David Lock

Well the world and his wife seem to be queuing up to condemn the new NHS reforms so could be an interesting time ahead.

I don't work in the NHS and know little of the details of the changes although I do feel that Doctors are generally not very good at managing businesses - why should they be - and it does seem that they are simply vaping one layer of bureaucracy and replacing it with another, probably using the same people.

But Cameron's neck is on the line on this one so if he abandoned it he would have to go. Then we would have Hague

Any thoughts?

dl

Jimbob

iTrader: (13)

They do now, they run their own practices, and like Headmasters do with school. And just like headmasters who better to know where to allocate the money where its needed as they do the job.
Unlike a manager who is a pencil pusher, who is a tier ontop which isn`t needed.

The Zohan

But like headmasters there are good and bad ones, i am not sure putting more of a workload on them is a good idea, especially smaller practices.


Having said that as you point out there are also incompetent people already doing the job in the NHS already.

David Lock

Fair point but I don't think in general doctors have a clue about procurement, tendering procedures, value for money purchasing etc etc. That's where huge amounts of money are wasted. And of course most practices, and schools, have a practice nurse or school secretary to do the donkey work. And doctor's time should be spent curing patients not spent at trying to run things as a business.

I was once a governor at a small primary school and discovered that the headmistress spent only 8% of her time actually teaching and the rest was, in my view, completely wasted on endless petty admin tasks that could easily of been done by one of her many part time low paid assistance. I complained but was soon put in my place

dl

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

IMO I've been against this bill since day one it announced that it gave GPs more powers and decisions.

My image of the GP is marred. Mainly because of the practices I and my family have endured, and whilst there are probably some very good GPs out there, the term "general" to me means just that...jack of all trades in the health/medical department. One cannot expect one person or practice to specialise in everything under the sun and dictate on what gets spent on who or what. It just puts too much reliance on a handful of persons in a practice to do the job, and if they are rubbish at it, not only does everything fall to pieces, but lives are put at risk.

IMO it should be the reverse, GPs should have less power and be able to more easily refer to specialists in particular fields without worry of personal/area budgeting or feeling their integrity is being underminded (the latter is a sore point with my GP, who seemingly doesn't like someone else judging their initial diagnosis).

It was only two weeks ago my work collegue came in telling me her husband's illness over the past 6 months has finally been diagnosed. Despite repeated trips to the GP, passing out at work, trips to A&E (whom referred him back to the GP), and originally diagnoised as stress and panic attacks.....guess what? Type one diabetes!! FFS blood/urine glucose tests should have found that, yet it appears both the GP and A&E failed to recognise his symptoms (large weight loss, passing out, dizzy spells, odd breath smell, tiredness, vision problems etc), possibly because he wasn't a fatty, so didn't fit into the pre-diagnosis pigeon-hole for diabetes, so wasn't tested. Carry on for any longer in that state he could have been comatosed or dead. Shocking IMO, and its another reason for me to justify why GPs need to have less power not more.

Jimbob

iTrader: (13)

Very true, but as with any public sector role you can`t be "gotten rid of" unless you do something stupid. And here in lies the problem. A private sector worker who wasn`t up for it would be gotten rid of, or moved to HR.

The system needs taking apart, and rebuilt as its non right.
How this is done though is another thing.

But the role of head teacher isn`t to teach but to run the school. This is what I think they want to do, instead of having a pencil pusher dictate what they can and can`t do.

You don`t have a civilian in charge of the Police/Fire/Army/Navy etc so why in Health.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

I recently went for an MRI scan and discussed it with the two guys runnning the scan.

They said they found it scary that GPs would have even more power, powers to say who could, and who could not. get further treatment, for example.

But let's never forget that when the NHS first came in, it was opposed by almost all health professionals at that time.

Are we just resistant to change?

David Lock

I thought Lord Prescott was going to run things

dl