Our bloated NHS - it’s beyond ridiculous now.

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

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.

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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/

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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.

this*

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

HR spin and tick boxing

The latest fitness craze.

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.

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…

One thing I have noticed that Consultants here at least, send letters to the patient as well as the GP about any results. Communication seems better.
Even if the hospital computer system doesn't always seem to communicate with the GP's system, much to the frustration of some staff recently.

Glorianny

icanhandthemback

Glorianny, I am well aware of the difference between my Dr being contracted to the NHS and the Hospital Trusts. However, my Hospital in Hampshire cannot read my records from my Hospital in West Sussex...that is recent too. There is nothing "National" about our NHS, it is a complete misnomer.

That's interesting but may not be true. I know someone who works as a consultant in the NHS when she wanted records for personal treatment transferred from one hospital to another she was told it couldn't be done. She then explained exactly how it could be done and who she was and it was done very quickly. I fully acknowledge that there are people working for the NHS who seem to think part of their job is to make it as mystical and incomprehensible to the patient as possible but get someone on the case who they respect and it is amazing how things change.

It's not new. Both my children were born in hospitals which wasn't my "catchment" hospital, although antenatal care was provided by the local health authority. When I went into hospital to have my babies, I was given a paper copy of my complete medical record to show the hospital.

Even now, access to patient records isn't uniform across the country. My partner has online access to all his test result, but I don't. When I asked why not, I was told that my GP practice had chosen not to give patients access. My NHS app doesn't have any record of my flu jab and it took weeks for my third Covid vaccine to show up.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9107479/Royal-Horticultural-Society-dragged-culture-wars.html

So much for ‘inclusivity’.

It's not the only report I've read which shows that the NHS is under-managed compared with the average big organisation.

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.