Public services - wave of redundancies?

emg

It seems that the promise that NHS cuts wont affect front line services didnt last long. Southwark Primary Care Trust are making a third of their speech and language therapists redundant. I appreciate that speech therapy is not a high priority in a PCT as they also have to provide services to patients with life-threatening conditions but it does make really significant changes to peoples lives and has been shown to give them much better economic outcomes, with an overall net benefit to the economy. Coupled with the cuts in education, children with special needs are being given a really poor deal. Mind you, denied the chance to develop functional communication skills, I guess they wont be able to complain about it.:(

princess

As an SLT working with adults with learning disabilities, I am very sorry to hear this emg.
We have long thought our services were at risk especially in learning disabilities. We are not at all a 'glamourous service' and are clients especially if their parents have passed away just have no one to speak up for them - they and the services they need (OT SLT LD nurses) will always be an easy target for government savings in my opinion.

1jim

I think these services will be worese hit when GPs take over from pcts, I really cant see how groups of GPs can take the time to consider all of the services needed and plan/fund them properly. I know pcts are top heavy but that arguably was in responce to governement demands on structure and targets.
Privatisation.......someone told me last year that the longterm plan (and by that I mean 5-10years) is for the NHS to employ no one but to be a "brand" or insurance provider who contracts the work out to other companies/providers
The main benefit is that companies can treat us like cr*p and when it all goes wrong the government can say "its a local problem", no matter that thats it happening all over the country----remember when thousands were made redundant from the NHS 2-3years ago they got away with calling it local issues- well times that by 100

anoneemouse

1Jim

I suspect you are correct in what you say - re a long-term 5-10 year plan.

From what I can tell - Government has a long-term (ie 10 year) plan for everything. The way the plan is implemented varies a bit in slant according to which political party is in power - but the first "whiffs of what is up" are there that far in advance.

If you have any specific details/links for the long-term plans on the NHS (or any other part of the public sector) could you please let us know?

emg

1jim wrote: »

Privatisation.......someone told me last year that the longterm plan (and by that I mean 5-10years) is for the NHS to employ no one but to be a "brand" or insurance provider who contracts the work out to other companies/providers

Spot on. Someone asked Andrew Lansley specifically about speech and language therapy this week on Radio 4. He said that Gps will be expected to commission services but that he had met with charities that support people with communication difficulties to suggest that they put together these services for the GPs.

I'm sure I'm not the only NHS worker who doesnt actually want to work for a private company or social enterprise. I have already made the choice about whether I want to work in the NHS or private sector. I chose the NHS because I feel strongly about it's core values. I dont want to be part of some profit-making machine.

(Incidentally, the Southwark SLTs have a petition if anyone wants to offer them support. Its here)

1jim

anoneemouse wrote: »

1Jim

I suspect you are correct in what you say - re a long-term 5-10 year plan.

From what I can tell - Government has a long-term (ie 10 year) plan for everything. The way the plan is implemented varies a bit in slant according to which political party is in power - but the first "whiffs of what is up" are there that far in advance.

If you have any specific details/links for the long-term plans on the NHS (or any other part of the public sector) could you please let us know?

Dont have a specific link, I am a nurse who works for a PCT, I attended lots of meetings about what transforming community services meant to use and how the break up of primary care services would affect us and the bidding processes that would take place. We were told that the cheif exec of the pct had been told this by someone in Dept Health.

As it turns out the service I work for has been moved into a Social Enterprise company owned by staff but all profits returned to improving health etc, not perfect, not the NHS but at least not virgin/tesco or some of the big american insurance companies that have been hovering around trying to snap up services.

Its a sorry state of play. I opted to work for the NHS, I chose to have crappy wages (in comparisson to what I could have earnt outside the NHS). I have been essentially given away without my consent and largely without the public being aware of it.

The conservatives are getting it in the neck (and it is a very conservative policy...and I make no real apology for saying it was Maragret Thatchers wet dream ) but this process was started by the last Labour govenrment, I hope one day they all wake up and realise what they had and literally gave away

I dont know if you know much about the process but they put out community services to tender. Now as I understand private tendering what happens is you say...this is what we want doing, how will you do it and how much will it cost? The tendering under this process was...."we will give you Xamount to run this service, how will you do it?" so they cant even say that they are saving money- :mad:

Guitar

1jim wrote: »

I think these services will be worese hit when GPs take over from pcts, I really cant see how groups of GPs can take the time to consider all of the services needed and plan/fund them properly. I know pcts are top heavy but that arguably was in responce to governement demands on structure and targets.

The Gps don't have time. I work with them quite a bit and they don't even have time for many of the cost saving exercises they should be doing. More and more work is passed onto the Practice manager and Nurses. More and more practice nurses are having to do the admin tasks.

I've never thought the PCTs were top heavy, SHA certainly didn't add much value so I'm glad they're going but I've always thought the PCTs did a good job monitoring the practices and keeping an eye on the GPs. (Far from perfect but I feel much of the blame goes to the constant restructuring in the NHS) Doctors are the most polarised profession I've ever come across, GPs can be saints or crooks. When I first started working with them I was shocked at how many of them have drink and drug problems.

I like the fact that if I go to a doctor with health problems the treatment is based on what's best for me not what makes him the most money or what's being promoted by the drug companies paying a bung.

Instead the new consortia will have to hire new people to do the jobs that used to be done by the PCTs. What people don't seem to realize is that there used to be around twice as many PCTs but most were merged for cost savings. We're now spliting them down again into consortia (or in some cases just changing the name) but putting them under the control of profit driven companies. In a few years time we'll be merging the consortia into larger groupings (let's call them Primary Consortia Trusts) only this time they'll be private sector.

Privatisation.......someone told me last year that the longterm plan (and by that I mean 5-10years) is for the NHS to employ no one but to be a "brand" or insurance provider who contracts the work out to other companies/providers
The main benefit is that companies can treat us like cr*p and when it all goes wrong the government can say "its a local problem", no matter that thats it happening all over the country----remember when thousands were made redundant from the NHS 2-3years ago they got away with calling it local issues- well times that by 100

Our senior managers have been fairly open that this is the long term plan, within 3 years the current structure will just be reduced to a 'management core' (a colleague nicknamed this the 'bomb shelter') that manages the private sector contracts. It'll be more expensive for the taxpayer, less effective for the public but all the blame goes to interchangable private sector companies rather than going towards toppling political parties.

When you think of it in this context the privatisation of British Rail was a success.

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amcluesent

My view is may as well go with the flow. My quango is about to offer 'targeted voluntary exit' on 1 month/1 year + 3 months PILON. Why not? Just jump and join one of the private sector providers. To hang around will be sh*t and you'll just end up being TUPEd to the private sector anyway. May as well jump with cash in hand.

P.S. I joined the public sector early in the NuLabour ££ splurge, so I've got no moral values to sell out.

Pocoyo

I work for a PCT; I decided I'm not going to be bought out of my job half price under a 'MARS scheme'. Once they offer our contractual terms (month's salary for each year of service) I will desert the sinking ship.