OllyK

<rant>
I thought it was telling in the run up to the election that TB was unware of methods employed by doctors surgeries to ensure that their waiting lists were kept down to no more than 48 hours, i.e. refuse to take bookings any further in advance. TB seemed concerned and promised to "look in to this" as some matter of urgency. I haven't been to the docs in years so can't comment personally but my partner has Asthma and has to attend regularly for check up and prescriptions for inhalers. So has she seen a big change? Nope.

This morning we have Patricia Hewitt whittering on about how they have cut hospital waiting times for operations. Now do we think this has been done by streamlining the NHS and making it more effecient or by putting people on to a queue, realising they won't be treated in time and so move them on to the start of a different queue for alternative treatment so the clock gets re-set?

My Partner's father has been waiting 4 years for a knee operation now. Everytime he starts getting near to the 6 month limit, they take him off the waiting list and put him on one for physio. When that treatment is complete he is told if the problem persists he should refer back to his GP. Well he has arthritis so it's hardly likely to improve with a bit of physio. So back to the GP and after a few weeks he's back on the waiting list for a knee op with a 6 month wait ahead of him.

So when will the government realise that setting unrealistic targets will not result in improved performance it will just result in more creative ways of fiddling the figures to appease the bean counters while providing a worse NHS?
</rant>

Reality

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/page821.asp

Give this a go and see if he (or one of his aides) is suprised !

Share their reply .

pslewis

Are you willing to pay extra taxes to improve matters???

YES or NO??

It really is as simple as that!!

Write to the PM and tell him your decision ........

Pete

OllyK

No it isn't. It's about removing the massive waste in the NHS so that the billions that have been thrown at it go towards recruiting nurses and doctors and improving facilities and NOT to paying for more bureaucrats.

There s no point providing a service if it can't be done in a cost effective manner. It's looking like the NHS falls in to that category. In which case, scrap it and let people make their own healthcare provision.

Reality

Last time I checked I was paying extra taxes to improve the NHS. This government is putting twice as much money per year into the NHS as the Tories were - Are we getting twice as good service ?

Olly's family don't look like they would agree - I'm lucky enough to not need the NHS at the moment.

OllyK

That's my point, the money is not going where it is needed so the NHS is no better off, throwing money at a problem is the NL way but it invariably fails to produce results.

mart360

come on pete wake up ans smell the coffe you old fart...

it dosent mater how much money you throw at the nhs, unless you cut out the rampant "Middle management and target setting systems" it will never improve.

for every doctor and nurse in the system, there are 5 yes 5 pen pushers,
WHY!!!!!

because all they do is create targets, move paper and provide your up his own *rse leader with a vote pool.

billys forefarther must be turning in his grave to see how a once proud system he set up being run into the ground by bean counters and pen pushers..


The NHS is quite capable off running itself with some logical management, and by utilising efficient methods.

not by letting a bunch of looney lefties who are so out of touch there scary.

Mart

mart360

Oh and just to add, 6 month waiting list my *****..

in the last two years, ive had two ops.

each had longer than a 6 moth waiting list.

one was quicker by having a general than a local..

Mart

crush her

Up to ¾’s of the budget increase was to pay staff wage increases. There really is no extra management in the NHS than in any other healthcare service provided throughout the world.

If any of you have been to a hospital recently I would suggest you look at the complete and utter laziness of some of the staff, agency staff are a complete joke. One agency nurse at my local hospital will only work nights (3 times better wages) BUT he can’t take blood pressure, he can’t take temperature, no idea what he can do. He is just paid to sit and do nothing, but gets away with it. Don’t get me wrong a lot ARE hard working.

Do you know the amount of people who fly here after having heart attacks to get treated on the NHS every year? It’s a huge scam. It’s not just the initial care, but all the after care they receive as well.

The budget for alleged “botched” operations and other dubious cases…..a doctor at a local hospital accidentally injected herself with a hepatitis patients needle, develops classic phobia symptoms of needles(which she knows exactly) says she can’t work again…. £400k……brilliant !

Unfortunately, the huge increase in bureaucracy is generally to protect staff from claims of negligence.

What a great world we live in !

unclebuck

Jobs for votes. These tiers of pointless middle managers will always vote for New Labour simply because they know their worthless roles would be scrapped if a proper review of efficiency was carried out (by a Tory government)

OllyK

So it's still a crock of $h1t, it's just costing us more?

unclebuck

Doesn't really surprise me. These are the kinds of abuses you get in bloated public sector bureaucracies - the very sort fostered by the New Labour socialists. Tax payers' money poured down the drain with no accountability except to themselves. I think scrapping the NHS is really the only option as they clearly can't be trusted to keep their house in order.

Leslie

The only thing the people in this government is in touch with is measures for their own self advancement and increasing their powers over the electorate.

Why the hell should we pay even more unfair taxation only to see it pushed into creating an enormous and unnecessary bureaucracy to create jobs for the boys and not to be seen at the sharp end where the work is done.

PSL

It really is time you removed the blinkers and saw what is really happening instead of shooting your mouth off and acting like an ignorant troll. Try seeing the truth for a change instead of your NL soundbites!

Les

Chip

My local hospital has a £6m deficit. Has used pillowcases full of nappies for pillows. Has 200 beds blocked by patients due to lack of care for the elderly.

An anaesthetist had to use a rubber glove on my arm last week as he had no tourniquet to use before sticking a needle in back of my hand.

And my mate in this thread

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthrea...ghlight=cancer

is at this very moment in hospital yet again having another major op due to things being a lot more serious than the doctors originally thought they were.

And what has this hospital just spent 250k on:

This:
http://www.basestructures.com/news.php?nswid=1

Chip

iamevilhomer

poor management, poor moral, lack of motivation....it just all contributes to a poor standard of care. Probably modt healthcare workers do care passionately about the job but are not given the freedom, support , funds , tools etc to do it.

The whole thing is a complete mess

Suresh

The NHS certainly doesn't sound perfect and throwing cash at it alone does not appear to have solved the problems. So what should be done?

But then again after nearly 2 decades of deliberate neglect by the previous administration would do you expect?? Talking of wasted money and corruption, does anyone remember the quangos the Tories set up to run NHS trusts. Staffed by Tory friends, partners and supporters and utterly, utterly useless. (Ref: Peter/Virginia Bottomly). Do you really want those cvnts to be running it again for the benefit of their mates? Get a grip people!

Suresh,
Not happy paying 3000 Euros a year for a [subsidised] private family policy.

unclebuck

But they wouldn't be running it again. They've long gone from the political stage. It's the people who are running it now that bother us. The ones that create endless pointless management jobs in order to secure votes. That's worse than useless - it's cynical misuse of the NHS for political gain, and it's costing people's lives, which makes it disgustingly immoral. That's far worse than simple 'underfunding'.

And look at this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4501872.stm

That's what makes me sick and needs to be sorted out. Not something irrelevant that may or may not have happened in the distant past.

OllyK

As ub says, it wouldn't be the same lot, but given the choice of the old lot and the current bunch, I'll take the old lot. Same **** NHS but costing tax payers a damn sight less to deliver it. Paying considerably more and not seeing an improvement is what really hacks me off, especially when I can't opt out of it.

Leslie

The Public Accounts Committee mentioned in UB's news report also said that if the gross inefficiency and ineptitude demonstrated by these Government sponsored organisations was reduced by just 2% the country would be £8 Billion better off!!!!

Les

mart360

sorry suresh i fail to see your beef??

judging from your quote, i would guess that you are not in the uk and may possibly not be a british citizen. Therefore you would always by the local laws of your country been required to have private medical insurance.

you have the option to excersize that right, most people in the uk dont.

if you are a uk citizen, all you have to do is come over here for your treatment and stop moaning

try waiting 26 weeks to see a consultant because of waiting lists, and then told another xx weeks for an op,

yet if you cough up £1500 you can have it with the same consultant withing 7 days...

Mart

The Rani

That's a joke. They've actually brought in new pay scales to standardise pay across the country, so a lot of the staff have seen their pay in theory go down. In practice, where this happens, their pay will remain the same for the next four or five years or so.

paulr

Twice as much money yes,but in one year (2005) the number of operations related to obesity doubled.Demand still exceeds supply.As Pete said,do you want to pay more tax.

As for NHS waste,do you think if there was an easy answer someone wouldn't implement it.

Reality

OOOH - a real NL answer. Doubled from what to what 3 to 6, 10 to 20.

Stop spinning !

Twice as much cash going in and **** all real improvement - NL Legacy for the NHS.

Still Education is doing much better - all those kids with 763 A levels at A++++++ with stars and not one of them able to string a sentence together !

paulr

2004 - 52 surgeons performed 2,099 operations in England
2005 - 63 surgeons expected to perform 4,039 operations
Source - BOSPA

If you dont want to listen to facts go back to play school.

Reality

You didn't give any facts arsewipe. Now your telling me it's doubled from 2000 to 4000. Well I'll digest that and decide if I think that represents value for money.

What about the rest of the operations for that year - you seem to be picking on ops for fat ***** for some reason - what was the overall figures for the year.

When you come back with all the facts we can all decide on the VFM !

paulr

When i swallow the encyclopedia britanicca i'll let you know.They were the only facts i could find.

Reality

Cheers.

I'm on the NHS website and suprise suprise all the stats stop after Tony Bliar started ! If it's so much better why havent the Dept Of Health updated their figures ?

http://www.performance.doh.gov.uk/HPSSS/TBL_B11.HTM

unclebuck

All that shows is that twice as many people are getting fat under New Labour. All those benefit scrounging chavs gorging themselves on junk food and never taking exercise.

paulr

Actually i was also on the NHS website and found the number of heart transplants has slowly declined year on year in the last 10 years........

Off for my tea.
....

OllyK

That just adds weight to the need for supply essential aid and not performing elective surgery on the NHS. If you want tatoo removal or a sex change, then pay for it. If you want drugs etc to help with cancer then you should get them.

Not until I actually see a benefit from the massive increase we have already made.

I'd like to think so, but that would mean sacking an awful lot of NL supporters.