NHS

My son in law was in charge of a busy store in a hospital and he said that the waste was dreadful and he made suggestions to reduce it. These were ignored but he has recently been promoted so maybe he will be able to make a difference.

She is so right so why are you not speaking to her?

I would have totally agreed. I know an NHS manager who was having wallpaper for his office at £130 a role. His wife said to me “you can tell he’s not paying for it”. I could give you lots of instances!

Worked in the NHS for 12 years until a few years ago and your sister is absolutely correct. Management is overpaid and there are too many of them.

I always find ' I can see that is your truth'
It's propaganda of the popular press
Divide & rule rather than Democracy.

When I first went back to work after having children, I applied for a five hour a week admin job at the local hospital. I had three people interviewing me. I was asked what I felt I had to offer the health service (my husband suggested my body!) and also whether I’d be prepared to do a first aid course….I guess a hospital might need me to have that qualification during the five hours working in an office, just in case there was no one in the building with the knowledge!!!

Its undoubtedly true.... nothing will change.

Bankhurst Having Read everything what's your opinion now?

Having worked in the NHS for 25 years I do think your sister has a point.

Well said Theworriedwell and Scones! its easy to understand what doctors and nurses do, but not so easy to understand the role of managers and its easy to attack them, based on not very much. Of course some managers are not brilliant - but that applies to every profession and job - but without managers organisations couldn't function.

I always found that often in good companies people speak up if they feel things should be done better and there is a feeling of pulling together. In the Civil Service and NHS people don't take on this responsibility any more. However, my recent experience as a patient shows even consultants whine but do nothing to change things. Everyone needs to make changes, and if you see waste call it out, and suggest changes, even as patients. I have worked for all three.

Juliet
Love the dry humour.?

Having worked in the NHS for many years I think you are both right. More money is needed to update the IT systems and modernise equipment etc. More money is needed for staff. But the systems of working and management and decision- making are antiquated and wasteful. It’s an impossible situation to work in which is why I had to leave for my own sanity.

I’ve just finished chemo. One of my nurses was Vietnamese. When I tried to give back unused sealed medication she said it would all be binned and how the people from her country would be desperate for it and how sad it was.

I’m afraid I agree with your sister. There should be a central buyer for the NHS. Too many trusts, too many high paid managers.

I’ve worked in the NHS. They have managers to manage managers to manage managers & it goes on….
Anyway, what happened to the promise on the Boris Brexit bus - £350 million per week to go to the NHS instead of the EU??

Whatever you disagree on, is it worth losing your friendship with her? Maybe it is, that is personal to you of course.
I have two or three relationships where as I have got older, have chosen to deliberately "forget" some of their opinions I disagree with if overall the relationship is important.

My sister worked with the NHS on the admin purchasing side nearly 40 years ago and I have to say she was flabbergasted at the waste. She could have gone to Waitrose and bought toilet rolls cheaper. She tried to change things but unfortunately that just caused a storm so she left.

I am afraid your sister is only reiterating what many of us who have had experience of the NHS have found...along with the Fire Service and the Police Force! It was ever thus.

What really annoys me about the NHS is the amount of unnecessary paperwork sent out to patients......I recently had to have a diabetic eye screening, I was sent the original letter giving me date and time.......that's fine BUT a week before the appointment I was sent a reminder letter (identical to the original!) and then the day before the appointment I was sent a text
message. A bit like overkill in my opinion. I retired from the NHS almost 11 years ago and can definitely say that the service has gone downhill in those years.

Agree with your sister the admin get given “perks” from suppliers therefore don’t always get the best value for NHS many are self serving and greedy .
They have a free hand

More than once senior medical staff have been reported in the media as saying that administration is top heavy, and the figures for administrators as compared to nursing staff for example are way too high. This is a fact in many organisations who are not answerable to shareholders to the degree that management in commerical enterprises are, and have public money to spend. My neighbour retired from working at the local hospital because he couldn't cope with the amount of silly waste that he witnessed - one tea cup broken and the whole set thrown away and another ordered. The same hospital had two new wards built that were never used, as the site was sold off to a private developer and the hospital demolished. No doubt many posters have witnessed the same kind of ridiculous and alarming waste of money.

If you want to see needless waste of public funds, try working in the civil service. The organisation I had worked for, for many years, was taken into the civil service. The bureaucracy was staggering, the waste of money through the procurement process as mentioned by nipsmum meant many hours were spent on sorting out supplies which we had previously just bought locally for less, and subsequently we had a very narrow choice of product which on the face of it were cheaper, but were of such low quality they didn't work. The layers of management were unbelievable and the rigidity of policies staggering. I did try speaking out against some of them, in my role as a union rep and was branded a trouble maker. I left as soon as I could. Horrible place to work.

She has my vote. I work for a very big organisation and now work in the regional management offices. Waste is phenomenal, bad management in every sense of the word and massive pay rises for top management.

No one is arguing managers are not important to the running of the NHS, it’s the amount of them that is unnecessary and the ridiculously high salaries they are on. I can recollect chef James Martin being sent a photo of a meal by a patient that looked inedible. He made it his business to go into the hospital and was amazed at the amount they were paying for the supplies. He sourced local suppliers for half the amount the hospital were paying and got the price per meal right down. He later returned to find they hadn’t changed anything. Says it all.

Am afraid I agree too. It’s the hands-on staff who are badly paid.. None of us want to complain but you only have to be involved as an in or out patient and you witness casual waste. And yet bad food when food is a medicine! It’s crazy. And when I commented as an out patient on the lack of involvement or empathy of consultant I was given a psychologist for six weekly appointments who knew nothing of my rare fatal condition but was a lovely expensively paid people person. It was just rubbish. And waste of money whilst those doing the tough caring jobs are paid so poorly.
In a heart/ stroke ward I was only offered cheese omelettes or cheeses sandwiches every day as a vegetarian. I asked if I could say I was a Hindu and get the aubergine curry on their menu .. no chance. But there was a Cranks franchise on the ground floor where all the staff went. I was told they hadn’t heard of a Mediterranean diet. I discharged myself after two weeks. They went round and gave everyone senokot every night because there was so little fibre or foliage. Just dreadful. And this was major teaching hospital. Luckily my daughter brought in fruit and salads every day. No one wanted to know. In the end having been blanked by young doctor very rudely I had a word with Sister as I left and she said we just have to get the calories in. No wonder people opt for private care. It’s disgusting actually and I wouldn’t know where to begin to unravel the problems . At least some of the new billions thrown at it will get through to the necessary parts. But a lot will line consultants medical and business consultants pockets. I mean why are consultants allowed to use nhs facilities for their private work?? Why is my consultant retiring from nhs in his fifties to concentrate on private work? Why did I have to wait six weeks for result of critical aortic measurement when a private patient got it the same day? These are big questions. The NHS is the biggest employer in the UK and I really don’t know who is responsible. Trusts go bankrupt, get sued etc etc. Ministers get changed too frequently have powers that they are not accountable for. It’s a mess.

theworriedwell

Rosalyn69

I worked in the NHS as PA to a consultant surgeon.
I agree wholeheartedly about excess of management and misuse of funds.

You realise you were one of those useless pen pushers that people don't want to pay?

Surely no one is saying no management, and a PA is required for a busy Consultant surgeon, but not assistant pa, or assistants assistants pa. Work in the NHS and you would see it.