Reform Of The Nhs

[RollingJ]

Thanks for just proving my above comment.

[Anna B]

5 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

Apologies, Anna, but as has been pointed out before, you are rather fixated.

Maybe, but I have good reason to be having had to avail myself, and those close to me, with the NHS 'services' of late.

 

I haven't got time to deal with Ecconoobs reply yet, as I'm in the middle of something. It requires a suitable response which I haven't got time for at the moment, but it's coming later. In the meantime can I respectfully suggest he reads it all, rather than just the first line...

Edited November 21, 2022 by Anna B

[L00b]

Before tempers run too hot, I’d recommend this myth-busting primer:

 

https://www.nhsconfed.org/long-reads/nhs-overmanaged

 

By most metrics and in comparison to OECD countries, the NHS is very well-funded, but equally very under-managed. Arguments about too many (optionally ‘fat cat’-) managers are ill-informed, the budgetary waste arises elsewhere.

[andysm]

20 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

It is certainly not underfunded. It has had an ever increasing budget since it's inception with a report from a few years ago stating its annual budget has increased 12 times over since inception and now accounts for over 30% of all government spending.  

An increase of 12 times over since inception (1948) implies an increase of about 3.5% per year, hardly a huge increase. The population increased by about 34% over the same time. Average weekly earnings went from £6.70 to £700, an increase of over 100 times.

[RollingJ]

It would probably help if they didn't duplicate jobs. I remember quite well my last experience of this at NGH.  About 4 years ago, I was accidentality bitten by my cat, which resulted in an infection requiring surgical intervention, so I got to A&E, quickly assessed and then transferred to general surgical - where the fun started. Before I was even seen in there, I had to assist a lady to laboriously fill out a double-sided A4 sheet of details - nothing to do with what I had gone in for and all relevant details were all on my NHS record anyway.

 

After the first few questions had been asked, I began to realise they were just for box-ticking, and as I wasn't feeling that good and therefore not very sociable, I said something to the effect of 'pass me that and I'll fill it in for you'. When I declined to answer any more of her questions, she reluctantly passed it across and I completed it in about a minute - mostly 'N/A'.

 

The best laugh though was when I got to the ward, carrying my folder with all the details from said lady and the doctor who had examined my hand - someone started to try and fill out exactly the same sheet I had completed before seeing the doctor. I think you can imagine my response - something along the lines of 'RTFM', although slightly more politely.

 

This is the tip of the waste iceberg in the NHS - and any 'nationalised' industry.

[Dromedary]

50 minutes ago, andysm said:

An increase of 12 times over since inception (1948) implies an increase of about 3.5% per year, hardly a huge increase. The population increased by about 34% over the same time. ....

Although the population may have increased by 34% since 1948 the health of the population has vastly improved overall since then with a lot of past common diseases becoming basically extinct. We now have modern tec, modern medicines and vaccines so the turnround in hospital patients is much quicker lessening the need to stay in one for long periods.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Dromedary
did a slinny

[Anna B]

5 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

Stopped reading after that sentence.

 

It is certainly not underfunded. It has had an ever increasing budget since it's inception with a report from a few years ago stating its annual budget has increased 12 times over since inception and now accounts for over 30% of all government spending.   

 

Have you stopped to think that perhaps it's not value for money because of some incompetence, inefficiencies, and waste caused by your precious public sector workers or perhaps those deluded union enshrined doctors and nurses continually making unrealistic pay demands and threatening strikes like clockwork every year...

 

Have you thought about all those unnecessary  additional services that the NHS seemingly now has to provide. All those quangos, side operations, lifestyle clinics, minority services which are arguably well beyond it's original scope of essential health care needs...

 

Have you thought about perhaps the selfishness of its service users who are failing to take responsibility for the lifestyles, taking it all for granted, wasting time and resources, not  contributing into the system and yet sitting there expecting the NHS to pick up the pieces for their irresponsibility...

 

No, as per usual it's a one-sided arguement blaming everything as the fault of privatisation. Everything always the fault of greedy, profit making corporates. Everything always the fault of those rich, neoliberals blah blah blah.

 

Yes the NHS is ripe for reform. Has been for decades. But if we're going to have the discussion, let's get real and consider full context. Let's stop putting it on a pedestal and banging on that somehow all it's operations are absolutely unequivocally vital. Let's stop portraying all its  workers as if they are selfless angels. Many of them aren't. Many of them are simply doing a job which some would argue can be done cheaper and more efficiently. Many of them are coasting to retirement after spending decades on the gravy train working their way up the layers and layers and layers of gradings.  Many of the services should quite rightly be in the private sector because there's no reason for the NHS to be spending vast amounts of money and resources keeping it in house and trying to recreate their own versions when other companies are far more established, far more skilled and far more efficient. In my opinion, this particularly applies to many of its administrative, auxiliary, catering and technical services.

 

Stop always pushing some agenda. Your constant oversimplistic naive position that public sector = good.  private sector = bad detracts from any actual genuine debate.

Perhaps in that case, the wealthy should be able to decide whether they want to pay into the system whatsoever and have ability to opt out and choose to pay their own entirely private healthcare.

 

Let's see how that would affect the tax revenue's into little Jimmy Crankies purse.  I'm sure that would last long.  

 

Before 2018 I was a volunteer hospital visitor, whose remit was to visit patients who didn't have regular visitors and have a chat with them, try and cheer them up, that sort of thing. They were mainly lovely people, usually old and certainly not grumpy old gits. I'd perhaps take a decent book/paperback, or a newspaper, magazine that sort f thing. After a chat, before I left, I'd ask if there was anything they needed or needed doing, and the floodgates opened. And some quite extraordinary things came out. Some quite simple, (and funny) but some far from it. All I could do was inform a nurse and hope for the best, but often I was told 'Mr X isn't my patient but I'll pass it on etc. I started following up the more serious ones to make sure they'd been dealt with. Often they hadn't. I'll not bore you with chapter and verse, but suffice it to say a person alone in hospital without anybody fighting their corner is at a distinct disadvantage at best, and subject to serious neglect at worse. And that's awful for anybody. We're all getting old and who knows if they'll be alone?

 

I also started volunteering in other related sectors and talking to doctors and nurses a lot. That is until  2018 when my own health deteriorated and I found myself on the receiving end so to speak. That was just the start of my own ongoing 4 year personal experience of life on the wards and a run of bad luck with friends and relatives to deal with, not helped by Covid.

I can't give personal details on a public website though I would like to for clarity. I'll PM you the details if it would help, but I doubt you'd read them. It might explain a lot more about why I think (an American style) privatisation is a bad alternative to what we have, although heaven knows we need reform and can't continue as we have.

 

I am not naive, I in no way put the NHS on a pedestal, far from it. I have seen a great deal of issues and pure malpractice, everything from machines that don't work, to medical mistakes that should never have been made. I have also talked to doctors and nurses and know something of the dilemma they are in, and how cost cutting has affected their work. I can promise you that everything I have said about privatisation has been said by a doctor or nurse first. I have never met one that agrees with privatisation, and all hate what has already been done by stealth. They are particularly concerned with social care which is a major problem, and is an integral part of an integrated health care system not a thing apart as it is at the moment. They also deplore what is charged for private facilities. It is they that say they are not worth the money and we are seen as cash cows. Even agency nurses who are frequently branded hypocrites and not always popular in the NHS would rather they didn't have to use agencies at all, but have personal reasons for having to resort to it (often preferring it rather than use food banks,  and to do with childcare.)

 

I could have sued the NHS 10 times over, but what good would that do? It won't bring people back who should never have died and would  take money out of the NHS, and believe me it needs every penny it can get. (It could start by replacing some of the many faulty machines and computers they have to use.) So I have to hope that talking, and legal letters of complaint to Hospital Trusts and MPs might go some way to eliciting changes to procedures and protocols. 

I have also seen examples of pure brilliance and self sacrifice too, worthy of a medal, so both sides of the coin. 

 

I can assure you that under the Tories an American style healthcare system is on its way, whether the NHS want it or not, and the medics I've talked to certainly don't. Neither do I. The state my health is now in, I would never get insurance for. Under that system I would now be dead, having died in my 60's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2022 by Anna B

[FIRETHORN1]

I think most people would agree that it's a desirable thing to have a healthcare service that's free at the point of use, but there's no doubt that the NHS is failing badly, despite the ever increasing billions of pounds allocated to it. My main view is that the Management and admin functions need to be reformed. Do away with the non-core services, like Diversity & Inclusion managers. etc - and spend more of the funding on core services. Purchasing and procurement should be better managed. Run this side of the NHS more like a business and source products that are value  for money - rather than always using 'preferred suppliers' who charge five quid for each lightbulb or toilet roll.

I also think we need to learn from other countries who seem to manage their 'free' Health Services better than we do. It seems widely acknowledged that France seems to do it better than us - so we could perhaps learn from the way they do it.

[RollingJ]

@FIRETHORN1I totally agree with what you say above - see my post a little earlier in the topic, which is an actual experience, not something 'Joe said to Fred, who told Joyce, who told Freda', comment.

[Guest makapaka]

They could start by depoliticising it - so instead of parties using it as a political football get a cross party government group to make decisions on it.