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epic steve - its not EU nurses - we are stripping nursing staff from third world countries and giving nothing in return. One of the carribean islands had to close its only ITU after all its staff were recruited to work in the UK. Zimbabwe has lost a significant proportion of its nursing staff to the UK.
Other EU nurses don't come to work here much
The current idea seems to be that people in the public sector get paid a bit less, but get to take the odd sicky, generally slack a bit whilst being immune to being sacked, and get a very good pension.
Interesting thought – certainly not true in my part of the NHS – I’d love to have the time to take a sick day – but these just not the time – I work flat out all day every day – don’t have time for coffee breaks or lunch - no matter how stable my clients (patients) are I never know what going to find when I knock on the door – As one of the more experienced members of the team I get to see the more complex, unstable and unpredictable clients – Currently I have 4 clients who are actively suicidal - several who live in desperate poverty and have fairly advanced dementia – a bunch who have aggressive and demanding relatives. There are few resource, no inpatient beds and limited placement in the independent sector – My main skill is plate spinning
For this emotionally and physically demanding job, where I have a legal responsibility for peoples lives I get paid just over 30K pa – (Top increment Band 6 Nurse)
On the other hand why do you think nurses have to be from the uk (although I'd happily admit I'd prefer it)? If the nursing posts are filled with qualified staff then there isn't really much the NHS as an employer can do about it.
I suspect what happens is other countries pay a fair whack to train nurses, who after a few years experience up sticks and come to work in the UK. So effectively we're robbing poorer countries of nurses by not training enough of our own.
I know a lass who's a nurse, and it's not a job I'd ever choose, so I can see why we're short of them. The shift patterns are terrible (ie, all over the place) and you have to calculate dosages etc. despite that. In fact, I'd be utterly amazed if people don't die because of the way shift patterns are arranged.
epic steve - its not EU nurses - we are stripping nursing staff from third world countries and giving nothing in return.
Not relevant. If the NHS can get qualified nurses from anywhere then they will, and they're not in a position to stop individual recruitments just because it's causing problems with the country of source.
Personally I'd prefer our doctors and nurses to be from the UK, but the NHS, like everyone else, isn't in a position to discriminate.
For this emotionally and physically demanding job, where I have a legal responsibility for peoples lives I get paid just over 30K pa – (Top increment Band 6 Nurse)
I wouldn't do that job for those wages, but as long as people will (no matter where they come from) the salaries aren't likely to improve.
I'm constantly amazed that I have to defend the fact that I get an average pension for being a nurse.
Just because private sector pensions have been messed up by those same financial wizards responsible for our current mess, I should somehow get hammered too?
The politics of envy aimed at ...nurses....? Really?
The same financial wizards who insist that they must be able to pay big bonuses in order to retain the best staff, but we can pay any old shite for nurses cos there's lots of them?
It wasn't like that in my day; we were told that we'd never be rich if we chose to be nurses, that we couldn't go on strike, that we would lose our registration if we got caught drunk outside work, but that we would get an average pension...
crikey - there are imo two aspects to this.
One is there has been a moral panic stirred up by the right wing press and the tories about "unaffordable public sector pensions" most of which is utter rubbish and the other is simply the politics of envy.
Most public sector pensions are around £10 000 pa and many less. Hardly riches.
[i]The same financial wizards who insist that they must be able to pay big bonuses in order to retain the best staff, but we can pay any old shite for nurses cos there's lots of them?[/i]
Well said.
Although I'd go further - I'd put those same financial wizards in scrubs (HCA on an understaffed MAU, say), to see if they could handle it. 😈
Just because private sector pensions have been messed up by those same financial wizards responsible for our current mess, I should somehow get hammered too?
Unfortunately the people arguing here for Cuts to the NHS or pension schemes are those with a comfortable living who don't need to worry about things like that, but want to see cuts because they desperately want a tax cut at some point in the life of the next Government regardless of the financial difficulties.
And if you don't fit that criteria and you are still arguing for cuts...then you are bit thick.
Its always the case that certain people will point out faults with the NHS, be it too many managers, pensions etc, that its swimming in funds, and that their answer to resolve these issues is to cut funding(theres that tax cut again)we've been down that road with the previous tory Governments and look what happened.
I want to see the money better spent within the NHS.
TJ said-stevie - there is no significant slack in the way you describe. cuts will mean deaths - don't be fooled
Utter rubbish Jerry. My wife is a nurse and the profligacy within the NHS that she sees is beyond belief. For instance-they pay a local catering firm to supply milk. That catering firm buy from the local Texaco Spar-the dearest milk in Brighton-and charge the NHS £5 for a 2 litre of milk that costs £1.19 at Tesco. Times that by millions of litres a day across the NHS. Cutting mindless waste will not cause deaths.
Yes there is mindless waste - but its such a small % that eliminating it all will have no effect worth mentioning. Thats the issue. Not that the waste is not there - or that it many thousnds of ponds but its such a small % of the NHS budget that it cannot give the amount of savings people want.
epic steve - its not EU nurses - we are stripping nursing staff from third world countries and giving nothing in return. One of the carribean islands had to close its only ITU after all its staff were recruited to work in the UK. Zimbabwe has lost a significant proportion of its nursing staff to the UK.
100% RIGHT Jerry. South Africa, a country that has 20,000,000 folk with HIV loses loads of desparately needed nurses to the UK. They NEED them there. We should train our own jobless people and start paying student nurses again to make it an attractive proposition..
Yes there is mindless waste - but its such a small % that eliminating it all will have no effect worth mentioning. Thats the issue. Not that the waste is not there - or that it many thousnds of ponds but its such a small % of the NHS budget that it cannot give the amount of savings people want.Nulabour wasting umpteeen £billions on the NHS computer is hardly insignificant, is it? They have wasted £26,000,000,000 on failed IT programmes mate, and should be hounded from office for that profligacy alone.
On th4e IT system I totally agree with you - cancel it now
Nulabour wasting umpteeen £billions on the NHS computer is hardly insignificant, is it? They have wasted £26,000,000,000 on failed IT programmes mate, and should be hounded from office for that profligacy alone.
Yes. There should generally be a ban on the use of private sector consultants on government IT projects. You could employ a load of bloody good developers, system architects etc. in house for way less money than employing terrible consulting firms like EDS etc, who are basically employed due to their ability to play golf with high up executives. It is just a way to get stuff off the balance sheet that we end up paying way more for, and getting terrible quality work, by people who do the minimum to fit a poorly defined specification that is written by non-technical managers who understand neither computer systems, nor the work that is being done by front line workers. It's essentially what always happens when IT consultants come into somewhere that has no IT knowledge of its own, everyone gets ripped off (and the consultants probably don't have much fun either to be honest).
As a bonus, it'd stop them just saying today '99 billion quid project, starting next week', as if they really wanted to do something big, they'd need to consider hiring requirements, and generally plan projects properly.
Joe
[i]I want to see the money better spent within the NHS.[/i]
Bin PFI agreements & stamp on the political culture which spawed 'em. Put an end to misconceived notions of choice & competition within [i]acute[/i] care. Stop contracting out for the mere sake of it (e.g. ISTCs, OOH GP cover - Gov [i]really[/i] shot themselves in the foot with that one...) and concentrate on improving capacity (run hospitals at 80% - not 100%!) & staffing. Improved capacity and staffing = less things go wrong, money saved. Improve screening programmes. Stop spending money on bludy freeloading management con.sultants (esp the likes of McKinsey - the like of whom have much to answer for as regards the IT white elephant). Sort out patient social/discharge issues - why do we have elderly patients sat around, with nowhere to go? Be [b]very clear[/b] about what tax-funded state healthcare [i]can[/i] & [i]cannot[/i] do. End the top-down DoH control freak culture in favour of better, localised management. Stop peeps abusing ambulances as taxis. Have a PROPER debate about the health/social costs of alcohol - frankly, wards are overrun with all manner of [i]preventable[/i] stuff.*
(* yup, I'll happily forfeit the tax revenue from alcohol sales - in exchange for seeing fewer jaundiced patients - their bellies swollen with ascites, their brains bombed out and hot blood pouring out their arse).
[i]move to Scotland or Wales, health is devolved so the next Westminster Gov will only be able to affect England. [/i]
[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7031551/Scotlands-health-not-as-good-as-Englands-despite-higher-proportion-of-doctors.html ]No thanks I'll stick with England[/url]
Of course they'll cuts be made just hope it's in sensible areas and for the pension jealous, our pensions have already been reviewed. Luckily for me I've been in long enough to have it protected.
Let's see what Mr Cameron says:
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So that's it settled, clearly there will be cuts 😉
No thanks I'll stick with England
Comparing the cost of health provision in NE England with Scotland just because they have approximately the same population size is abject stupidity. The difference in geography alone, and the need to cater for the islands, would make the Scottish health service a lot more expensive to run.
For the patient it's not the cost but the service that they worry about, no point in having billions if you care is shit.
And patients have no interest in bogus choice. What they want is good care locally. Not the Choice to go to a hospital in anther town.
It's also the lack of competence of so-called 'managers' in the NHS, people promoted way above their level of competence. A case in point; my soon-to-be sister-in-law was an anaesthetist at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon. A former cleaner was promoted up to the level where she was managing Tess and the others on her team. The situation became so bad that Tess left and took a huge pay cut just to get away from that hospital. Five other staff members left around the same time, due to stupidity like giving staff their shift rotas, then the person concerned coming in to do their next shift only to find it had been changed in their absence, and that staff member being told they should have logged onto the hospital's internal website to check to see if their shift had been changed! I mean, how the fracking hell are you supposed to work with idiots like that? There's no way that I would expect to have to check everytime I go off shift to see if my rota had been changed behind my back with no consultation. That is just incompetent, and that is happening all over the NHS. That is where cuts and savings need to be made, and I have close friends in the NHS who can back me up.
Comparing the cost of health provision in NE England with Scotland just because they have approximately the same population size is abject stupidity. The difference in geography alone, and the need to cater for the islands, would make the Scottish health service a lot more expensive to run.
Call me stupid but I think the comparison is perfectly reasonable. The general health, geographical and socio-economic conditions are broadly similar and to contend that a few islands make [b]that[/b] much difference is ludicrous.
#It's also the lack of competence of so-called 'managers' in the NHS, people promoted way above their level of competence.
IME I would agree with that. I could list a number of instances where incompetence has cost £thousands/millions in my area alone, not to mention the huge number of additional middle management jobs created recently purely to fulfil the criteria for 'Trust' status. Not only are these 'created' jobs comparatively well paid but the incumbents have to justify their existance once in the post. Unfortunately, that invariably means increased admin. and/or additional 'procedures' for those below them, which more often than not are unworkable in pactice and may have a detrimental effect on the area which should be improved ie. patient care.
Woody - you are wrong about the highlands and islands creating extra cost. Think how difficult it is to meet the 8 min ambulance call? Think how difficult district nursing is to do, etc etc.
Call me stupid
No need, as I think your response has already made that clear... 😛
I cant really see why a significant cut in budget need have any negative effects!
I mean, at the moment, we're paying approx 1 million people benefits to stay at home, whilst at the same time we're paying people to do menial tasks such as picking up litter and clearing snow - there's a huge variety of tasks taking place on the NHS estate that could be done by people not otherwise employed.
And as for the hospitals with a £500k laundry bill - let me show you around our new facility - "Her Majestys prison and corrective laundry unit"
It's all very well adopting the Daily Mail style 'sack all the managers' position, but its like asking Tesco to sack all their managers and run the stores with checkout girls only.
The NHS is a massive complex organisation, and needs to be managed at all levels. If we sack all the managers, the things they do still need doing, and the much lauded frontline staff like me end up trying to juggle clinical roles with some management tasks and do neither very well.
I need my management so I can do my job...
The NHS has lower managerial costs than the other EU healthcare systems - partly because of the simple funding, partly because it does not have enough manager.
some of them are total rubbish and waste money but I am like Crikey - I want decent management to get everything in place so I can do my job. I don't want to have to do the managers jobs as well
Zulu-Eleven - MemberI cant really see why a significant cut in budget need have any negative effects!
Well I can and so can everyone who works in the NHS. Eliminate all waste ( impossible to do btw) and you will save a % or two. Cut 10% of the budgets and people will die. Its simple.
Laundry - can you imagine the logistical difficulties in getting erh laundry to the prisons and back? Can you imagine how much extra linien would be required if laundry is offsite? How much would it cost to build a new laundry in the prison?
TJ - a number of hospitals already use off site central laundry facilities, thats just one example!
Yes - but they are already built and the stock is available. So to save the money of a few laundry staff - running costs - you want to make a huge capital spend
just showing how little of an idea you actually have of the reality of the situation.
The NHS is actually a very lean organisation as can be seen from thefact its costs are so low.
Thats the reality rather than the right wing dogma and fantasy
Oh, TJ - I'm sure you'd agree that in the overall cost of building a new prison facility, a laundry unit isn't going to cause a major issue, especially given how much we'll save by selling the old prison sites for brownfield housing!
It's clear that one of the major issues with PFI is its use to create "off the books" investment that did not appear on the government balance sheet to get round Gordon's fiscal rules!
Jerry-justify this-
£30,000 each a year for 'Eating more Veg' advisors
Cosmetic boob jobs on the NHS
£40,000 a year each for 'Arts Co-ordinators'
£30,000,000 a year removing tattoos
£9,000,000 a year on management consultants
£2,000,000,000 a year on foreign 'health tourists'
£40,000 on a 'Patient Experience' questionaire
This kind of waste is almost criminal. Then there's crap like this-
An NHS trust, almost £5million in the red, gave a former director a £243,000 pay-off, after working for them for only three weeks. Dr Iheadi Onwukwe was put on "gardening leave" for three years after a dispute with a senior colleague. Then he was given his golden handshake, which could have paid for 300 cataract operations or given more than 40 patients life-saving heart bypass surgery. The same trust gave hospital chief executive Annette Sergeant a £231,000 pay-off. Ms Sergeant, who was earning £135,000, was slammed in a Healthcare Commission report. After going sick, she negotiated her deal. (Source: Daily Mirror, Jan/07)
This is the sort of cuts we need, efficiency cuts. There's bliions of pounds to be saved or spent on the sick instead of being flushed down the swanny..
Sources?
There are no cosmetic boob jobs on the NHS. Same with tattoo removal.
Health prevention such as the five a day saves money - repeatedly proven. Arts co ordinators - dunno what you are on about.
There is no such thing as a health tourist. We treat EC residents and other entitled people for free as we get free treatment in other EC countries. People from outside the EC should be charged. 2 billion a year? balderdash
Management consultants - unjustified for sure in some cases. Doewn to a shoitage of internal management.
patient experience questionnaires - how else do you find out what patients experience is?
Payoffs - seems unreasonable on the surface but who knows the whole story.
this sort of thing remains a tiny tiny % of the total budget.
Thats what you dogmnatic guys fail to realise. There simply is not the slack that you like to pretend. It just is not there.
Boob Job on NHS- http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/278636/Amanda-Ryan-gets-boob-job-on-the-NHS-at-just-17-to-improve-her-temper.html
Tattoo removal on NHS- http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2006-10-25b.1207.3
Health tourism- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3343633/Health-tourists-leave-tens-of-millions-in-NHS-bills-unpaid.html
Fantasic quality sources there and neither the boob job nor the tattoo removal refered to are cosmetic operations but are done for psychological distress. Rather a large difference and rather a very small % of people who ask for them get them. Needs a consultant psychiatrist to give the OK .
20 million in unpaid bills not 2 billion. most of those are not "health tourists" but people who are here and then get sick.
So you have identified ( rather questionably) maybe 100 million in waste of a budget of 100 billion. Less than a tenth of 1 percent. Thats really going to make a huge difference.
Thats what I alluded to earlier - not that there is no waste but that the amounts are so small as to be insignificant.
And what would you suggest we do with these "health tourists" let them go untreated / die?
, your contribution is only a proportion of the true cost The public purse makes a significant contribution I would imagine in excess of 25% of your salary on top of that.9% of my salary. Its not unfunded.
Yes there is mindless waste - but its such a small % that eliminating it all will have no effect worth mentioning.
I'm reassured to know that the NHS has the TJ stamp of "efficiency" approval and that even a small % of the massive budget will have no effect
Decisions have been made by the muppets in charge that have placed millstones around the neck of various parts of the NHS, PFI's, out sourced minor surgery and GP's contracts to name a few.
The NHS model of healthcare (free at point of use, no income barrier to care) is one of the better ones, the problem is that without a regular review it grows like any large organisation. The proposition that after the recent massive growth there isn't opportunity to review and improve the efficiency of the operation is farcical.
As for cut the budget and people die. Well they cut the gritting budget and people died. Maybe a "public health" cost benefit analysis needs to be done and a transfer of some ring fenced money.
And what would you suggest we do with these "health tourists" let them go untreated / die?
Let them be treated in their own country FFS!
Stevie.The majority of them are people who are here for another reason and become ill, "health tourism" is another moral panic.
Big and daft - remember that tor every taxpayers £ in the public sector pension pot there is £7 of taxpayers money in the private pension funds pot.
Its nothing like 25% on top unfunded. Not even close. My employer also puts money in - I can't remember how much.
The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe - there is bound to be waste and yes it should be rooted out. However its really really tiny as a proportion of the spending and much of it is hard to eliminate. Thats not to say it is not worth the effort but the simple fact remains that there cannot be cuts on the scale the right wing want without affecting outcomes.
Decisions have been made by the muppets in charge that have placed millstones around the neck of various parts of the NHS, PFI's, out sourced minor surgery and GP's contracts to name a few.
Stupid political decisons that waste money yes.
The proposition that after the recent massive growth there isn't opportunity to review and improve the efficiency of the operation is farcical.
Teh proposition that after 30 yrs of serious underfunding ( and yes it is still grossly underfunded) that there are efficiency savings to be made is not only farcical it is ludicrous.
The tragedy is that people like you believe the lies of an ideologically driven tory party and tory press. These people have a vested interest in the destruction oif the NHS and you are helping them to do so. We should be celebrating the success of the NHS - that provides more healthcare for less money than any other comparable system. It simply is the most efficient in the world. I suggest you go to the USA a develop a chronic condition and see how you get on.
£30,000 each a year for 'Eating more Veg' advisors
Can anyone point out where I can get this job? That's about the same money as an experienced senior dietitian, which is a bit more complicated than telling people to eat more fruit.
Jerry, to be honest you are patronising to the point of insult. Your arguments are nothing but Nulabour propaganda, and almost as laughable as an Ed Balls lie. One day you'll realise that The Guardian lies as much The Telegraph and The Mirror is a bigger rag than The Sun-then you may achieve some balance.
Stevie - you are the patronising one telling me that my experience is wrong. What is your experience of healthcare and health care politics? I have worked in NHS and private healthcare in shopfloor and managerial roles. I have studied health care politics and management ( breifly) at university level.I actually understand what is going on
I do not believe the lies. I knwo the truth hence |I accepted some of the points made by the NHS bashers on this thread - you are the one believing the lies of the right wing press. I hold no brief for the Labour lies but when you rely on the news of the world as a source on NHS and the telegraph with its owners who want to see the end of the NHS then you lose your credibility.
You will see - if the tories get in and make their cuts then you will see problems in the NHS, You really need to open your eyes. The problems in the NHS now are nothing compared to what they will be. Hopefully you will remember this next winter when people start dying for lack of care because every hospital bed is full.
yes it is still grossly underfunded
9% of GDP!
nearly a hundred billion quid!
roughly the entire annual national insurance receipts for the whole country!
How much is a "fully funded" NHS worth then TJ?
12 % of GDP - the same as Germany and France would be nice - then we could get a decent service. 18% of GDP in the states - now that would be good. I'd settle for 11% of GDP tho. a 20% increase in funding would enable a rally good service