Hinchingbrooke Hospital

BobQ

Wookster wrote: »

Heard the CEO of Circle (the private company which runs the hospital) talk on Today this morning.

He claimed that £1.6M had been saved simply by the way in which the hospital buys paper. If this is true then it is absolutely shocking and indicates the waste that could be cut out.

He also pointed out that the cleaners were cleaning non patient (offices / admin spaces & residences) areas more frequently than patent areas, another shocking point if true. Unions have criticised the cut in cleaning staff (!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19073700

The NHS does need a does of small company private sector efficiency. Not the G4S kind, but the small, lean private sector kind.

A classic tactic in justifying potentially unpopular politically motivated changes like privatising the NHS. First undermine the current system by blowing issues out of proportion, then appear to be saving disproportionate amounts of money rectifying the problems while implementing your unpopular policies.

Hospital managers can be politically motivated too.

BobQ

antrobus wrote: »

I can believe that.

I did some work for an NHS trust yonks ago putting in a purchasing system. Yea gods, the amount of money that you can save just by doing things properly.

If its so easy to make these savings why is it that we do not employ managers directly to do it and plough the money back into the NHS rather than paying these companies to make vast profits through introducing these measures that are so obviously necessary.

The answer is that when you employ the best private sector managers to address the problems they seem to manage to do a bad job and still get paid as if they have done a good one (which seems to be what happens to managers in the banking sector).

ILW

Problem with an organisation like the NHS is that nobody takes responsibility for anything, the whole system is set up so that nobody is answerable for inefficiencies and bad management.

BobQ

ILW wrote: »

Problem with an organisation like the NHS is that nobody takes responsibility for anything, the whole system is set up so that nobody is answerable for inefficiencies and bad management.

This may be true but the CEOs are being paid £250K and given pension pots that will provide them with a six figure pension for life. Politicians deserve criticisms for allowing this to happen, but at a time when ordinary health workers are enduring a pay freeze, is it unreasonable to expect these highly rewarded people to earn their corn and ensure that other highly paid staff take responsibility for such things. If they cannot do this simple thing, we may as well live with the inefficiencies.

CLAPTON

one needs to consider why all the hospital CEOs are pretty useless.

maybe the NHS sysytem is simply wrong and needs changing

ILW

CLAPTON wrote: »

one needs to consider why all the hospital CEOs are pretty useless.

maybe the NHS sysytem is simply wrong and needs changing

Upper management in the NHS is a sort of club where they all sit on each others recruitment and remuneration committees. Similar in local government.

Yes it does need changing.

BobQ

CLAPTON wrote: »

one needs to consider why all the hospital CEOs are pretty useless.

maybe the NHS sysytem is simply wrong and needs changing

The "NHS system" may be based on some overarching principles that needs to be improved, but most of the inefficiencies people claim to have identified are under the control of local Trust management. If its so easy for the firm featured in this story to walk in and turn things around, pick up their vast fees and move on, why are these managers (many brought in from private industry for their expertise) not addressing these problems? Even in the private sector, £250K buys people capable of managing resources to a budget.

ILW

BobQ wrote: »

The "NHS system" may be based on some overarching principles that needs to be improved, but most of the inefficiencies people claim to have identified are under the control of local Trust management. If its so easy for the firm featured in this story to walk in and turn things around, pick up their vast fees and move on, why are these managers (many brought in from private industry for their expertise) not addressing these problems? Even in the private sector, £250K buys people capable of managing resources to a budget.

In an organisation such as the NHS, it is virtually impossible to sack someone for not being much good at their job. The only way to do it is to in effect, close down the whole place and reopen under totally new management.

BobQ

ILW wrote: »

In an organisation such as the NHS, it is virtually impossible to sack someone for not being much good at their job. The only way to do it is to in effect, close down the whole place and reopen under totally new management.

Seems to me that that is not the only way of doing it. Another way is to place senior managers on incentivised contracts that can be terminated if they fail to deliver. Unfortunately the private sector does not have good examples in this respect either, they do get sacked but still keep their inflated rewards.

In this situation the new management is faced with an allegedly inefficient hospital and asked to make savings. That cannot be difficult if the inefficiencies are so bad. They get to keep the first £2m they save each year and then a third of what they save after that. But there appears to be no requirement to maintain clinical standards.

Wookster

CLAPTON wrote: »

one needs to consider why all the hospital CEOs are pretty useless.

maybe the NHS sysytem is simply wrong and needs changing

Perhaps because most of them will only ever have worked in the NHS with very little private sector experience and crucially, never have faced the threat of insolvency/ being fired for failure or competition.