Our bloated NHS - it’s beyond ridiculous now.

I think there are actually some good points on both sides of this.
Managers are required in an organisation this size, the problem is their pay scale does not reflect their training and responsibility when compared to the clinical
Pay scales and so there is a disconnect there for some reason. There are many managers with titles that have come straight from a very mediocre type degree, and a very young age earning more than junior doctors and more experienced nurses and that doesn’t feel right.

Undoubtedly more money is needed and probably yes the investment needs to be more considered and reforms are required BUT the elephant in the room is the NHS is bleeding clinical staff due to poor work conditions ( and some of this is manager enforced - declined leave for events eg weddings/funerals, constantly asked to do over hours and pressurised into it plus taking away basic functions eg not hot food available on shift, no rest areas as ‘you are expected to be working’, paying a lot for car parking or being expected to park and ride at unsociable hours), poor pay and yes that includes doctors whose pay is not in line with inflation and has been decreasing for about 15 years, being asked to do more for less, patient expectation and attitude to staff ( violence, abuse, threats, constant concern over being sued) and the press and it’s negative rhetoric.

If you can’t recruit and retain staff to run a service it’s not going to work. There is almost weekly threads here about how a GP did something wrong or didn’t see them when expected and this negative attitude builds. Proposals like ‘force them to work for x amount of years or py back the costs of their training’ …. Really? Is that really going to fix this recruitment crisis?

IMO health needs to be taken away from politicians and run by those who understand the local community and service requirements. It’s always just a political tool and the changes are just vote winners with no real discernible effect…

Sorry to disappoint Urmstongran...I wasn't a manager in the RHS either....not even a member....it was an attempt at a humorous play on words or rather a play on letters.

I am genuinely sorry for anyone who is suffering as a result of failings in the NHS and do not doubt your accounts for a moment. I should have written that anecdotes are not data.

HR spin and tick boxing

The latest fitness craze.

LadyWee The problem with that is that politicians will always hold the purse strings. Allocation of money is always a political issue.

Urmstongran

I’m allowed to have a different opinion DaisyAnne. There is no slur. Just that I disagree with the usefulness of all this within the NHS. Patients are not happy these days with aspects of the NHS and all the HR spin and tick boxing isn’t going to make them like how it’s gone.

It is not a "different opinion". It is nothing to do with an opinion. You are questioning the probity of two people and suggesting that because they are knowlegable in the subject they are reporting on, they will not produce a factually correct and properly argued report. You are happy to malign the reputation of two people simply because they know about an area you wish to deride.

Urmstongran

Anecdotal evidence from reliable and known sources is fact Lido. Do you think these posters have been making up their tales of woe?

And the RHS? Isn’t that the organisation where memberships have been ditched pretty robustly lately due to perceived ‘wokeness’? It was in many newspapers a few months ago. All to do with ‘diversity’? I rest my case.

Anecdotal information is not evidence Urmstongran. Suggesting that someone does not believe the anecdote is something I notice you say when you are running out of arguments but it doesn't change the worth of personal experience against in-depth research.

You seem to be losing the "politeness" rather quickly, by the way.

All these aggressive posts do is stop anyone who isn't a manager of some type posting.

It's a pity, because the thread regarding poverty and food banks included everyone, despite strong feelings from all sides, and the fact that a lot of people (all?) posted from the perspective of never having used a food bank.

Yes, Glorianny, hospitals can transfer records upon request but with today's technology, it could be online and immediate if they didn't use different systems. When you are caught in an emergency at the weekend, those records are not available but should be. Yet vast sums of money have been thrown at IT within the NHS.

icanhandthemback

Yes, Glorianny, hospitals can transfer records upon request but with today's technology, it could be online and immediate if they didn't use different systems. When you are caught in an emergency at the weekend, those records are not available but should be. Yet vast sums of money have been thrown at IT within the NHS.

It sounds as though some more is needed to ensure that the systems are working efficiently. There's no point having a job which isn't completed. There's a recommendation to spend £6 billion on upgrading GP surgeries for online consultations, which patients don't all want. Maybe the money should be spent on ensuring that the current systems are working. One of the problems, apparently, is that the NHS is so fragmented after 2012 and all the various little bits can't agree how to co-ordinate everything.

MissAdventure

All these aggressive posts do is stop anyone who isn't a manager of some type posting.

It's a pity, because the thread regarding poverty and food banks included everyone, despite strong feelings from all sides, and the fact that a lot of people (all?) posted from the perspective of never having used a food bank.

I disagree, but I have problems with people posting "facts" which are no such thing. Nobody needs to be a manager to check facts and figures.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Quotes deleted post

this*

BTW I looked up what is expected from the Sir Gordon Messenger report. It would appear he has praised the quality of NHS management. He's not calling for a slimming down, but greater consistency across trusts, better incentives to encourage recruitment and retention and more investment in training for leadership roles. We'll have to wait until the report is actually published, but it's a far cry from the OP.

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So let's have an interesting discussion, shall we? we could start with some facts, such as the reports which state that the NHS has about a third of the level of management of the average company, so isn't "bloated" or the open letter from Sir Gordon Messenger on the government site, which acknowledges "the excellent leadership and management currently evident across many parts of the system".
healthcareleaders.blog.gov.uk/2021/11/23/the-review-of-health-and-social-care-leadership-an-open-letter-to-all-those-who-work-in-health-and-social-care/

Message deleted by Gransnet. Quotes deleted post

If posters post inflammatory, politically motivated nonsense, repeatedly ignore facts, revile researchers in the topic at hand, ignore other posters who have experience in a relevant area and make incorrect assumptions about them, then the posters disagreeing with them are not the ones at fault.

Telling everyone you are being polite while ridiculing others and being deliberately obtuse, is not something most people think of as admirable traits.

Ah! But we live in a post-truth world. We have to accept different parameters.

That would be an interesting thread.

Joseanne

I read this thread, both yesterday and this morning. I was going to comment about my own experiences of being a private paying patient all my adult life and how running a business like BUPA appears to not only be profitable, but is also efficient, streamlined and highly successful. I refrained from posting though because I don't have enough facts and figures about the organisation, and comparison with the NHS is futile anyway.

I also refrained from posting because I noticed the thread turned so aggressive. I'm not sure that the initial dig about recognising the OP's style was such a nasty comment, (in fact it might have been tongue in cheek!), but it was probably the catalyst for the pile on and far worse personal attack by another poster on Urmstongran who is not "full of tripe". What a shame on an interesting discussion, but it now seems inevitable when certain posters make their comments.
By the way, I did not report the aggressive posts which got deleted. More long standing members have taught me that it is better to let them remain for all to see because the issue is with them and their own resentment.

I refrained from posting too Joseanne, even though I worked in a senior role in the NHS, know where to look for evidence, and am not usually backward at coming forward, but because I’ve realised that deliberately inflammatory posts, often from Urmstongran, are just that, designed to get people irate, and to provoke an argument. These posts are instantly recognisable by the title - you don’t post ‘Our bloated NHS - it’s beyond ridiculous now’ unless that’s your design, it’s not an attempt to get a meaningful discussion with all perspectives considered.

I’ve decided it’s just a waste of time and energy participating.

DaisyAnne

Urmstongran

I’m allowed to have a different opinion DaisyAnne. There is no slur. Just that I disagree with the usefulness of all this within the NHS. Patients are not happy these days with aspects of the NHS and all the HR spin and tick boxing isn’t going to make them like how it’s gone.

It is not a "different opinion". It is nothing to do with an opinion. You are questioning the probity of two people and suggesting that because they are knowlegable in the subject they are reporting on, they will not produce a factually correct and properly argued report. You are happy to malign the reputation of two people simply because they know about an area you wish to deride.

Just as many do on these threads on other topics!
Pritti Patel and Rwanda anyone?
Of course people have ‘opinions’. And by all accounts these very often are at odds of those with the expert knowledge and full facts. ?

Thanks casdon I'd given up on this thread.

Urmstongran

DaisyAnne

Urmstongran

I’m allowed to have a different opinion DaisyAnne. There is no slur. Just that I disagree with the usefulness of all this within the NHS. Patients are not happy these days with aspects of the NHS and all the HR spin and tick boxing isn’t going to make them like how it’s gone.

It is not a "different opinion". It is nothing to do with an opinion. You are questioning the probity of two people and suggesting that because they are knowlegable in the subject they are reporting on, they will not produce a factually correct and properly argued report. You are happy to malign the reputation of two people simply because they know about an area you wish to deride.

Just as many do on these threads on other topics!
Pritti Patel and Rwanda anyone?
Of course people have ‘opinions’. And by all accounts these very often are at odds of those with the expert knowledge and full facts. ?

Pritti Patel is not an expert on Rwanda "UG* She attempts to be an expert on far-right politics, as you do.

The subject these people were tasked to report on was their area of expertise. They do not deserve your attempts to heap ridicule on them. Slandering others, particularly about the area where they have expert knowledge on while you do not, is not putting forward "facts". It is a standard, far-right method that attempts to destroy belief in facts and truth by putting authoritarian populism forward and disrupting normal debate.

I could wonder if it is not an attempt to suggest all experts are part of an anti-right conspiricy. There are enough "we are not treated as we should be" conspiricy theories out there and enough people trying to spread them for that to be a possibility. These people can certainly not defend themselves on here, can they? So you choose to ridicule their hard gained knowledge.

You, I assume, have no idea of the actual worth of what they wrote, as you have made no attempt whatsoever to comment on that, given no opinion on the content, only on the fact that they are experts in the field of discussion.