N.H.S.

“We have 24 hrs to save the NHS” what went wrong?.
Jim.

Lincoln .7

Due to cuts waiting times went up, didn’t anyone tell you.

Part of the problem is the people who are most important and work hard either on wards or behind the scenes and give the job the maximum effort because they care, however they are treated very poorly by those higher up and the government as everyone knows they will carry on doing their best with what ever resources are available.

HR hopeless remains, still can’t even confirm that Mrs is going to have a job in 2 weeks time, talk about stress and lack of respect for an individual, if I had my way I’d stick every NHS HR member up against the wall and shoot them right now.

David Cameron said “NHS is safe in our hands”. We’ll see but I have my doubts.

I remember when T. Blair stated “We have 24 hrs to save the NHS” what went wrong?.
Jim.

Lincoln .7

True story.
A few yrs ago, my wife had to see a Consultant re her back. Being a nurse for many yrs, the lugging and lifting had damaged her spine. We saw the Consultant surgeon who stated she would need an MRI scan. The waiting time of which was about 9 months.
This was on a Friday, about 13.00. We went home, and I just couldn’t believe there was a 9 month waiting list. I phoned the Consultants Secretary, and told her about our visit a short while ago, and said, “If I put my hand in my pocket, and rattled a few pennies around, how soon could my wife get an MRI scan? she looked in the Consultants diary, and stated, I am sorry, but the earliest he could do it would be this coming Tuesday,(Bearing in mind it was a Friday, and we would have to wait 4 days) she stated the time he could do it would be 14.00 hrs.and in NHS TIME.
I asked if it would be the same Consultant we had seen earlier, she replied it would be done by him.I then said, that why could he do it privately within 4 days, when waiting on an NHS list would be 9 months, I told her I had tape recorded the conversation, and if my wife didn’t get the MRI scan done in the next 4 days, I would send a copy of the tape to al the Broadsheets.
10 mins later she phoned back, with an appointment for the Tuesday. So it would seem that these Consultants and surgeons use the NHS machines and time to line their own pockets.(BTW, I had not recorded the conversation)

I had to see a Consultant at Norwich University Hospital re a sliced finger, I went privately, paid for via an Insurance policy. My appointment was at 12 M.D. between a quarter to twelve and my appointment, this Consultant saw three others.prior to seeing me. I eventualy received a breakdown of the total medical costs, and my appoint ment cost £250.00 for no more than 10 mins of his time.The amazing thing thing was, is that this Consultant was on call should he be needed by the NHS if needed, niice work if you can get it.
Jim.

Lincoln .7

Over the years and there has been a few i have had very good treatment from the NHS. I have been frustrated and surprised,sometimes at the same time with the way things are done but generally all the staff i have come into contact with have done a good job.However one incident brought home to me the basic problem with the running of the NHS too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.
Whilst waiting to be seen by a nurse for some follow up treatment i was sitting in a newly refurbished part of the hospital in a small waiting area containing some 8-10 chairs arranged around a couple of doors of which access would be required by beds.The lone nurse who was doing her best to keep patients flowing through the system was stopped in her tracks by six manager types who had been standing around discussing the layout of the area regarding positioning of the chairs in relation to the doors.They proceeded to tell this overworked nurse to re-arrange the chairs now while they stood around discussing not so quitely when each of them could retire and how much their pensions would be worth.The urge to tell these six drains on resources to move the bloody chairs themselves was intense and i regret to this day i didn’t say something there and then.

Of course not. Surely the general point is that the proportions of suited management to clinical staff and clinical managers has changed in recent years in favour of non-clinical staff.

The big question is how FEW non-clinical staff do we need to run each hospital? That is on top of the non-clinical staff employed in the general administration of the NHS. Each of us experiences only a microcosm of the service and will have varying reactions. Our local hospital appointments system is appallingly and unnecessarily over-managed. Returning to the hospital centred appointment system would save thousands of pounds at a stroke.

I recall the very interesting programme Gerry Robinson made a few years ago when he examined costs at a local health authority and discussed with staff at all levels how money could be saved. It was an eye-opener!!

I also think the fact that working men over 60 do not have to pay for prescriptions is ridiculous.Reinstating charges until pensionable age is reached would save a few hundred million on the drug bill.

As GA says, who organizes appointments, salaries, rotas, holiday cover, wards and all the other trivia that go towards the successful running of a complex organization. Do you really want doctors and nurses doing all that?

Sack 50% of the pen pushers and employ more Doctors and nurses.

What salaries?

You’ve just stood the entire payroll team against the wall and shot them.

And then shot them again.

There aren’t going to be any salaries for a while……

Isn’t it strange that it is always the folk on the sharp end who suffer during cutbacks? It doesn’t matter if it’s the NHS, the public sector, or the private sector.
In my view, a great start would be to round up every member of ‘human resources’ staff, take them outside, and put them up against a wall, and shoot them. Then shoot them again.
Then round up every administrator left, take them outside, and add them to the stinking pile of deadweight deadbeats and parasites.
Divide the salaries saved, and give it to the workers at the sharp end…

Aren’t the only true indicators of the successful management of the NHS to be found in the ratio of successful clinical outcomes per patient and the degree of patient satisfaction? Isn’t that what the NHS is there to provide?

Regards,

kev35

People seem to assume that every NHS manager works in a hospital or directly with patients, there is a lot behind the scenes, such as recruitment and training doctors.

Do agree though that there are those who are promoted above their level of incompetence and can think of several right now.

I couln’t agree more. Jobs seem to be given to folks who may have a Degree but know absolutely nothing about the job they have just been given.

Jim.

Lincoln .7

Jim, I have a friend who went straight from University into Procurement and Logistics for a multi-national company. Granted, he alone won’t control the whole show, but, how does he know the intricacies and the ramifications of his work on the people at the front end of things. As I say, he is a friend and I wouldn’t trust him to get me a sandwich. 😉

The point is, how do people with no experience get into a position where a thorough hands-on knowledge should be a prerequisite? Scary!

Give wards to senior nurses and get rid of managers of them…… make it a requirement to become a manager they must be a qualified doctor or nurse.

Why would you do that? Do you really want a doctor or a nurse making decisions about HR or salaries or budgets which they are not the slightest bit qualified for anymore than you would want the hospital cleaner carrying out operations?
I would rather have clinical staff working on clinical matters.

Give wards to senior nurses and get rid of managers of them…… make it a requirement to become a manager they must be a qualified doctor or nurse.

I couln’t agree more. Jobs seem to be given to folks who may have a Degree but know absolutely nothing about the job they have just been given.

Jim.

Lincoln .7

CD – and don’t forget that the most sweeping reforms of the NHS proposed in recent times were by Alan Milburn during the Blair administration. But Blair shrunk from these just as he did from Frank Field’s social reforms.

And of course Milburn was highly critical of Cameron’s U-turn on Lansley’s reforms.

Give wards to senior nurses and get rid of managers of them…… make it a requirement to become a manager they must be a qualified doctor or nurse.

HR!!! Why did Personnel ever have to be remamed, anyway? To make it sound “better” so that we could spend more money on the same people. In the days when I was an employee you talked through your problems, hopes, worries etc with your boss, because that was one of his jobs.

But it’s easier to treat resources like cr@p than personnel or people.

And update, Mrs didn’t get the job so with 2 weeks to go she’s facing a demotion but still no idea what job, and with which department.

I can only repeat what my experience tells me. The NHS over the last few years was vastly improved over that of the early/mid 1990s. Is the fact that the service improved during the term of a Labour administration just coincidence? I think not.
Recently some items of care we receive regularly have dropped in standard – that has happened after Labour left office – I don’t believe that is coincidence either.

David Cameron said “NHS is safe in our hands”. We’ll see but I have my doubts.

I’m not sure what Creaking Door is getting at…

Maybe I misread the implication of your post but it seemed that you were saying that the NHS had improved vastly under previous (mainly Labour) administrations but that now that we had a different coalition administration it was all about cuts and cost-cutting that was affecting the quality of care.

I just thought I’d post some news articles from 2007 because I didn’t want anybody to be seduced by any stereotypical ‘party political’ views on how the NHS is treated by the various administrations or the relationship between funding and media reporting of the NHS. From the articles I linked:

Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, congratulated ministers for tripling the health budget since 1997. But he warned the progress made was at risk of being reversed as wards are closed, jobs lost and services slashed.

Nurses called for the law to be changed to introduce guaranteed nurse/patient ratios as a way of preventing cuts.

David Dawes, part of the RCN’s body for nurses in senior management, said he supported the move as it would make many of the recent cuts – the RCN estimates over 22,000 post have been lost in the last 18 months – illegal.

Commenting on the fact the RCN has not invited any politician to congress this year, he said: “It was pointless bringing someone from government in because of how badly they have treated nurses and other health workers.“

I find the views expressed in this one article very interesting given that this is during a Labour administration and pre world banking-crisis of 2008; it is possibly worth reminding people of the very recent past because the NHS is too often treated as a political football by the political parties and it is far too big, complex and important an organisation to be ‘meddled with’ during a single term of government office.

Having said all that it is clear that there were already issues about the sustainability of funding the NHS back in 2007 and all this pre the deficit crisis; there are going to be massive challenges ahead for the NHS (ageing population, diabetes, obesity, mental health) and anybody who thinks that any particular political party is going to be spending significantly more on the NHS or not trying to cut-costs is deluding themselves.

CoC 15

Well Kev, all I can say, is that that makes two of us.;)
Jim.

Lincoln .7