companies to then trumpet that they can deliver at lower costs.

Cheers
D