{"id":19459,"date":"2013-03-07T08:22:19","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T08:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=19459"},"modified":"2013-03-07T09:24:11","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T09:24:11","slug":"as-serco-proves-ff-theres-one-change-the-nhs-needs-its-that-the-market-be-taken-out-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/03\/07\/as-serco-proves-ff-theres-one-change-the-nhs-needs-its-that-the-market-be-taken-out-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"As Serco proves, if there’s one change the #NHS needs it’s that the market be taken out of it"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian\u00a0reports\u00a0this morning<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Serco, the leading private contractor of government services, fiddled its data when reporting to the\u00a0NHS\u00a0on targets it had failed to meet, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).<\/p>\n

The independent watchdog's\u00a0investigation\u00a0into Serco's out-of-hours GP service in Cornwall, published on Thursday, comes after the Guardian\u00a0revealed last May\u00a0that whistleblowers had concerns that the privatised service was regularly so short-staffed as to be unsafe and that its performance data was being manipulated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think we can safely say that the\u00a0private\u00a0sector offers no way out of the Mid-Staffs style crisis.<\/p>\n

But actually, it's possible to say more than that. Serco and Mid-Staffs have a lot in common. Patient care has suffered and people have been harmed whilst data has been misreported and all for one reason, which is to satisfy market driven\u00a0performance\u00a0criteria.<\/p>\n

I was\u00a0asked\u00a0recently what my one change to the #NHS would be if I had my way. Well, there's a simply answer. I'd take the market out of it.\u00a0Private\u00a0contracting would be used at manager's\u00a0discretion. GPs would be salaried. And the farce of the internal market would be abolished.<\/p>\n

If one thing has cost the #NHS money and inefficiency it is the internal market. The concept of profit and loss is absurd when the\u00a0patient\u00a0does not pay at the point of delivery: surplus or deficit is the result of demand and whether or not best clinical and management practice is applied or not. But that does not require a market with the enormous management and accounting costs involved. It does require a matrix of weighted key\u00a0performance\u00a0indicators based on patient satisfaction,\u00a0clinical\u00a0standards, referral management, resource usage and other factors. But that could be done\u00a0simply\u00a0and effectively\u00a0largely\u00a0based on medical record keeping with no market overlay.<\/p>\n

The we could have a cheaper, patient focussed, medic lead, efficient NHS. We won't get that when money is the determinator\u00a0of service quality, and data supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian\u00a0reports\u00a0this morning: Serco, the leading private contractor of government services, fiddled its data when reporting to the\u00a0NHS\u00a0on targets it had failed to meet,
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}