Walkout Wednesday! I'm on strike!

[Docca]

I've got loads of anecdotes or examples, but the truth is that the NHS (like any business or governing body that is rotten) is bad because of the people in it, not outside it.

If we applied the same excuses to the government (that the NHS uses) then the government are continually dreadful only because you haven't given them enough money, they need enough to cover the monstrous waste and ineptitude, plus enough to make sure the country is run ok too.

This also misses the point that the government set policy. Targets, plans etc- it’s not set by the people walking the wards. So that doesn’t really work ( although your broader point is applicable everywhere)

[irie]

I've got loads of anecdotes or examples, but the truth is that the NHS (like any business or governing body that is rotten) is bad because of the people in it, not outside it.

If we applied the same excuses to the government (that the NHS uses) then the government are continually dreadful only because you haven't given them enough money, they need enough to cover the monstrous waste and ineptitude, plus enough to make sure the country is run ok too.

You can't remove the entirety of the NHS workforce overnight though, like you could with government.

Other big businesses have turned themselves around, cut costs, cut huge swathes of time-served heel-draggers. Why not the NHS?

You need an alternative supplier while it's cutting itself to pieces and restructuring. There isn't one.

[irie]

This also misses the point that the government set policy. Targets, plans etc- it’s not set by the people walking the wards. So that doesn’t really work ( although your broader point is applicable everywhere)

Setting targets in a huge obsolete bureaucracy will achieve exactly what has happened in the last several decades - an increase in bureaucracy.

As for where we go from here, I don't know. See the post above.

Many of the people that my wife sees are eastern Europeans and as citizens of their countries they fly on cheap flights to their home country (eg Poland, Latvia), get their medical treatment there, then fly back here after recovery.

[Mr Moofo]

There is an overwhelming/overarching thing that is subtle, but (I think) is responsible for a lot of the issues in the NHS.

There are lots of complaints from within the NHS, all the kind of complaints that you might get in any other big business, but IME there was very little mention of the end user - unless it is at the end of a complaint, to strengthen their complaint i.e. "I don't get paid enough, I don't feel valued, I want....blah....and if I don't get it then it will affect the experience of the end user".

The NHS pretends to be a socialist mother figure that exists for the end user, but it isn't, it's a massive business and like any other massive business most of the employees are focussed on what they're getting out of their employment, the end user is not their focus. This isn't a slight on only NHS employees, it's human nature and common with the vast majority of employees at every level. That's why people have to be taught and then continually steered to be customer orientated.

The NHS needs to be run like a business with this in mind because even though it's sung from the rooftops that they're all about the end user, the truth is that customer orientation has never been a focus in the NHS.

The NHS purpose has now become to maintain the NHS - it has nothing to do with the customer.

[Yambo]

Businesses are in being and run to make a profit. The NHS is not a business.

It could be run like a business and instead of making a profit, it reduces costs but it is not run by business people so won't be run like a business. It's run by administrators and as they don't understand the first thing about running a business they will always fail.

There's loads of paper pushed around (cos that's what administrators do) but every piece of paper costs . . .

[Ant]

Some of the fun waste of our money that the NHS wilfully puts us through, whilst people scream that the NHS is under funded,

Nearly £66m is spent on interpreters for the foreign nationals who come here only to use our NHS.

£25m each year is spent on gender reassignment. Research from the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) has found that some 493 staff networks are being funded by branches of the National Health Service (NHS) throughout the country. The most prevalent networks are for LGBTQ+ issues, with 101 such groups being funded by the taxpayer, followed by racial networks, of which there are at least 99.

In October 2022, 16 trusts advertised jobs, with salaries totalling £713,328, for Inclusivity and Diversity roles, paid for by the tax payer.

The NHS pays for the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA), with a membership of more than 12,000 NHS finance managers, the HFMA’s turnover (last year £8.5 million) is generated chiefly by charging hospital trusts to send their staff on its conferences and courses and to play The Operating Game — a ‘fun’ day-long board game designed to ‘simulate the running of a hospital’. The HFMA is ultimately funded by the taxpayer.

Then you've got that prick Pat Cullen, the trade union rep on £197k per year salary and we're told that she failed all of her exams!

[irie]

The NHS purpose has now become to maintain the NHS - it has nothing to do with the customer.

[Taipan]

I forgot it was a strike day and came in. I realised as I approached the picket line. A group, nay, angry mob started to approach me as I rode up to the gates, and then I heard someone from the back cry out, "Whoa! Thats a Tech max he's on, better let him through Lads"!

[Greenman]

As everyone tip toes around the real issue here rather than maybe get flamed for saying it i shall not.

Leadership, shit corrupt leadership from the top.

We spent near on £12b on PPE for starters that could of really been used for funding other more important parts of the NHS. We wasted £4b on PPE that wasn't used, that could of been used to employ better staff on wages that would attract a more professional employee and keep them for the longevity of their career. There are many other examples that i'm sure google can find for you.

We continue to spend billions on other countries wars but we don;t have any money to bail out the service that keeps the people in our country alive!

As i have posted in another thread, it's all to do with leadership. You cannot blame an employee for striking because he/she/it can no longer cope with the workload, or the lack of pay, this again falls to the people at the top, not the managers, not the sub-managers but the people who set out the budgets and have the overall say and probably have ties with the tories to continue to run the NHS into the ground so that they can then privitise it and enforce higher taxes, more money for the rich!

The rich corrupt echelon of this country have everything to answer for and until these people have their power removed and are replaced with people that will run the country and budgets based on making the country a better place for the 'people' then nothing will change, ever.

The tricky bit is getting people in power that will be able to do that, maybe AI will be our solution, but then again, as with the talks of even AI becoming sentient, maybe that could become corrupt also!

[gremlin]

As everyone tip toes around the real issue here rather than maybe get flamed for saying it i shall not.

Leadership, shit corrupt leadership from the top.

We spent near on £12b on PPE for starters that could of really been used for funding other more important parts of the NHS. We wasted £4b on PPE that wasn't used, that could of been used to employ better staff on wages that would attract a more professional employee and keep them for the longevity of their career. There are many other examples that i'm sure google can find for you.

We continue to spend billions on other countries wars but we don;t have any money to bail out the service that keeps the people in our country alive!

As i have posted in another thread, it's all to do with leadership. You cannot blame an employee for striking because he/she/it can no longer cope with the workload, or the lack of pay, this again falls to the people at the top, not the managers, not the sub-managers but the people who set out the budgets and have the overall say and probably have ties with the tories to continue to run the NHS into the ground so that they can then privitise it and enforce higher taxes, more money for the rich!

The rich corrupt echelon of this country have everything to answer for and until these people have their power removed and are replaced with people that will run the country and budgets based on making the country a better place for the 'people' then nothing will change, ever.

The tricky bit is getting people in power that will be able to do that, maybe AI will be our solution, but then again, as with the talks of even AI becoming sentient, maybe that could become corrupt also!

There's a sixth form common room rant if ever I've heard one.

[irie]

... We continue to spend billions on other countries wars but we don;t have any money to bail out the service that keeps the people in our country alive!

Google says that spending on the NHS will increase from ~£140 billion in 2021/2022 to ~£150 billion in 2022/2023.

In your judgement how many more £billions should spending be increased by and what would be the impact of this increased spending on front line services?

Over to you.

[Greenman]

... We continue to spend billions on other countries wars but we don;t have any money to bail out the service that keeps the people in our country alive!

Google says that spending on the NHS will increase from ~£140 billion in 2021/2022 to ~£150 billion in 2022/2023.

In your judgement how many more £billions should spending be increased by and what would be the impact of this increased spending on front line services?

Over to you.

Who knows, that's not my point, my point is there is plenty of money there but it's not being spent on our country and especially not on public funded services.

[irie]

... We continue to spend billions on other countries wars but we don;t have any money to bail out the service that keeps the people in our country alive!

Google says that spending on the NHS will increase from ~£140 billion in 2021/2022 to ~£150 billion in 2022/2023.

In your judgement how many more £billions should spending be increased by and what would be the impact of this increased spending on front line services?

Over to you.

Who knows, that's not my point, my point is there is plenty of money there but it's not being spent on our country and especially not on public funded services.

[Ant]

... We continue to spend billions on other countries wars but we don;t have any money to bail out the service that keeps the people in our country alive!

Google says that spending on the NHS will increase from ~£140 billion in 2021/2022 to ~£150 billion in 2022/2023.

In your judgement how many more £billions should spending be increased by and what would be the impact of this increased spending on front line services?

Over to you.

Who knows, that's not my point, my point is there is plenty of money there but it's not being spent on our country and especially not on public funded services.

You're a socialist, you should be happy that our money isn't being spent in our country.

[Mr Moofo]

... We continue to spend billions on other countries wars but we don;t have any money to bail out the service that keeps the people in our country alive!

Google says that spending on the NHS will increase from ~£140 billion in 2021/2022 to ~£150 billion in 2022/2023.

In your judgement how many more £billions should spending be increased by and what would be the impact of this increased spending on front line services?

Over to you.

TBF, I thought it was budgeted at 180 billion
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/n ... nhs-budget
2,700k per person in the UK

[Docca]

I've got loads of anecdotes or examples, but the truth is that the NHS (like any business or governing body that is rotten) is bad because of the people in it, not outside it.

If we applied the same excuses to the government (that the NHS uses) then the government are continually dreadful only because you haven't given them enough money, they need enough to cover the monstrous waste and ineptitude, plus enough to make sure the country is run ok too.

This also misses the point that the government set policy. Targets, plans etc- it’s not set by the people walking the wards. So that doesn’t really work ( although your broader point is applicable everywhere)

I could answer this in dozens of different ways, but unless you've gone stark raving mad then I suspect your solution of handing over the budget and strategy to the shop floor staff is obviously tongue in cheek. There are shop floor staff (and teenagers) the world over who think that if only they weren't held back by a manager/parent then they'd cure cancer and solve nuclear fusion before they've even got out of bed, on Saturday, at lunch time.

Unfortunately the NHS is stuffed to the rafters with these people, and some of them make it to be senior managers - and they still blame someone above them for not being brilliant.

Ha! No- handing the keys over to the inmates would be suicide. My post was a reply to a previous post on NHS and governance. It’s government that sets the strategy, very much influenced by the SOS of the week. There is an attempt to move authority to ‘integrated care boards’ but I’m not convinced they’re any different to the community commissioning groups, primary care teams etc that preceded them.


Also, people have to stop thinking of the NHS as one thing or one business; it’s hundreds and hundreds of individual things- often different approaches for the same thing depending on where you live.

[Docca]

... We continue to spend billions on other countries wars but we don;t have any money to bail out the service that keeps the people in our country alive!

Google says that spending on the NHS will increase from ~£140 billion in 2021/2022 to ~£150 billion in 2022/2023.

In your judgement how many more £billions should spending be increased by and what would be the impact of this increased spending on front line services?

Over to you.

To your previous points about targets: when spending gets cut ( and that’s a cut in real terms) then you invest more in measuring. Which is more ( meaningless) targets.


Also, the bulk of that cost is workforce and of that, agency. So it’s not money for illness, it’s money for covering the vacancies they can’t fill because they NHS terms and conditions are relatively poor.

[irie]

@Docca

Unobtainable targets, cuts, vacancies, bureaucracy, and what you describe above, are symptoms of a dysfunctional organisation. The model that was once fit for the purpose is now obsolete. Until it is changed nothing will change.

[Docca]

I’m not arguing against change, but it’s not as black and white as you try and make things.

We tend to model around the fund, not the need or the benefit.

Then when we underinvest, across all areas, it breaks.

I think some of you need to come out of retirement and send your ideas to UK government, as clearly something obvious is being missed

[irie]

I’m not arguing against change, but it’s not as black and white as you try and make things.

We tend to model around the fund, not the need or the benefit.

Then when we underinvest, across all areas, it breaks.

I think some of you need to come out of retirement and send your ideas to UK government, as clearly something obvious is being missed

What you "model around" is not the issue, it is the basic NHS structural model itself that is obsolete.

As it happens, we were asked if we wanted to tender for the ill fated NHS IT project and an outline of what we would propose. We said that functional interfaces should be built to enable pre-existing systems to communicate with each other and be incrementally implemented. Essentially a low cost, low risk strategy. We heard no more.

Why?

Because the proposal "the management" wanted to hear was for a brand new integrated all bells and whistles system to replace existing systems where everybody got what they wanted (ie designed by a committee). Well that's what they got. Or more accurately didn't get after chucking at least £10 billion at the NHS IT project, plus the enormous amount of costly wasted NHS time.