started to make money JUST because it is the privaye sector even though nothing has changed in termsof income or expenditure?

Except that there'll be a load of shareholders to pay for. And hospitals will start to give us treatments we don't really need so they can bill insurance companies… so insurance goes up and poor people are screwed. That'd be great.

healthcare which is the area I know – private healthcare is more expensive with poorer quality than the NHS

I realise it would cost more ,whilst being more efficient, apparently.
The point is z-11 goes on abnout how we make nothing and live off him but we could do the same thing witht the NHS via insurance to a private firm rather than tax and suddenly we would have a private company making things ….which seems a bit of a silly argument IMHO.

private healthcare is more expensive with poorer quality than the NHS

Is that like for like? Maybe not possible to say but if I go to a private hospital maybe I get a few more luxuries?

And hospitals will start to give us treatments we don't really need

Indeed – over-investigation will be where it's at. Ching-Ching.

As it is, I'd rather have a medic investigate/treat immediately, if needed… or [just as importantly] keep a wary eye on me for a few days… or [equally important] politely tell me to **** off for wasting NHS time.

that like for like? Maybe not possible to say but if I go to a private hospital maybe I get a few more luxuries?

Are yu suggesting that mor emoney would equal a better service GENIUS.
They also have the incentive to treat you for things that dont exist as they can charge someon for it so a bit off both iirc some capitalist like making money more than they like morals.

And hospitals will start to give us treatments we don't really need so they can bill insurance companies… so insurance goes up and poor people are screwed. That'd be great

Not iof it's a long term illness with poor prognosis, eg dementia. Then the hospitls won't want anything to do with you, what privatre healtcare wants is quick, expensive treatments, kerching, next please.

Not sure why you are trying to cause a fight at every turn but I'm trying to extract more from TJ's statement – he says quality is poorer for more money but I don't get that. I've not had much to do with the NHS or private medical providers so am fairly clueless but I do have private medical cover so I assume I get something extra for my care in a private supplier than the NHS. But maybe I'm wrong and it's all a big con?!

BTW the only reason I have it as my employer gives it to me otherwise I'd be happy with the NHS.

I could point out that the central banks that are supposed to stop us from getting into this mess are public institutions, but I won't

Good, saves me the bother of pointing out that central banks in most countries, including Britain, are not regulatory authorities but bankers to the state, so have little to do with how private sector banks conduct their affairs.

tiger_roach – Member
Is that like for like? Maybe not possible to say but if I go to a private hospital maybe I get a few more luxuries?

yes – like for like. I am talking about the private treatment centres brought in to reduce waiting lists and to create that bogus choice.

Perhaps the carpet was cleaner and the food better but the infection and complication rates were higher as was the cost per operation.

Similar for long term care.

tiger. The NHS has economies of scale and is far more efficient ( oftena t the expense of convenience to the user) The private sector pays out profits to shareholders – the two things together mean that private healthcare is more expensive.

The nicer carpets and food is a very minimal cost

The NHS is pretty much the most efficient provider of healthcare in the world. The downside is this comes at a cost of flexibilty / convenience to the the user. Thats the main thing you get when you pay private.

the NHS runs at high efficiency becauese of this

I assume I get something extra

Glass of wine.

By and large, the private sector concentrate on elective procedures in the otherwise fit n' well… handy for access to knee specialists, etc. Chronic illness, etc – not unless you have deep pockets. They don't have a large ITU capacity, but are usually not far from larger NHS facilities. So, if things go wrong/get complicated, they just transfer you out… In other words, they can avoid expensive stuff.

TJ- I don't doubt all you say but I assume/hope my employer pays £1k or so pa for my health insurance so that I get better service than I would in the NHS – maybe that just means faster treatment so I am back working a bit more quickly? Dunno really. I guess my time in the hospital would be more enjoyable even if that's just because I get to stay away from poor people… 😉 My wife will be giving birth in an NHS hospital soon and can't really see that a private hospital would offer much more – a private room I suppose.

Whilst you may have been comfortable with my post, you will not be comfortable with my view that it is this line of thinking that underpins the free schools policy despite the rhetoric.

As far as consultants are concerned, everyone in the private sector knows that they exist to back up unpalatable decisions already made by the senior management.

Unfortuatly tiger you get better "hotel" service and more convenience but worse healthcare.

he says quality is poorer for more money but I don't get that

The biggest cost in most organisations is labour. Clinical labour is pretty much fixed, so if a non-NHS organizattion wants to hire doctors and nurses, they do so at the same cost as the NHS. No saving. They might use non-NHS clerical staff at a cheaper rate, but the savings there are slight and not enough to build in enouigh of a profit, so the provision of healtcare by the private sector is more expensive than by the NHS. And whilst the clerical staff know about handling patient data, making appointments, allowing for patients to be prepped, the private sector workers won't, so you get a poorer service for more money.
Something which happened to us recently when we farmed out a fast track diagnostic and treatment centre to the private sector (20% more expensive, 30% fewer patients).
Another way of lookking at it is this – the NHS exists to do one thing – look after your health. Nothing else. Any other activities will ultimately have your health as their focus.
Private companies exist to dom one thing – make money.
What do you want to be the focus next time you're ill, your health and the treatment of it, or how much it'll cost to treat you?

my employer pays £1k or so pa for my health insurance so that I get better service than I would in the NHS

As TJ says, faster service in a better hotel. Our local private hospital uses NHS consultants doing private work. And guess where that hospital;sends you if you need an MR or CT scan?
so the bones of it – the treatment – is just the same

The healthcare thing is also about efficiency. When you don't give people choice and are prepared to make them wait you can plan the use of facilities and staff to get the maximum output.

When you give people choice and don't want them to wait you end up with slack in the system.

Yes. You should work your shocks off and stop blaming this or that..

😈

Unfortuatly tiger you get better "hotel" service and more convenience but worse healthcare

But is that worse for the individual or just overall for the cost? All I'm getting at is that better service costs more in diminishing return sense and many are willing to pay for that – same as with Hi-Fi and bikes right?!

And a basic grip on reality might help you understand why it's not possible to have individual bin collections. No one would want to provide the service.

Again with the misquoting to produce reductio ad absurdium::

why cant I and my neighbours choose to get our bins collected by someone who offers a better level of service?

see that, read it again – no reason why a street/neighbourhood/estate cannot select their service provider, let alone a village or parish council – why on earth should it be issued on a county wide contract?

Junky – Member
I realise it would cost more ,whilst being more efficient, apparently.
The point is z-11 goes on abnout how we make nothing and live off him but we could do the same thing witht the NHS via insurance to a private firm rather than tax and suddenly we would have a private company making things ….which seems a bit of a silly argument IMHO.

Where the **** did I say that? I didn't did I Junky?

I said that the public sector should be as efficient as possible, you're making leaps and bounds in your own imagination beyond that!

tiger – worse overall. The operations cost more per operation privately and the outcomes are worse. This is because the increaed convenience means decreased efficiency and there are also less experienced junior staff around for when things go wrong – so when it goes wrong the consequences are worse.

( gross oversimplification and generalization)An NHS hospital has its operating theatres full all the time. It can do this by making people wait until there is a space – and then not giving them the choice of taking that space. A private hospital want to offer choice and no waiting times – so it needs to have spare operating capacity at all times. This means the private hospital does less operations per hour of operating theatre time as some of the time there is no one being operated on. The private hospital also has to make a profit.

Worse outcome come about becayuse safety costs money – infection control precautions and so on and aslo because there are less experienced staff around. At night there may be no on call DR on site for example. So when things go wrong they go badly wrong

Crikey, what a thread – nothing like internet forums for some extreme views eh?! 🙂 'It's all f*****' (name your villain here) fault!'

I'll preface what I say by mentioning that I'm self employed & run my own business, and I started work in the 1970's, so can remember the effects of various Govt's handling of the economy.

IMO, although it's obvious hard cuts in spending were needed, this budget goes to far, too soon. Perhaps the worst thing is the VAT increase. If the VAT rise has the same effect as previous ones, inflation will go up, followed by interest rates – this will kill growth.

Cuts wise, the most stupid decision has to be the decision to cut the Govt loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, and the cancellation of £20M for a manufacturing business park. It's pretty obvious this has been done to p*** off Cleggs local constituents – and this is from a Govt who claim to be on the side of business! (Grrrrr)

To give people who don't know an idea – Forgemasters were after the loan to help them build a new machine that would make them one of only two place in the World that can produce pressure vessels for Nuclear Power Stations. The demand for these pressure vessels is extremely high and although China & India want to build similar forges, Sheff Forgemasters have a hugh advantage, as they are years ahead of China & India in knowledge of specialist steels required. The loan that the previous Govt had arranged was borrowed by the Govt at 1.5% interest and Forgemasters were going to repay it at 3.5% interest – so the Govt wouldn't exactly be loosing out! Oh, and out of interest, the local Regional Development Agency had managed to get £40m funding from private industry to put towards the project. (as per usual, the people who slag off things like the RDA's haven't the first idea what they do for local businesses like mine!).

So, IMO, it's the crap budget that I expected – anyone with a mortgage or business, I suggest you start stashing some money away now.

I said that the public sector should be as efficient as possible

One way of achieving that is to make local authorities bigger so that, for example, refuse collection contracts are only negotiated once, rather than having each street, neighbourhood or parish negotiate it separately.

Z-11 are you suggesting I misquoted you?

The reason you and your neighbours can't get together and choose to get your bins collected is 'cos it clearly wouldn't bleedin' work.

And if you think it would then IMHO you are insane.

The reason you and your neighbours can't get together and choose to get your bins collected is 'cos it clearly wouldn't bleedin' work.

They could get together and choose who collected their bins, and when. They wouldn't get a rebate on their Council Tax for choosing to do so though.

But if fortnightly collections bothers someone, there's nothing at all to stop them arranging for someone to come and collect their rubbish on the other week. If someone is willing to pay the extra for a service that goes beyond whatever their local authority is able to provide, there is nothing to stop them doing so.

fattatlasses

Nicely put

Zulu – the NHS is the most efficient healthcare provider around. Far more so that UK private ones, far more so that other systems such as the hybrid german or dutch ones.

So should that be the model for all services? Large stat4e monopoly with tight budgetary control and economies of scale?

Good, saves me the bother of pointing out that central banks in most countries, including Britain, are not regulatory authorities but bankers to the state, so have little to do with how private sector banks conduct their affairs.

The Bank has a statutory objective to “contribute to protecting and enhancing the stability of the financial systems of the United Kingdom”. The Bank does this through its risk assessment and risk reduction work, market intelligence functions, payments systems oversight, banking and market operations, including, in exceptional circumstances by acting as lender of last resort, and resolution work to deal with distressed banks.

although admittedly this was a bit muddied in the days of the FSA.

mmm … interesting thread given the reality of my day today …

Public sector worker (so obviously as wasteful, lazy fecker!) – but not always a 'profit' in this area of work so has to be done by the useless public sector (who else would want to put in paths for disabled people, or protect biodiversity). highlights of today's news – pay freeze for at least 2 yrs but expected to extend to 5 yrs – this was no surprise and is accepted as our contribution, also accepted that to make ourselves more useful we'll end up working more unpaid hours to get everything done, but the absolute corker was the likelihood of 40% cut in budget therefore leading to a 40% cut in staff … The private sector is not going to be able to pick up this much slack – there is going to be a hugenumber of experienced people unemployed. This is the reality, not the slight reduction in individual's personal income from VAT etc, but the massive rise there is about to be in unemployment. 20% of the population is employed in the public sector and 25% of them will be made redundant. Plus the 25% reduction will slash public services – all of this is not going to be picked up by the private sector.

The budget has just been the start, it is going to get much worse

Zulu Eleven seems to manage to spend an awful lot of time dicking around on the internet for someone in the cutthroat, hyper-efficient private sector.

Yes, of course I have- and I have taken my custom somewhere else – no customers, no money, company either improves or goes to the wall.

Thats how the private sector works!

From a few pages back, but I agree with Z11 on this…what's that coming over the hill? Is it public money to bail out the failed private sector banks?

From what I've seen working for a large number of private sector clients is useless management employing useless managers who they won't sack because it was their decision to employ them in the first place, the amount of financial wastage is beyond belief. Anyone who thinks that after all these years of failed privatisations of former nationalised industries that privatisation is still the answer are completely mental and you should be locked up in an institution.

If they hadn't closed those down already, and introduced careless community…which might explain why there are a few mentalists lose on this forum.

Tesco uses offshore havens to avoid up to £1 billion taxPremium SUPERMARKET giant Tesco has created an elaborate corporate structure involving offshore tax havens which enables it to avoid paying what could be up to £1 billion of tax on profits from the sale of its UK properties, it was claimed today.

The complex structures are said to include a string of Cayman Island companies, each named after a different colour from aqua to violet.

Tesco has begun a programme of selling and leasing back UK stores, providing the company with a gain of up to £6bn, which would normally be liable to tax.

But the first two deals – worth £445 million and £650m – are said to have used the companies set up in the Cayman Islands, where the rate of corporation tax is zero, allowing Tesco to avoid tax on £500m profit.

The supermarket chain is not alone in such arrangements. Nearly a third of the UK's 700 largest businesses paid no corporation tax in 2005-06, and another third paid less than £10m each.

Lucy Neville, Tesco's executive director of corporate and legal affairs, defended the offshore structures, saying it was the company's duty to shareholders and customers to operate tax-efficiently.

She added: "Tesco is one of the UK's largest taxpayers."

Just for a bit of balance, like…. Efficient, lean and not paying the money they should…

25 billion pounds a year is lost by tax avoidance, one would hope this figure will be investigated and brought down by our fiscally minded new government….

http://www.tuc.org.uk/touchstone/Missingbillions/1missingbillions.pdf

sue w – please do the following for me
– find manager
– ask following questions
1 – have we given notice to all non-permanent employess and then offered them their job back at -15% rate, if not why not, that is an option the private sector are using and I know a bloke on a forum that it happened to
2 – could we have the option of either a 10% pay cut or a 10% headcount cut, as that bloke I know on the forum had that happen to two mates and by the way they only got 3 hours to make their minds up
3 – you know that bloke on the forum, well in his specialist field the product he uses, it's split into vertical markets – sales, automotive, order management, telecoms, public sector etc etc, he wants to know why the most highly available day rates are for the public sector vertical

You just have to admire the ruthless beauty of the tesco business model – pass all costs on to other people at all times. Ooh we fancy a promotion lets just tell our suppliers we'll pay them less. Slightly off topic.

In a sensible world it would be the ego money that would go – departments or quango's duplicating and triplicating the work of others just because they want one of what ever it is as well. In the real world the ego money will be the last to go as it seems to be who shouts loundest lasts longest. I'm on the there is waste in the public sector and it could be run more efficiently side. Doesnt mean I think the private sector can do things better – its the people not the sector who make a difference. This comes from far many years interview different parts of the public and private sector. Hurrah we've made a profit – very good but was it as profitable as it could have been? Unless its tesco i doubt it.

Where the **** did I say that? I didn't did I Junky?

I never had you down as a person of great self restrain but you managed to reply a few times before the insults started …did the mediaction wear off? That cr@ppy public sector nurse give you some grey imported drugs from Tesco and you reverted back to type?

Last week the gov't trumpeted the fact that they had identified 12 projects worth £2bn that they were cancelling, the notion being that they were 'wasteful'. Leaving aside the argument about whether they were wasteful or not (one was a new hospital in Hartlepool)

From what i've read – this news was welcomed in Hartlepool – as it was going to close the 2 local hospitals for a new one which was opposed by a significant number of local people on grounds that it was geographically in the wrong place for both communities, had no public transport links and would seriously affect A19 and A689 traffic.

The plan entails the destruction of 300 acres of agricultural land and was contrary to the published structure plan for Hartlepool.

It received over 350 local objections at the planning review.

the closure of University Hospital of Hartlepool has long been in dispute – Blair saying in 2004 there was no plans to close the hospital – only for the decision to be reversed in 2007

I've worked hard for 30 years for a large public sector department (& despite the abuse on here about public sector I can honestly say we have many thousands working hard to deliver a good service appreciated by millions), only to be now told take a pay freeze (cut!), and oh! That pension you have have contributed towards for years – well you ain't going to get as much as you thought you would! B*llocks! Nice to have an appreciative employer!

Yes I know the private sector was badly hit, I was out there delivering an unprecidented service to those being made redundant. This is the thanks you get!

Still Cameron & his mates have got their millions tucked away safely!

Our society is about to be managed in a very right wing way! Look out if you are unfortunate enough to be poor,ill or unemployed! In 6 months time you'll find out what the effects are of public sector cuts – oh! and DON'T complain if you voted Tory… or worse still you didn't vote, because your about to get what you voted for!

Evidence of the very many unneeded public sector employees please E.V.I.D.E.N.C.E

I work for a Govt Agency, so civil service T&Cs – the organisation I work for has about 1000 employees, of those at least 100 are middle managers who only manage one or two other persons.
Their job is solely to attend meetings with their managers and then to pass the decisions on to the people/person they manage (oh and attend 'team building' exercises at plush country hotels on full expenses plus lucrative living away allowance)

Their pay band is in the 35-45k range, their 'work' could be replaced by a simple 'team briefing' type procedure.

Losing them from the payroll would be harsh on them personally, however they are unnecessary on an operational level and one should question how these posts have been created and maintained.

I imagine the larger Govt agencies and Departments are similarly over staffed and could readily sustain a cull of such posts…….