Avoid medical interventions on a Friday.

[IanA2]

Some observations on quality, money & morale in NHS CORP.

From the Groaniad:
"The strongest indicator that the tightrope between cutting spending and maintaining quality is wobbling badly, is the serious loss of staff morale throughout the NHS. Despite the immediacy of the budget pressures, when the King's Fund asked finance directors to identify their biggest performance concern it was this issue, not A&E targets, treatment times or delayed transfers, that they most feared."


See:How is the health and social care system performing? January 2014 | The King's Fund

 

[grober]

Another headline from the "Groaniad" you quaintly call it. NHS waiting times data 'riddled with errors' | Society | The Guardian
The NHS "cooking the books" - surely schome mishtake
and in the interests of political equality ------today's headline from the " Torygraph"
Too many needless deaths because elderly cancer sufferers are 'written off' - Telegraph
Ironically these are the very people who have contributed the most to the NHS over a working lifetime being let down ---- again!!---- and in this case its apparently at clinician level.

 

[Dryce]

Some observations on quality, money & morale in NHS CORP.

I think I've seen this morale thing reported 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago ....

You have to ask yourself what is really wrong here. Chucking money at the NHS hasn't sorted it. New Labour threw a huge extra wad at the NHS.

 

[IanA2]

New Labour threw a huge extra wad at the NHS.

A lot of which was swallowed up by Comrade Brown's Enron style off balance sheet PFI contracts. And much of it still is; to name but one, Peterborough City Hospital. Their services/interest charges for their PFI contract are around £40M p.a. It still has thirty years to run. What joy.

 

[Dryce]

A lot of which was swallowed up by Comrade Brown's Enron style off balance sheet PFI contracts. And much of it still is; to name but one, Peterborough City Hospital. Their services/interest charges for their PFI contract are around £40M p.a. It still has thirty years to run. What joy.

It's only being swallowed up now.

The whole trick with PFI was to spend without spending. So the NHS got a huge amount dosh at the time *separate* from the capital spend masked by PFI (which is now and almost forever more to be paid for).

However the NHS isn't alone.

This sort of playing with the balance sheet is done by large organisations in the private sector too. It's just typically done with the knowledge that (outside the banking sector ) that there are consequences to be faced if you get it wrong.

I think in the case of HMG though that they went about PFI was at worst immoral and at best delusional.

 

[IanA2]

This sort of playing with the balance sheet is done by large organisations in the private sector too.

For how much longer remains to be seen.

See:Companies lobby to keep lease financing ?off-balance sheet? | ExaroNews

 

[Dryce]

For how much longer remains to be seen.

See:Companies lobby to keep lease financing ?off-balance sheet? | ExaroNews

I think HMG should be held to the same or higher standards.

 

[IanA2]

Some food for thought:

If the NHS were an airline 'planes would fall out of the sky all the time' says Mid Staffs inquiry chairman - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent