NHS: modernisation or privatisation by stealth?

[Harnser]

One of our daughters is an NHS hospital operations manager, ie she schedules and organises the operations to be carried out week by week in a children's department.

She is medically qualified so the doctors can't bu**shit her.

So it's gets to the end of the week and the consultants all get together and tell her that they are not going to do Friday's planned ops because they are all going to play golf/ get drunk/going to a party/ barbecue/ or just fancy a day off.

Consultants are a law unto themselves.

I'm sure she would welcome the NHS being privatised, them she could sack the lazy ones as an example!

[woolybanana]

Consultant contracts have been a problem in the NHS since its inception; no solution seems to have been found as yet.

[richard51]

Yes, Wooly and their salaries are very well supplemented by their private work. I suspect that is what they are doing when not doing their contracted NHS work.

[woolybanana]

quite right, richard.

By the way, can anyone please explain to me the apparent insanity of making NHS hospitals pay business rates? After the recent revaluations their bills have increased hugely, by many millions of pounds. Money that could be used for cash strapped services.

Apparently there may be a move towards charitable status for hospital trusts, thus saving a huge amount of money.

Needless to say, local authorities who are the beneficaries of the revenue are opposed to this.

Surely, public money should not be paid out with one hand to be taken away with another?

[powerdesal]

'' history has confirmed that Scargill was right that the tories were determined to close down the coal industry even though it was viable ''

Perhaps it should be noted that more mines were closed down under the Labour party Govt than were by the ''tories''.

[richard51]

Powerdesal - what a wonderful statistic you have there. I would love to see where that came from!

My reference about Scargill is from this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25549596

[woolybanana]

But richard, medium to long term, coal was gonna be phased out anyway so closures were inevitable.

Had Scargill not behaved in the way that he did then more pits might have lasted longer. His aim of smashing the government of the land was not acceptable; he got away with it under Heath but could not be allowed to undermine democracy again.

Unfortunately the signs of similar action are there again with the rail strikes and the extremism of Momentum and their fellow travellers.

[richard51]

So wooly you appear to be happy with the lying and underhand methods of the government of the land at the time !!!!!

My brother was a policeman at the time and enjoyed the cash bonanza from all that overtime. Democracy my ***.

[richard51]

Just an update:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-privatisation-contracts-virgin-care-richard-branson-jeremy-hunt-a8134386.html

Last sentence is such a cop-out by the government it sickening!

[woolybanana]

Richard, my best efforts have failed to open or even find your article. However, few states offer a completely government run or free health service; the UK model is a bottomless pit that needs reforming badly.

Perhaps something like the French or Scandinavian models would be better (not the American model which is an aberration)

Governments generally run things very badly and expensively; their role is to have adequate protective frameworks that can be enforced, with inspection and control of profits. If they do not have the civil servants to do this, then they recruit them, as the recruit for other needs.

Free, free, free doesn’t work; some degree of payment either direct or indirect would be better.

Plus get the costs down by abolishing the payment of business rates by NHH hospitals etc, powerful central buying, stop bed blocking, to name but a few.

[cajal]

I think the fact that the NHS is the worlds 4th largest employer, pipped only by United States Department of Defense, Chinese People's Liberation Army and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. highlights its totally unwieldy status for the number of the people it is required to serve and has,in effect, become unmanageable.

Re-engineering the organisation will involve massive abrupt and painful

change, because it is so difficult to have a discernible impact on such a

large blob from evolutionary policy tweaks.

Throwing more money at the NHS (known apparently as 'investing much more

in the NHS') will solve nothing. It simply postpones the day when the UK

will have to face up to the unpalatable truth that the NHS cannot continue as

is because they as a nation cannot afford it in its present form.

[richard51]

Two very sad opinions. Wooly I have no problem when highlighting and pressing return. Its in today's independant.

In my humble opinion privatisation will cost more in the long run. Private hospitals etc just cream of the routine easy work with lots of profit.

.

[richard51]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/21/ow-lucrative--deals-go-to-firms-that-use-tax-havens

This makes it a double wammy!

[mint]

It's not just the NHS, of course. 

I read about Persimon Homes and the staggering amounts of profits they have made from the government "help to buy" scheme.  Seems that first-time buyers are by no means the biggest beneficiaries of the government's largesse after all.

AND, I'm not even going to mention some of the private train companies being bailed out by the taxpayers.

2018.......Beleaguered indeed and maybe Brexited?[;-)]

[woolybanana]

These faults, if we can call them that are a result of lack of government oversight of these schemes. The schemes in themselves are not bad.

The railway franchises fail largely because the sums of money that the government demands for them is far too high and the companies can only make profits by putting up fares excessively. But it is a losing game if they do not have the passenger numbers.