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NHS...
- It is is a political football.
- Suffers the vagaries of populist driven policies to attract votes and quieten the daily mail.
- Had way too much investment lost in unproductive pay reforms that spurred a legacy of higher pensions to burden tax payers.
- Has workforce plans distorted by the ambitions of Royal Colleges. Why not a 'sub consultant' medical grade, why an all graduate Registerd Nurse profession.
- Targets that distort priorities.
- A lost expectation of family care for elderly relatives as households need two incomes and too many beds staffed by expensively trained or scarce staff are filled with people no longer needing acute care
- Repeated energy sapping and wasteful reorganisations of primary care
- Throughout labours rule (sorry guys) a march to financialy driven success factors with quality outcomes second fiddle if there at all. Credit where its due the last few years and scandals such as Mid Staffs are seeing this change.
Best of all it is within the reach of the whole population...free at the point of delivery.0 -
Best of all it is within the reach of the whole population...free at the point of delivery.
I think this is the problem. Our national psyche equates any kind of charging structure with removing healthcare from certain sections of society. Pretty much every first world country has managed to institute a healthcare system with a combination of public/private delivery with some form of charging structure in place which doesn't result in "the poor" being unable to access the service.
However, a lot of people in the UK refuse to believe that this could ever be possible - and anyone who suggests major reform is shouted down by firebrand preachers harping on about how the NHS is the envy of the world because it is free at the point of delivery. As far as I'm concerned the health care system which should be the envy of the world is the one that achieves the best healthcare outcomes, not the one which is free when I use it because I've already paid so much tax to fund its outmoded, inefficient and archaic operations. I've yet to see any evidence which links the "free at point of delivery" nature of the NHS to any demonstrably better health outcomes for poor people than e.g. the French, German, Japanese, Dutch or Swedish systems.0 -
'Free at the point of delivery' is just a ritual chant anyway. Having just spent the best part of £1,000 on private dentistry, because the NHS alternative was mediaeval, and watching my wife's prescription charges mount up for routine treatment, it's pretty plain to me 'free' means different things to different people.
As in 'scot-free' - when it applies to political appointees to NHS management, getting away with presiding over establishments that would shame the third world, so long as they satisfy the ruling junta's PR requirements.0 -
To be fair, part of the reason so many people go to A&E seeking treatment for minor conditions is because our GP service has deteriorated markedly in recent years.
It's no excuse - but you can't look at one half of the health service problem without tackling the other.
Depends where you live we have a first rate GP service locally."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
That's part of it, but really people NEED to get sacked. That they are negligent and not only get away with it, but are promoted is quite fantastic.
I dare say ballooning consultant and managers salaries hasn't helped. Sacking doesn't work as it just pushes your unreported errors and incidents further away from being reported.
I am actively involved in error management and the problem I foresee with the NHS is threefold I expect.
NHS managers don't have a vested interest in incident reporting and to be honest neither do nurses. Too much risk to the status quo and also ending up with a front page daily mail spread.
NHS worker unions who lets be honest, are more interested in subscriptions than patient safety
The dullards that are the end user who aren happy to catagorise between negligent behaviour, honest mistakes and violations of rules due to inappropriate allocation of funds in consultants and managers pockets.0 -
Then again we have continuing adverts telling us to 'get it checked' with the presumption that people are embarrassed to trouble the doctor/hospital, I can't help but feel that contradictory messages are being being constantly fed to the public.The NHS has become massively bloated under the weight of expectations: the NHS was not meant to deal with sniffles. As it's there and free then why would you go out and buy a pack of Lemsip when you can get it for nothing?'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
I dare say ballooning consultant and managers salaries hasn't helped. Sacking doesn't work as it just pushes your unreported errors and incidents further away from being reported.
I am actively involved in error management and the problem I foresee with the NHS is threefold I expect.
NHS managers don't have a vested interest in incident reporting and to be honest neither do nurses. Too much risk to the status quo and also ending up with a front page daily mail spread.
NHS worker unions who lets be honest, are more interested in subscriptions than patient safety
The dullards that are the end user who aren happy to catagorise between negligent behaviour, honest mistakes and violations of rules due to inappropriate allocation of funds in consultants and managers pockets.
There is a fourth issue the constant threat of being sued for negligence whether real or not.
It is not only the compensation cost but the cost of putting in processes to constantly cover their backsides.
We live in claim culture."If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
Don't worry everyone. The Mid Staffs report point out that the error was in putting figures and finance ahead of patient care.
Ask yourself how making the entire NHS like this by making every part of it commercial will help.0 -
Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »Don't worry everyone. The Mid Staffs report point out that the error was in putting figures and finance ahead of patient care.
Ask yourself how making the entire NHS like this by making every part of it commercial will help.
It will help shareholders and CEOs with dividends and bonuses at the expense of the consumer;)"If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future.".....
"big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas I prefer the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. "A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it," "Arunachalam Muruganantham0 -
The answer is obviosuly lots more money...except that lots more money was applied in the years leading up to the Staffs debacle.
The answer is clearly not for the govt to pay for treatment provided by the private sector as :
a) no one would chose to be treated in a private hospital rather than an NHS one given the choice
b) IN France where they have such a public funded private provision system health outcomes are appalling and the public and constantly complaining about the poor treatment
Edit: For those wishing to play the man rather than the ball, perhaps you could start your reply with 'Daily mail reading....'
That's just non-sense. My girlfriend is french, as are a lot of her friends, and they can't believe how terrible our healthcare system is, the waiting times, the fact noone seems to care.
Compared to our system the French one is far better.Faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.0
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