NHS and official government report.

tickingbird

Bodach

Notice your post hasn’t garnered any attention because it doesn’t fit the narrative of certain posters. Normally they’d be cheering to the rafters anything Tony Benn had said.

The NHS is a money eating black hole and needs drastic reform.

Really? Tony Benn's comments were several years ago so why would we be cheering?

Revealed: the £30bn cost of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/12/revealed-the-30bn-cost-of-liz-trusss-disastrous-mini-budget

That £30, 000, 000 could have funded a lot of well deserved pay rises in the NHS

ronib

Casdon we could therefore agree that maybe the whole education and training process for medics needs a rethink? It is not good enough to have hospital consultants so over loaded in this way. At the moment 7 million are on on waiting lists. Therefore a self perpetuating cycle of distress and misery for both patients and doctors?

Yes, I’d agree with that.

tickingbird

Bodach

Notice your post hasn’t garnered any attention because it doesn’t fit the narrative of certain posters. Normally they’d be cheering to the rafters anything Tony Benn had said.

The NHS is a money eating black hole and needs drastic reform.

So, tickingbird, when Labour threw money into the 'black hole' and patient satisfaction was at a high and the NHS rated one of the best systems in the world it was all a waste?

The tories have been determinedly cutting funding ever since they came to power in 2010, as you can see from the chart, and fiddling with its organisation. How much more do you want it to lose?

Growstuff strange as it seems, Boris Johnson didn’t take the Hippocratic oath and he was always in politics for himself. So okay he wants money.

Well I have studied organisational structures as part of my first degree a very long time ago. To be more accurate, I don’t have information available to me about hospital management structures.

ronib

Growstuff management consultants would charge a small fortune for a report on which roles to cut!

Definitely enhance the number of nurses and doctors therefore increase medical school places, previously vetoed by consultants!
Have greater convalescence beds available with good physio where needed. Ensure very competitive buying options. Improve use of pharmacies.
Cut
Diversity and equality posts. Interminable production of statistics.
I don’t know enough about the management structures to comment on where cuts can be made. Although the head of the Nhs seems to command an exaggerated pay packet.

Aha! So why are you suggesting cuts, if you don't actually know about management structures?

Incidentally, this is what one former PM earned in just a couple of weeks last month. I'm sure the head of the NHS would be very happy with that.

Casdon we could therefore agree that maybe the whole education and training process for medics needs a rethink? It is not good enough to have hospital consultants so over loaded in this way. At the moment 7 million are on on waiting lists. Therefore a self perpetuating cycle of distress and misery for both patients and doctors?

Wow! IT's a strange kind of black hole which treats sick people.

Bodach

Notice your post hasn’t garnered any attention because it doesn’t fit the narrative of certain posters. Normally they’d be cheering to the rafters anything Tony Benn had said.

The NHS is a money eating black hole and needs drastic reform.

That's interesting Siope. Thanks for funding that. I agree - £46 million is peanuts. And, yes, one of my children was in hospital for quite a long time and time with the play co-ordinators kept me sane.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance (which does not approve of the NHS) carried out a comprehensive review of ‘non-essential’ posts in NHS England. Even if one accepts their definition of non-essential - I do not, as they included play co-ordinators, and any parent who has had a child in hospital for a length of time/repeated stays will understand how important they are - the highest figure they could up with as ‘wasted’ on these roles was £46m. The NHS England budget this year is 160.4 billion. So, how will you spend the 0.03% ;my maths, so do double check that percentage) saved?

MaizieD

ronib

Do you have any proof to back up your costings of agency staff growstuff?
Well so what if the prime minister can stay in a country house at weekends, etc the responsibility of running the entire country is much greater than running the flagging health service.

I found this from 2015. Admittedly produced by an agency...

www.care101.co.uk/Documents/101-Agency-vs-Permanent-Costs.pdf

I think their argument might fall somewhat if the agency staff are covering for staff absence for sickness, as the NHS will still be paying some costs for that staff member.

And, I understand that a cap was placed on payments to agency staff in 2019.

You're right that it's not always an either/or situation, if it's a sickness cover. However, the alternative is to employ excess staff and run the risk of staff not being fully employed.

When a unit is to be reorganised (as happens because the government directs it), staff begin to leave, there's a ban on new recruitment and nobody wants to work somewhere where they're going to be made redundant. The staff who remain have to do extra shifts, so the system is already under pressure. If somebody goes off sick or takes holiday entitlement, a gap will need filling and it's cheaper (although not necessarily better) to use an agency.

ronib

Yes I agree Maizie so train more staff? Oh I forgot the hospital consultants voted not to increase medical schools.
You couldn’t make it up.

Do you understand why that was the case ronib? It wasn’t because they didn’t want more doctors, but because they are already very hard pressed, and the burden of junior doctor training falls directly on their shoulders once those doctors initially qualify. I wouldn’t be a hospital consultant now for £500k a year, it’s not worth the candle.

ronib

Head of Nhs £260k a year

So? I assume that's NHS England, which is one of the biggest employers in the world and has a budget more than the vast majority of companies. How much does the Chair of Shell or Tesco get paid?

ronib

Report Bma 14 November 2022 High spending on agency staff by Nhs is a completely false economy. Total spend on temp staff across the Nhs amounted to £8.9 billion.

Do you have the breakdown? Were they doctors or nurses? Which health trusts? Which specialisms?

ronib

Do you have any proof to back up your costings of agency staff growstuff?
Well so what if the prime minister can stay in a country house at weekends, etc the responsibility of running the entire country is much greater than running the flagging health service.

Not in writing, but my sister was an NHS senior manager, one of whose responsibilities was to make sure that there was legal cover. She was the budget holder for a big geographical area. We had this discussion a number of times. There is sometimes no alternative. The alternative would be to employ excess staff, so that there are enough if somebody is ill.

Yes I agree Maizie so train more staff? Oh I forgot the hospital consultants voted not to increase medical schools.
You couldn’t make it up.

The cap of 2019 has been broken.

ronib

Report Bma 14 November 2022 High spending on agency staff by Nhs is a completely false economy. Total spend on temp staff across the Nhs amounted to £8.9 billion.

Well, it may well be a false economy, but underpaying NHS staff and cutting down training opportunities is also false economy.

With thousands of nursing and medical staff vacancies what are hospitals supposed to do?

ronib

Do you have any proof to back up your costings of agency staff growstuff?
Well so what if the prime minister can stay in a country house at weekends, etc the responsibility of running the entire country is much greater than running the flagging health service.

I found this from 2015. Admittedly produced by an agency...

www.care101.co.uk/Documents/101-Agency-vs-Permanent-Costs.pdf

I think their argument might fall somewhat if the agency staff are covering for staff absence for sickness, as the NHS will still be paying some costs for that staff member.

And, I understand that a cap was placed on payments to agency staff in 2019.

Head of Nhs £260k a year

Report Bma 14 November 2022 High spending on agency staff by Nhs is a completely false economy. Total spend on temp staff across the Nhs amounted to £8.9 billion.

They're using agency staff because they aren't recruiting permanent staff because the pay is too low and the conditions increasingly stressful. Cutting agency staff won't do anything to alleviate that.

I'd like to see data on senior management pay. Once again, I doubt it's such a significant amount as people think it is.

I think you're right about consultants but the cost of analysis of NHS roles and systems with a view to improving effective use of resources (note effective use, not 'efficiency savings, they might well recommend the increased management that growstuff says is needed..) would probably cause a huge outcry...

Do you have any proof to back up your costings of agency staff growstuff?
Well so what if the prime minister can stay in a country house at weekends, etc the responsibility of running the entire country is much greater than running the flagging health service.

management consultants would charge a small fortune for a report on which roles to cut!

But surely it's short-sighted not to commission a report, if it could genuinely save serious money.