I have not used Twitter much of late. For some reason I woke up in the mood to do so today. These are some of today's NHS tweets from me, most of which were retweeted many hundreds of times:
And just in case anyone thinks I am only concerned with government policy:
The NHS needs funding. But that requires sound macroeconomic policy as well as a government that cares.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
12 out of 12 in my view Richard.
Thank you
All true – but there are 4 NHS systems in the UK, all governed by different political parties. Which does best with the reduced resources available, and why?
Your premise is wrong. Why must they manage with reduced resources, which is the choice of just one givernment?
I’m not saying that leaving anything for UK Gov to decide is a good idea! But just spending more cash doesn’t necessarily produce better results – especially if it is siphoned off to the public sector. Spending more cash wisely should improve results, so worth looking at which NHS system does best with the resources it currently has.
Why would you not want to do that?
I was not saying I am not interested
But the criteria you are using is the wrong one
Sorry – “siphoned off to the private sector” is what I meant to type.
You’ve just been retweeted by Alex Callinicos!
He may, if he wishes
Why is the criterion of governments using funding in the best way to produce the most advantageous results, “wrong”?
You are comparing four systems constrained by one government for comparison
That makes no analytical sense
Correct.
It reeks of the old assumption that there is waste when in fact since 2010 the Tories have kept NHS funding at ‘previous levels’ – that means that the budget in this period since 2010 has not been increased doesn’t it Oldnat?
So effectively, the Government has been reducing funding in order to get more savings anyway.
Sure – there was a top up recently which may have addressed some of the shortfall from 2010 but it was no where near enough.
I contend that this short fall is deliberate in order to undermine faith in the service and bring about more privatisation.
And it is not the case Oldnat that the savings are made in order to make the NHS more investor return friendly for privatisation?
I look forward to your response – hopefully refreshed by facts and not assumptions.
All systems are constrained. It is still possible to analyse how they respond to such restraint, and how the outcomes vary with the policies adopted.
Your stance means that all measurements of school, university, transport systems etc etc are totally pointless.
So your position is that operational effectiveness can’t be measured except between wholly discrete systems?
But if all systems are constrained in the way you have not explained the benefit in comparing them
Yes OLdnat , all systems have constraints – yes very theoretical and relevant and intelligent sounding but what if those constraints are created consciously and deliberately and then imposed in the same manner?
You talk Oldnat as if the constraints on the NHS are naturally occurring – but they are not – they are the result of Government choices that have been taken with certain politically charged outcomes in mind. This Government has moved itself away legally from being responsible for funding the NHS and then having done that has under-funded it.
We cannot stop the norovirus from spreading but we could have stopped the numbers of elderly presenting at A&E as social care budgets have been cut.
And I hope Mr Grayson below is reading this too.
https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6446225/assistant-director-of-equality-and-diversity/
Funding is not the problem. It’s productivity.
You clearly don’t know a lot abiur the reality if working in the NHS
But I agree that whoke trust and ccg structure needs to be swept away
15 or fewer regional health authorities would do for England covering all services in their area
There is no funding crisis for the NHS. It’s purely & simply political (ideological) & managerial. Yes, the NHS is hugely complex because of its sheer size and scale of objectives. And there are definitely more effective ways of dealing with human sickness. (That’s another topic – and one worth exploring IMHO). But, in relation to the staus quo, for the government to suggest there are budgetary restrictions in a purely financial sense is a complete lie and yet more Neo-liberal economic gibberish.
Richard- I saw a short News bulletin on Al Jazeera which showed a brief interview with a british Red Cross representative aho defined it as a humanitarian crisis (they should know, shouldn’t they!).
As a contrast they wheeled in a NHS management bod who seemed to say ‘I’ts all under control (saving own skin?).
It’s surely another example of the ‘going for broke’ approach of neo-liberalism and with a highly fractured Labour who are STILL repeating economic myths we’re surely entering the Greek Tragedy scenario.
As I suspected for years now, this nonsense will have to keep getting worse before it reaches any tipping point and that tipping point, at present looks very much like fascism. The EU/UK austerity obsession is creating fascism in front of our eyes -how stupid can they be, these vacuous shysters?
It’s worth noting that the Red Cross have been contracted by the NHS to provide this service for a number of years. What seems to have changed is the new Head of Media who is an ex Guardian journalist.
It does seem to be rather more than that. See here
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/commissioning/commissioning-topics/emergency-admissions/red-cross-deployed-to-cope-with-nhs-humanitarian-crisis/20033586.article#
Agreed
Our local (Labour) MP is on the Health select committee and I’ve suggested – twice – that money is obviously not really that short and that they just should recommend Quantitative Easing for the NHS as we have for the banks.
Alas answer comes there none.
Perhaps in the light of the Red Cross ‘humanitarian crisis’ I should try again. It speaks volumes that what we can do for a financial crisis we are unable to countenance for a humanitarian one.
Agreed
From the independent today:
“Record numbers of patients were crowded into hospital emergency departments last week. Overcrowding eased from a high of 612 on Tuesday to 395 on Friday. The figures fell to 190 on Saturday, according to the HSE.
But another spike in influenza could trigger another overcrowding crisis in the coming weeks.”
The article doesn’t say that more money is the answer, for how could more money for the same number of staff prevent a flu or norovirus spike. The comments in the article are generally going after management.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16337904
https://www.hsj.co.uk/topics/technology-and-innovation/make-some-room-for-private-hospital-patients/5067095.article
Loads of room. Just pay and you’ll get an NHS bed. And an NHS operation.
It’s also very difficult to find exactly how many vacant beds, available for private use (usually single room), are being used in this crisis (which would not have been so serious if several thousand beds had not been cut). Theoretically, all could, and should, have been available. But.
Still, I got prompt service in my local NHS hospital, as an NHS patient. Very prompt. Heart problems tend to avoid queues. Tended to very well by extremely competent non-UK doctors, as were the nursing/cleaning/catering staff in the acute assessment unit I was rapidly transferred to as soon as the problem was brought under control. A full and busy A&E unit. As was the AAU ward. The hospital had about 20 available beds that night.
I’m sorry for those who think that calling in the private services is going to help much. They don’t. MSK tends to not be profitable, unless you fend off operations and go for things like “pain control clinics”, who take hours to tell you things you already knew, and recommend painkillers you, and your GP, have already tried. But they get paid for these four-hour courses.
Services for the elderly are also not profitable…which is why foreign personnel abound, many paid less than the minimum wage.
Of course, when people blame “management” it is instructional to look at whose they blame…usually NHS managers get the blame, even when contracted-out services have their own management….who are NOT under control of NHS managers. It’s just another layer of burocracy to climb over to get anything done. And bullying is a massive problem in contracted-out NHS services.