Nhs Must ‘Reform Or Die’ Says Kier Starmer

[naomi24]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-prime-minister-government-people-england-b2611262.html

 

This should be interesting.

 

[Deskdiary]

9.12 pm - Not if you read In Stitches, by Dr Nick Edwards.

 

He was (might still be) an A&E Dr and he wrote the book during the height of the New Labour years. In it he complained about pretty much the same things that are complained of now.

[newmodarmy]

Can anyone  tell me (gulliver, perhaps, as he likes Facts)  what annual NHS spending was in 2009 , the last full year under Labour  and what it was in 2023, to show us the extent to which the Tories starved the NHS of money. (No need to include the Covid years as they distort the picture and we'll go off at at a tangent/diversion about Mone and Hancock.)

[newmodarmy]

Sorry G, I beat you to it.

I have figures just for England covering Department of Health and Social Care, all at 2022/23 prices so we are comparing like with like.

I don't know the 2009/10 figure but I have the 2011/12 figure which was £131.1 Billion. The latest figure I have is 2022/23 which was £184.5 billion.

Maybe we should slash it by £50 billion to get it back to those glory days when it was , we are told, so much more efficient when it was doing more with a lot less. 

 

[newmodarmy]

That debate didn't last as long as I'd expected- it was really busy last night then things suddenly ground to a halt (let's hope the same doesn't happen with these much needed reforms)

[youngmafbog]

And I think we can all see why it ground to a halt.

The usual.

[newmodarmy]

Yes, but the culprit is on a little break and there's a chance now for sensible on topic discussions to be had.

[Deskdiary]

^^^with grown-ups.

[Togo]

It was once said of the Prussians that they were not a Country with an Army, but and Army with a Country. We have become a "Health Sevice" with a Country instead of A Country with a Health Service.  

[jackthehat]

A 'root and branch reform' according to JtH;

1. Get rid of the layers of pointless and expensive 'admin'.

2. Move towards a 24hr 7 days a week service.

3. Chase-up bills for those not entitled to treatment - ensure health tourists present details of financial ability to pay before treatment.

4. Sort out procurement practices to ensure value for money.

5. Stop out-sourcing cleaning, etc. to expensive agencies.

[curlyfries81]

I think the layers of pointless and expensive "Management" are the problem - those who horsewhip the actual workers. In terms of staff, as I've been given to understand, they are critically short across the board and that includes clerical staff.  In essence, too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.

Job roles such as "Diversity Manager" with a salary of £50k or thereabouts are an obscene waste of money when it transpires that there is a block on recruitment of clinical and clerical staff across many NHS Trusts up and down the country.  When is this madness going to end?

[jourdain2]

Inefficiency and too many admin. layers. 

OH has a form of skin cancer and one of the lesions on his head turned malignant early this year. At the time, I had just had my hip repair and could scarcely walk, let alone drive.  So I was going to have to organise hospital transport (about 40 miles each way).  I only knew the date, no time on the letter. 

I had a real runaround trying to discover the time of the operation - morning or afternoon - (it was for 2 days after a national holiday) and secretaries were not around, I rang and rang until I managed to get the surgeon's secretary's number. Got through to her Mon. morning.  She didn't have the list - a junior in another dept. must have been away and not sent it to her. To her credit she rang me back in the afternoon to give me the time and so I managed to get transport organised.  

Almost in tears, she had apologised and said that she'd just had to ring a lady in Scarborough and tell her to put her husband in a taxi immediately to get him in for his op. that afternoon!

A taxi for a 40+ mile trip!!!! How much did that cost?

[Khandro]

jourdain, you'd have been better off staying in France, n'est pas?

It's certainly fantastic healthcare we get in Germany: 

One morning after a shower I noticed some red marks on my side, my wife said it might be shingles, she phoned my doctor, the secretary said to come in at 11:00. I was seen at 11:15 and shingles it was. I was given a prescription, collected it from the nearby  chemist and by 12:00 noon I'd taken the medication.

The quicker shingles is treated the quicker it can't develop, which it didn't and it cleared up straight away.

 

[jourdain2]

Khandro, when we were having the debate about returning to UK, there were pressing family reasons to return the one and only major thing against was the NHS - but we couldn't believe that it was as bad as it is. To be fair, it was better in 2015.

[newmodarmy]

It may be a problem with my GP practice rather than NHS but I called in this week to make an appointment. No, they couldn't do it. I was told to go online, fill in a triage form and then I would be sent a text with an appointment date. I've no idea how some sick patients are expected to deal with that.

[New Judge]

"Job roles such as "Diversity Manager" with a salary of £50k or thereabouts are an obscene waste of money..."

And you don't have to look very far:

https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/candidate/search/results?keyword=diversity%20manager&language=en

A few examples:

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager

Leeds LS9 7RE
Salary: £43,742 to £50,056 a year

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Specialist
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
Cwmbran NP44 8YN
Salary: £59,857 to £69,553 a year

Head of Diversity and Inclusion
Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Leeds LS7 3JX
Salary: £53,755 to £60,504 a year

Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust
London WC1N 3JH
Salary: £66,718 to £76,271 a year

Equality, Diversity, Inclusive and Wellbeing Lead
Digital Health and Care Wales
Cardiff CF11 9AD
Salary: £44,398 to £50,807 a year

That is from just the first two pages of a search for "Diversity Manager". Five jobs which will cost the NHS a quarter of a million pounds pa in salaries alone and which will contribute nothing towards healing the sick. You must add to that, pension contributions, employers' NI, and other sundry expenses involved with employing somebody (possibly private healthcare scheme payments! 😀).

There will be no useful "reform" whilst the NHS is peeing sums of this magnitude up the wall.

 

[newmodarmy]

The hospital to which I regularly take a relative claims to have been undertaking major reforms...there are lots of posters about their radical transformation programme and slogans about people &processes, so reforming the NHS isn't a new thing.

[newmodarmy]

And there's lots of Rainbows and Pride posters and photos of diversity champions

[New Judge]

"It may be a problem with my GP practice..."

That is a problem with your GP practice, nma. But it is not unique to you. Most practices I know of operate a similar system.

In my surgery, those who are unable to use technology (mainly elderly people who are, inconveniently,  the group most likely to need a doctor) are advised to visit the surgery where a receptionist will help them use the tablet provided for patients to undertake their "triage". As an absolute last resort and (from one of my elderly neighbour's experiences)  after a lot of prevarication, a receptionist will undertake the process over the phone (assuming the patient has been fortunate enough to get an answer, that is).  

The GP system is totally unfit for purpose and the first thing any "reform" should centre on is abolishing it and replacing it with something which works.