Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
It's not even just the easy targets like middle managers. It's things like the farce that is public sector procurement that could/should be most easily remedied, and would have an absolutely enormous effect.
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Politics, politics, politics
- Thread starter markysimmo
- Start date
It's not even just the easy targets like middle managers. It's things like the farce that is public sector procurement that could/should be most easily remedied, and would have an absolutely enormous effect.
Yes.
To argue that it should wither and die or "strip it to the bones" and THEN reform it just seems completely insane to me. So I will agree to disagree with you, as you said previously.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
If I was older and the situation was as it is now, I would definitely go private or join the masons (to get access to their hospitals). You don't take points of principle with your health. The NHS is third world and needs completely re-establishing under different principles.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
I said nothing of letting it wither and die. Only that I would see if fixed immediately rather than pour money in that goes nowhere.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
The hospitals are filthy and you generally catch worse things there than the thing you go in with. Some of the staff are good, but the organisation is horrendous and the treatments are incentivised/allocated completely wrong. Try private or a more civilised country like Germany or Canada before thinking the care here is anything but rudimentary.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
I can only speak from my own experience, and genuinely cannot complain. There are always things that I think could have been better, but fundamentally I/my family have been cared for.
There is no point debating this kind of nonsense.
That premise is only really valid if the increased expenditure (of our money, let's not forget) has no ill effect at all. Obviously we know otherwise - every penny taken in corporation tax is a penny that can't be invested into increasing GDP. Every penny taken out of my pocket is a penny that isn't spent on goods and services, etc.
I would be happy to spend a little more on the NHS if I could be convinced it was being spent rationally and effectively and if the government could guarantee that they would break the socialist ratchet so that we were are not obliged to continue the increased spending in perpetuity.
I've experienced both in recent years and there's no comparison at all. Private healthcare is so far ahead of the NHS that the two can't be compared.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
Im sure thats true. I can only speak to my own experience which is that of your average pleb going to the doctors/hospital.
And, honestly, Ive no complaints. The doctor could have been more proactive with some issues my wife had, but thats not down to the service.
When we have needed them they have been there and they have been great.
The ill effects of squeezed NHS funding and cuts to social care seem quite plain to see imo. Whether putting corporation tax levels back to pre-Osborne levels and increasing NHS funding would harm more people* -- my guess is that it wouldn't. Unhealthy or dead people tend to spend less money on good and services I suppose.
*I'm not saying one follows the other, just following the logic of your post.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Shop around. Compared to the alternatives it's like saying WW2 rationing was plenty.
First world countries in health terms (Germany or Canada) - cancer tends to get picked up in blood tests as part of regular health checks. Small treatment. Two weeks off work at most and back on with your life
Third world countries (UK) - cancer gets picked up when you collapse on the floor in agony in A&E. Dead within two weeks.
When I had orthopaedic treatment in a private hospital once it was amazing. Staff chatted and charmed you. Steak on the menu for dinner. You had dignity. Door-to-door taxis. And I was allowed to stay on for an extra day because the Test match went to a 5th day and I didn't have Sky at home. It was civilised.
Communism with sausages should be the ambition, not communism with gruel.
I was in after having to attend A&E with a sudden and massive ear infection. Spent the next couple of nights in a shared ward - one of its inhabitants couldn't stop bricking himself. Others wanted conversations or just wouldn't STFU. I had to walk across the hospital and two car parks just to go for a cigarette.
That is not a humane place to put people.
Dead people don't cost the nation either - swings and roundabouts.
So nobody in the UK ever gets diagnosed with cancer, treated and then survive? Ok then. Planet Gutterboy is a strange place.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
Doesnt sound it! Thankfully Ive not had to deal with anything like that!
As to what to do? Might sound a bit radical but Id give it to whoever runs the military and let them sort it out.
Think about it, the military works to a budget, across great geographical distances, buys what it needs at best value, manages as efficiently as possible, trains its people to be the best and provides the greatest service it can at the front lines. Its all about the front lines.
Does that not sound like exactly what the NHS should be?
Id let that guy come in and effectively model it on the army, get reporting lines straight and minimal, get as many as possible on the front lines, organise the buying and logistics...
Maybe not the navy though, or we'll end up with fantastic hospital buildings with no beds or doctors in them. And then the roof will start leaking the week after it opens.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
The doctors are the same people. Most do something like 3 days a week NHS, 2 days private (or two days each and 1 teaching at a University).
The difference is the time, resources and the organisation. They might do 6 operations a day private, compared to 20 in the NHS. In private they meet with you in the days before to talk with you about the options and let you choose the treatment, then spend time with you in the morning and after the aesthetic to explain what will/has gone on, and they can spend more time doing the actual procedure itself. In the NHS it's a production line - cut, fix, sew, next...
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
We have about the lowest survival rates in the developed world. And it's because our whole system is designed as reactive, not proactive. It's acute attempts to cure, never to prevent.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
While Im not sure a public service can ever reach those levels, were a public service run better I think a middle ground can be found.
If we strip out layers of management and put that money into front line staff, immediately the whole experience is better for all.
And thats without considering where efficient management can save costs elsewhere to pour into services and facilities...