Politicians.

[trev]

No Adam it's not perfect but if we could get back to a system whereby hospitals were ran by medically trained staff instead of armies of accountants maybe things would improve. An example, a mate of mine is an NHS accountant, he's quite high up the tree and has a lot of staff working under him. He says that 3/4 of them are idiots and that he could run his department without them but the powers that be dictate that he needs that amount of people so that's what he must have, he reckons the good people are out in industry or in practices so the NHS gets the leftovers. I recently saw an ad for a corporate outreach consultant on £75k to promote awareness of the NHS trust to businesses. Who the hell in this country does not know where the hospitals are and what they do?

 

[chopper76]

I was referring to the intervention of part p

 

[Adam W]

I don't think many people would disagree that there's too much wastage and bureaucracy in the NHS - not saying I'm Jesus or anything but I could probably feed the 5000 for £75k a year.
I don't think it's that 'the good workers' are in the private sector, it just seems to be that the public sector either attracts bad workers or breeds them. My mate's brother used to work for the NHS; he said it's very much a case of 'jobs for the boys' - everyone seems to be related to each other, nobody knows what they're supposed to be doing and everyone it too afraid to ask.

 

[trev]

And I'm not disputing that it needs a shake up, just not so much at the front line.

 

[Adam W]

OK after doing some maths, feeding the 5000 for £75k is rather a tall order - that leaves 4.1p per person per day, which isn't very much.
That said it's quite a big contract so should attract a lot of competition so you could and should be able to negotiate good deals with suppliers. As it happens the NHS were paying £50 for a £2 pack of gluten free pasta so they could give them away free on prescription. I think they should be paying a lot less than that, maybe even telling people to buy their own pasta.

 

[stuartcourt]

hear there is alot of cheap beef in Europe

 

[Adam W]

hear there is alot of cheap beef in Europe

Are you sure it's actually beef?

 

[Adam W]

And I'm not disputing that it needs a shake up, just not so much at the front line.

I think that's the danger with throwing a load of money at something to grab headlines - you're throwing the money at the accountants hoping they pass it down, but that money ends up being absorbed by the accountancy department - free tea and coffee, fancy biscuits, comfy chairs, 3 people doing one person's job... Then when you come to take the money away again because despite costs spiralling out of control the NHS has actually got worse, you ask the accountants for the money back and they'll try to claw it back from the front line instead - they don't want to lose their fancy biscuits and army of secretaries.

 

[specs]

I don't know but it sounds reasonable. If there was, surely 'Health care assistant' is just a fancy new name for 'junior nurse'?

Just spoken to my misses, she says i'm right, if she says that, then it is so.

 

[trev]

But grabbing headlines is what politics is about these days, it's the illusion that "we are doing something" rather than "we're giving this a new name so it sounds a bit more jiggy" Training nurses has worked for years so why change it for changes sake, yes there are some bad ones but there's bad in every walk of life.

 

[stuartcourt]

surely theres some kind of 5 week course they could go on to learn all they need to

 

[Adam W]

It shouldn't be though, it's a lazy and potentially damaging way of appealing to fickle voters. As specs says these 'new' 'Health care assistants' used to be called 'junior nurses' anyway, so what's the problem with reintroducing them if it worked before?

 

[specs]

But grabbing headlines is what politics is about these days, it's the illusion that "we are doing something" rather than "we're giving this a new name so it sounds a bit more jiggy" Training nurses has worked for years so why change it for changes sake, yes there are some bad ones but there's bad in every walk of life.

Not often i agree with you Trev but today is is one of them, however i still think the training has gone out of the window, today the politicians go for numbers, ie 1000 more nurses employed regardless of the quality of the nurses

 

[specs]

I need to go to bed now (early start) but i will catch up in the morning, just hoping it won't turn into a Maggie thing, where i was right and everyone else is wrong:wink_smile:

 

[Octopus]

My misses is a Midwife. When she trained, she had to have general nursing behind her.

These days graduit recruits are the norm and many do not have ANY bedside manner at all.