Happy to be home

[Peter Sefton]

What a long weekend, spent Friday and Saturday in Birmingham Children's Hospital for a planned operation on our 7 year old and last night in Worcester A&E with our 9 year old after she had an accident on our return home. Our NHS is so fantastic, FFS give these people the pay rise they deserve for being their for us when we need them most. All home and rested now looking forward to life settling down to some woodworking tomorrow.

Cheers Peter

 

[MrTeroo]

Our NHS is so fantastic, FFS give these people the pay rise they deserve for being their for us when we need them most.

Cheers Peter

Couldn't agree more.

People should stop using the term NHS deficit when the real term is NHS underfunding.

The care I received in Birmingham Orthopaedic Hospital was exemplary when I was in there for a major op a couple of years ago.

Hope both your girls feel better very soon.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

People should stop using the term NHS deficit when the real term is NHS underfunding.

Second post and we're on politics already.

 

[MusicMan]

Glad your kids had the treatment they needed, Peter.

And yes to the NHS staff. I too have had fantastic and timely treatment in life-threatening circumstances.

 

[Chris152]

Agree completely Peter, and hope they're doing well.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Yes and from me. They've saved both my Missus and my youngest, I owe them everything.

 

[Lons]

Happy to hear they are both sorted Peter, hope all goes well for the future.

As someone with a lot of family in the NHS ranging from care assistant through to heart surgeon and including my now retired missus and daughter who has taken time out because she couldn't handle it anymore, I couldn't agree more but without wanting to bring politics to the fore, the problem isn't completely due to underfunding but also misdirection of funds and too many managers trying to justify their salaries and targets.

Too many chiefs and demorilised front line staff is a very poor receipe.

I also have a mate recently retired GP who left at 50 because he'd had enough of the politics and especially objected to the practises being paid large sums of money to delay patient referals to specialists for as long as possible.

 

[whiskywill]

I also have a mate recently retired GP who left at 50 because he'd had enough of the politics and especially objected to the practises being paid large sums of money to delay patient referals to specialists for as long as possible.

Retired at 50. Good old NHS pensions. :evil:

 

[Peter Sefton]

I also have a mate recently retired GP who left at 50 because he'd had enough of the politics and especially objected to the practises being paid large sums of money to delay patient referals to specialists for as long as possible.

Retired at 50. Good old NHS pensions. :evil:

No comment

 

[Phil Pascoe]

GPs don't work for the NHS.

 

[Lons]

GPs don't work for the NHS.

But they work in conjunction with and are paid out of the same overall pot Philip. My point was that the cash they receive for delaying referals is there to put off expensive operations and hospital beds. Patients always end up there eventually, unless they die first. My wifes hip problems were classic and delays caused complications which necessitated bone graft in the end, and a lot of suffering. Would have been worse had we not shamelessly used contacts to speed up treatment.

As far as pensions, my mate took a reduced package, still good of course and out of the reach of most of us however, not their fault it's in place and if anyone wants to get political then what about police, teachers, firemen and best of all, polititians!

My neice is a GP btw.

Bob

 

[Cheshirechappie]

If I remember correctly, the public sector pay cap was put in place after the 2010 general election because it was seen as unfair that public sector pay rises were continuing much as they had before the 2008 crash, whilst many in the private sector had taken quite substantial pay cuts in order to keep businesses afloat. If private sector pay has regained the losses it sustained after 2008 and is now increasing faster than public sector pay, it would indeed be fair and right to see rises in the public sector. However, I'm not sure that's the case, so the case for public sector rises may not be as strong as some might suggest. Some measure of fairness does need to be maintained between public and private sectors.

I'm not too sure what the actual comparative figures are, but it's certainly something government should look at. Just giving in to whoever shouts loudest is no way to be fair to the majority.

The NHS needs reform. It's not good enough. That's no reflection on those at the sharp end, the vast majority of whom do their best every day (and their best is often very good indeed), but they sometimes do their best despite the system, not because of it. However, the system has absolutely no incentive to do better, because there's no competition to take work away from it. Until there is, we'll have to carry on putting up with a creaking bureaucratic machine lurching from crisis to crisis. I don't see things improving any time soon because there's too much else on the political slate at the moment, not least the ramifications of delivering Brexit. Maybe when that's settled, we could have a proper national debate about what we expect of the nation's health care provision, and what can be provided, how, and at what cost.

The current system has been in place for 70 years, now. It used to be the best in the world, but that's no longer the case. Maybe it's time to start thinking about how we could do things better. (I do, however, stress again - most strongly - that's no criticism of those at the sharp end of heathcare provision. It's about the system, not the people working in it.)

 

[Farmer Giles]

The best reform the NHS could get would be to get rid of unnecessary government intervention especially when they want to mimic the US system which is seriously broken. I run a team including several in the US, I once ran a team of 600 of which 400 were in the US and I cannot remember one person who thought the US health system was a model to mimic, all wanted our system, clinical"outcomes" for most are suboptimal.

And despite best efforts to make it look bad so they can "fix it" AKA privatise it, the NHS is still a world beater in quality and cost, could definitely be better, a public pillory of Mr Hunt with the waste from the pathology labs would be a good morale boost in the lack of funding

 

[Phil Pascoe]

They might have all wanted our system as opposed to theirs, but I doubt very much as opposed to others in the world. Why has no other Country in the world copied it? And please don't anyone say they do in parts - the world's bakers copy each other in parts, the world's brewers copy each other in parts, etc.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My last post on the subject before the thread once again gets locked.

 

[Farmer Giles]

why would they? Every countries health service has evolved differently and to mimic it they would have to chop and change every time our government changed and the next set of loony policies were introduced.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the health service except for unwarranted government intervention, irrespective of party politics, both have screwed up. However it is still e world beater, but could be even better, but not by privatisation and funding starvation.

 

[Lons]

When the Nhs was formed, life expectancy was very much loweras was the population, I'm retired and have paid into the system all my working life, and still am but rather than the 5 to 10 years life expectancy in retirement we now hope for 3 times that and the country just can't afford the NHS in its current state.

However its the biggest political hot potato , always on the agenda and any party with seriously radical plans to change will commit political suicide, hence the continuous tinkering.

Still a great system when you need it, just a shame that nurses especially, most who do the job because they care and not for the money are the ones who are taken advantage of, simply because they put patients needs before industrial action.

 

[Farmer Giles]

Well I have saved them some cash, looks like I have a growth on my pituitary gland and it's putting pressure on my optic nerves and causing sight issues. MRI scan booked Thursday. Gone through the work's insurance, my mum and dad can't afford that luxury. My pa is recovering from two strokes in quick succession, against the odds it looks like he is coming home after 3 months but he will be paying for carers. If he hadn't sold his old motorbikes before the stroke he would have paid less towards his care, but that money will soon go.

 

[AJB Temple]

It's worth remembering that comparing public and private sector pay rises is not valid unless pension benefits are taken into account. Public sector index linking and protection generally materially outperforms private sector.

 

[Jacob]

.....However, the system has absolutely no incentive to do better, because there's no competition to take work away from it.....

Popular right wing myth that competition leads to efficiency. Result is usually the opposite. It's the artificially constructed "competition" between various fragmented agencies which is now undoing the NHS with increased costs and break down of continuity.

"the NHS was in the hands of so many competing agencies that no single one was responsible." taken from today's Grauniad https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... on-reverse

"The only way one can improve is by undermining another. Lines of responsibility and accountability are so blurred that in a crisis it would be impossible to work out who or what is responsible. He has become a convert to greater but effective centralised control."