I’m not sure that outsourcing call centres for the NHS & GPs to india as that link suggests stevextc will be a popular move even if it were to save money

but 10- years losing a billion a year on procurement?

Well you would need to look at how private hospitals do for that really to mean anything.
Although, that said, it is a good example of how the fetishising of “competition” and “choice” by both new Labour and the tories shine through. The “savings” are being shown between trusts created to break up the central NHS.

I’m not sure that outsourcing call centres for the NHS & GPs to india as that link suggests stevextc will be a popular move even if it were to save money

There is also the question does it really save money? After all this is government money not a business.
If a business moves a call centre to India then once redundancy is done they no longer need to worry about those workers. For the government unless its high employment in that area then its ongoing unemployment costs.

Have registered to vote by proxy.

Will put my trust in my sister to put a X next to the lib dems or Labour, which ever makes most sense to keep the tories out. However, with the tories winning over 53%, Labour with 29% and the lib dems only 15% of the vote last time round I’m not full of hope.

kerley

I’m not sure that outsourcing call centres for the NHS & GPs to india as that link suggests stevextc will be a popular move even if it were to save money

It’s only one way that they can procure cheaper.. the big one is simply removing their preferred suppliers and paying market value or below through bulk buying.

HOWEVER … yes outsourcing would be unpopular in some terms but equally a different metric might be the difference between being able to get a GP’s appointment and not.

Our surgery (6 GP’s) no longer takes phone bookings in practice… you go at 07:30 to 08:00 and queue whilst the doors open then they allocate available slots. The phone isn’t answered throughout. If you don’t get an appointment you go back earlier the next day.

Even before they implemented this new scheme they had this for Monday’s…
Going back years they refused to take appointments beyond 2 weeks…. we used to get letters from the health visitor that we hadn’t booked an appointment… (even though she obviously knew they wouldn’t make them???)
(More incremental waste)

Anyway … back to what I was saying …
I TOTALLY expect the Tory’s to cost cut the NHS to and beyond the bone… it’s what they do.
The point really is Labour did invest but failed to do some unpleasant things that needed doing…
I’m not saying outsourcing is necessary … I’m saying that scaling back expectations of free at the point of need needs to be scaled back to something recognisable by Bevan.

NHS losing a billion a year in procurement because they pay different prices for things is a bit glass half empty isn’t it? How has that figure been arrived at?

I bought some Carrots reduced to 10p at the end of the night in the Coop- does that mean I’m losing 49p every time I buy them full price from now on?

Carrot’s are not regulated and come from different places with different qualities.
Pharmacuticals however are … not so it’s like buying something like let’s say a Shimano (or SRAM) chain. (since this is STW lets say both get chains made by KMC)

Not only are specific products chemically identical but they are produced in the exact same facility. (You can even check this because there is a code on the packaging)

NHS procurement though specifies which “preferred suppliers” and even which suppliers for which products and despite being a HUGE buyer often pays more and often many times more.

Public sector procurement could and should be much better but part of the problem is the insistence on candidates having OJEU experience in clear preference to significant private sector commercial experience.
OJEU comprises a set of rules; if you can read, you can follow them.
Private sector commercial experience is hard won and transferable but the public sector attaches little value to it.
How do I know? 35 years in procurement, last 15 at senior level; some interim roles in public sector with one of them close to an NHS trust; public sector procurement roles refer to commercial experience but will always take OJEU in preference; challenge is resisted.
The consequence is that recruitment brings in ‘more of the same’ and nothing changes.

despite being a HUGE buyer often pays more and often many times more.

The NHS isnt a “HUGE buyer” though. The NHS is several smaller buyers in order to meet ideological requirements.

However what this underlies is the philosophy of spending for the sake of spending because it is somehow viewed as “good” regardless of our trade deficit.

I think you are reading things in here which dont actually exist.

Agreed, LibDems need to stand down in seats where doing so will help keep a seat out of Johnson’s hands… but that brings me back to SO DO LABOUR.

Libdems are shooting themselves in the foot with this Canterbury thing. I get the whole thing about them needing to be anti-labour to pick up tory seats, but this betrays their true intentions.

They’re more interested in beating labout than they are the tories

.

I agree, its a bit of a mess but I don’t think it’s simply wanting to beat labour. I think they feel the need to be seen as a viable 3rd party with a chance of dozens of seats (I dont think they are) and so stnaidng down to help labour doesnt fit that message. I’m a natural liberal voter but their recnet behaviour is putting me off. Not that it makes a difernece to this election as I am in a labour-tory marginal with a good labour MP.

Funnily enough, my local LibDems withdrew their candidate in a deal with the Greens in 2017. I wasn’t greatly impressed, even though my vote was probably going to Labour anyhow. I’d rather potential Liberal and Labour voters were given a full range of choices with the idea of tactical voting pushed hard rather than potentially alienated by offering them only parties they wouldn’t normally vote for, which in turn increases the chance of non-turnout.

Carrot’s are not regulated and come from different places with different qualities.
Pharmacuticals however are … not so it’s like buying something like let’s say a Shimano (or SRAM) chain. (since this is STW lets say both get chains made by KMC)

Not only are specific products chemically identical but they are produced in the exact same facility. (You can even check this because there is a code on the packaging)

NHS procurement though specifies which “preferred suppliers” and even which suppliers for which products and despite being a HUGE buyer often pays more and often many times more.

That article you linked to is very wide ranging in its claims about £1bn a year, if its including sacking 10s of 1000s of receptionists & outsourcing to call centres as well as everything from ambulances to rubber gloves.

NICE do a pretty good job of negotiating lower drug prices, 3-4x lower than USA for same drugs, especially good at newer medicines, but less good at off-patent generics (one reason any USA trade deal will have the USA insisting we pay US drug companies more)

It is hard to change anything in the NHS, having had some invovlement in updating cancer treatment guidelines doctors/NHS (rightly or worngly) can be hard to change

and dont get me started on ethics regulation for research using human material, I might actually explode

However what this underlies is the philosophy of spending for the sake of spending because it is somehow viewed as “good”

No-one wants to spend money and not get anything for it. That’s a ludicrous assertion, not even politicians are that stupid. There is a caveat though – if you spend money on something that no-one needs, but you spend money within your own economy, then the money doesn’t disappear, it’s redistributed amongst the population where hopefully it’ll get spent again within the economy. See Apollo Moon landings. But this requires care, otherwise it’ll end up off-shore in someone else’s pockets who doesn’t need it.

If we had a net positive then sure… spend, create jobs and distribute but when the trade deficit is negative for any length of time borrowing is not an answer.

You borrow to invest and make more money. Ask any business owner.

When Labour activists call for an alliance, what they tend to mean is that the Lib Dems should admit the folly of their existence, shut up and dock with the big red mothership of all political virtue.

^^^ this

I want LibDems and Labour to stand aside in a handful of obvious seats to try and deny Johnson his majority. Expecting the national LibDem Party to do so without any reciprocation from Labour is naive… but I still want them to, we still need them to… worry about what do to about an inwards looking Labour Party after denying Johnson his majority.

No-one wants to spend money and not get anything for it. That’s a ludicrous assertion, not even politicians are that stupid. There is a caveat though – if you spend money on something that no-one needs, but you spend money within your own economy, then the money doesn’t disappear, it’s redistributed amongst the population where hopefully it’ll get spent again within the economy. See Apollo Moon landings. But this requires care, otherwise it’ll end up off-shore in someone else’s pockets who doesn’t need it.

You borrow to invest and make more money. Ask any business owner.

Apollo was done at a time the US had a staggeringly huge positive trade.

You borrow, invest, MAKE MONEY, PAY INTEREST and PAY BACK…. the only way we can pay back is if we have +ve money coming in. The last time that happened in a month was 1989….

After a quarter or even a year as the interest mounts and you borrow more just to pay interest at some point it should have been obvious that borrowing our way out of debt wasn’t working, let alone a decade.

Lib Dem candidate has stood down in Canterbury

I will be interested to see if any Labour candidates make similar personal decisions to step down in marginals.

Edit should have said: Be interesting to see if any other candidates make similar decisions – seems a reasonable way to move forward without the national parties losing any face.

In the latest instalment of this election campaign that is increasingly looking like its on acid…Jeremy Corbyn heckled as ‘terrorist sympathiser’ by Church of Scotland minister outside Glasgow campaign rally

dazh

Subscriber

Libdems are shooting themselves in the foot with this Canterbury thing. I get the whole thing about them needing to be anti-labour to pick up tory seats, but this betrays their true intentions. They’re more interested in beating labout than they are the tories.

Same as with the Unite for Remain pact, it’s just that this is even more blatant. It’s more and more unavodable that their only goal is to be 4th in a Tory-led country but with a few more seats. I don’t just mean “only thing they’re working on”, I mean literally the only thing they can imagine as a goal for their party.

and the possiblity of Johnson or Corbyn begging her for help.

But that outcome is surely the most likely? The chances of anyone having an overall majority isn’t a high one, is it?

And I doubt the Lib Dems will be mugged again like they were by Dave. Especially having just watched the DUP show them how its done. There’s the opportunity here to wield a totally disproportionate amount of influence for the amount of seats they’ll get. And I certainly hope they use it to make Brexit less Brexity

Hardly deluded, is it?