Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Not good for the government and Lansley on this today.


Firstly, both the Community Practitioners? and Health Visitors? Association and the Faculty of Public Health have become the latest professional bodies to come out against the Bill.


Then tonight, it loses the vote in the Lords regarding the priority given to mental health.

Interesting that now a number of Tories saying drop the Bill as they believe it will get the blame for the inevitable crisis looming in the the NHS - right wing free market critics are almpost saying leave it alone and let it collapse under its own contradicitions


We have

- ever increasing cost of treatment;

- the baby boom generation hitting 65 and fairly soon 75 - the ages when need grow enormously

- an infrastructure built largely for 1940s medical practice


My personal 'prejudices' are that additionally



- some internal culture which sees the NHS as a provider of employment rather than a service for the public

- deep internal 'conservatism' a general widespread internal culture of antagonism to reform, which New Labour found everywhere too


I'm not saying the current reforms are right, I've given up on this debate but am deeply suspicious of those who advocate the Status Quo and cry "Wolf" ("or literralyy 'they want to deystroy the NHS') at any attemp at reform.

Whilst I can see the arguments for reform, as indeed can many of the Royal Colleges who are opposing the Bill, I am also left wondering whether after 13 years of Labour reforms and now more promised by the coalition, the NHS is in a constant state of flux.


We bemoan that increased bureaucracy stops clinical staff treating patients but instead ties them to a desk filling out forms and yet with every new reform or reorganisation we are making that situation worse.


A moratorium on reform may be more beneficial in the short term. Lansley apparently spent six years in opposition coming up with these proposals and yet he may have done better jotting them down on the back of an envelope.

Personally I think what we need to do is really comprehensive review of what a health service free at delivery should look like in the 21st Century...but that is largely impossible because of the politics, especially the small C conservatine intrasigence from the Health Prefession in general and the Unions, means that no government (but especially a Tory one) can say they are looking and root and branch reform, so intstead we get tinkering, change of direction etc. Long term it is unsustaanable in terms of its current delivery and funding given what I said earlier (demographics and medical advancement). We need radical reform but that as good as politically impossibl - and that appears to me to be becuase of blatant self interest packaged as emotive 'protecting the NHS from those that want to destroy it' and the inevitable weight of massive, self fuffilling, self preserving bureacracy.

Orrrrr maybe its because everyone in the country wants free health care and is prepared to pay for it, and anything other than tinkering at the edges in a bid to drive down costs is political suicide at the ballot box.


Tend to agree that organisations can only take so much radical reform without the glue beginning to give, and I'm pretty sure that's where we're at right now.


There is no doubt that things can be done better but we'd probably be better off getting disinterested experts to give the recommendations rather than politicians, and it'd be great if they could be incorporated over a period of time irrespective of the colour of ties of the government.


For starters we could look at taking advantage of the economies of scale in purchasing the NHS could leverage, where currently things are so bad that there isn't even a strategy within an average PCT.


I did a project for NPEP (NHS Purchasing Electronic Psomething) that was looking at increasing pan institutional communication with a bid to doing this sort of thing and it was blocked at every turn before being dismantled as a 'costly' quango by the tories.


A conservative estimate at cost savings would be about 15 billion a year. Amazing that noone is doing anything about it.

Why can't the NHS be run as a corporation independent from political/government intervention? With a strict charter and legal obligations obviously. Like the BBC.


To my mind the 2 things that redeem the entire British nation are the existence of the NHS and the BBC. The one works very well because it is able to keep at arms length (to a degree) the tide of sub-human slime that are the political classes while the other seems constantly fraught with peril because it can?t.

I think you're just confusing where we are are now with what the very near future will look like in terms of resource requirements (see also pensions)...soooooooooo maybe that's just because people aren't really aware about what oongoing commitments with a rapidly ageing population means (without some radical overhaul) in terms of the future tax burden.


Try and getting a vote for the basic tax rate to go back to 30% to pay for maintaing current standards in the NHS as a vote winner say?


"A conservative estimate at cost savings would be about 15 billion a year. Amazing that noone is doing anything about it." that's classic unweldy bureacracy for you


Everyone wants first class public services paid for by someone else

The sheer number of changes being proposed in the Bill mean that despite the admin savings from abolishing PCTs and SHAs there is a real risk that additional bureaucracy will be created.


Also, the NHS has made significant progress since 1997. It currently costs circa ?100bn per year to run. Raising basic rate tax by just 1% would raise circa ?4.75bn per year. Even with an ageing population and even if no reforms were introduced, I don't think it's necessary to increase its budget by circa 50% just to maintain current standards.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • This thread brings back hazy memories from the early to mid-90s of a wine shop / off licence off Lordship Lane run by a bibulous chap who specialised in East European wines. It wasn't on a parade of shops but was on maybe Whateley Rd – or possibly Goodrich?? I used to walk past it when heading home from work and would drop in for a cheap bottle of Hungarian plonk. Someone tell me I'm not dreaming this... 🙂
    • The river Peck is partly underground if you live near the park and on its route
    • I have spent many years pondering the state of dampness in my basement and had composed a long and rather boring reponse. Have reduced it to bullet points: The cause of damp on the common wall with my neighbour was found to be caused by a slow leak their side which they were unaware of. Leak was repaired and dampness subsided. An experienced drainage man told me there are no underground rivers in East Dulwich My damp patches come and go and are more prevalent in summer when the humidity is high and barely there during the winter. I was considering getting a dehumidifier until I read they can suck the water out of walls/floor and make the problem worse.  
    • Thank you all for your input- we had the children with their mother for a few days. individually the children went out - one  to the theatre and Camden Market and Horniman's. The other to the transport museum and Leicester Square (could not get in to the Lego place so went into M & M place) also Dulwich Park with his Aunty and cousin. My daughter is a special needs teacher in Sussex and even though schools have closed, she had  to work 2 days (INSET Days)  one day she had a 3 hour zoom call with her colleagues as could not find a child minder, so worked from home, the next day the 9 year old spent the day with friends so she could go to work. At least with us she could get some respite from child care. After much negotiation, their father in Liverpool  has managed to get some leave from his new job for 2 weeks. My daughter will drive them to Oxford where Dad will pick up. This gives my daughter a few days  without children to catch up with various friends in the Midland's and Yorkshire. I will search the science school link as above as there maybe something in the October or February Half Terms which we could enrol the 9 year old in. We try to support our 3 daughters with child care but most of the grandchildren are grown up which leaves us with 9,11 and 15 year olds. We have not been asked to look after the 6 year and 3 year old great grandchildren - !!! We are firm believers that grandparents should be active in their grandchildren's lives and offer support where they can. I looked after my eldest granddaughter when she was a baby and toddler one day a week so my daughter could work. My granddaughter is now 26 and we are very close as she is the only one living in London. The others are scattered around Kent, Sussex and Essex.  
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...