Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

Presumably because the Government thinks it's in the UK interests to do this.
But no reason that all spending shouldn't be re-examined in light of this Winter's problems.
But looks like there are severe pressures elsewhere with a £20bn black hole in the MoD's budget.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

Because the foreign aid is supposed to go towards education, better medical suppplies, training teachers and DR's and to help rid the spread of viruses that we got rid of a long time ago.

---------- Post added at 23:53 ---------- Previous post was at 23:50 ----------

There as been an email going around at the min.

Registered Nurses only



Dear Colleagues,



We have vacant shifts up to and including the night shift of 14th January 2018 within:

· Abdominal Medicine and Surgery

· Emergency and Speciality Medicine



These shifts qualify for a financial bonus if they form a minimum of 22.5 hours worked in addition to your contracted hours, between the night shift of 29th December 2017 up to and including the night shift of 14th January 2018.

£200 bonus providing 22.5hrs have been met inc your contracted hours.

So it's really bad at the min where I am

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

You can't just keep chucking shedloads of money into the NHS. We need a thorough investigation into the way this organisation works, including how better use of technology, less waste, improving home care services, more use of volunteers and adopting ideas from the best health care services operating abroad could make it more efficient. We also need to look again at what the NHS provides free at the point of delivery. Visitors to this country should be charged and to assist the process, they should be required to have health insurance before passing border control.

As a temporary measure, perhaps the NHS should arrange for more operations to be carried out abroad to reduce the backlog.

I think the reckless waste of taxpayer's money should cease. Nobody would seriously run a business the way the NHS is run. The whole thing should be decentralised, with hospitals, surgeries, etc running independently of government bureaucracy.

It is essential that we take the politics out of this. You cannot manage the NHS from the House of Commons, and 'weaponising' the NHS is a disgusting concept. This is about people's lives, not politicians and their egos.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

That's why I said as a short-term measure, we need to spend more money on social care and the NHS.
I don't know what you mean by the weaponise jargon but it's an important issue that comes up at every election so shouldn't be off limits in discussions and elections. You will never get the politics out of tax-payee/NI-funded organisations unless you're in a country like North Korea.
The NHS is quite a decentralised organisation. Local hospitals are independent trusts and GPs surgeries, dispensing pharmacists and opticians are all independently run. Some say this is part of the problem with different systems from one NHS provider to the next.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

thats changing though so all these systems are starting to talk to each other so even though they are a different organisation you can access their information.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

That sounds like a step in the right direction. Still unsure why after 20 years + of email, so many GPs surgeries and pharmacists are so dependent on fax machines!

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

Because a lot of documentation is still hand written, some has to be like nursing notes, some drugs need to be recorded hand written.

All that may change though with the roll out of tablets across the trusts. They haven't hit our ward yet probably just the inpatient ones.

They are trying to cut down on paper work as all this needs to be inputted off site. I was told the mounds of paper work alone just from the back care advisors that do my key training that there is a small wharehouse full of paper work about 100,000 folders going back 25 years that is all still waiting to be inputted into digital format and they are getting through it slowly.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

And of course scanners haven't existed all that long.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

Hospital managers have learned that they cause "mayhem" by pushing departments to book procedures for the winter, knowing full well that they will have to be cancelled and cause a kickback against the government.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

The problem with the idea of not scheduling operations for the winter is that this is a 3 to 4 month period where the crisis can hit. Whilst they might have to explore this you can't have a quarter of the year written off for operations especially when for at least half of that time you will likely have the capacity to perform the operations.

As for the idea it's some sort of callous conspiracy from hospitals is there any evidence there is an abnormally high amount of operations booked for January?

---------- Post added at 17:17 ---------- Previous post was at 17:12 ----------

Ultimately it's the politicians who are responsible for the running of the National Health Service. It's typically those who do not want to be held political responsible that urge something isn't politicised. In the end it is a political issue.

I think for a start it's would be easier to take the politics out of this if there were political consensus on how to reform the NHS. You can have a cross-party committee and I think there is a good argument for that but I can't imagine them coming to an agreement.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

Our local NHS Trust said they would "taper off" scheduled procedures (that would require time on a ward) prior to the winter influx of (flu) patients, only "returning to normal operations" once beds started to be cleared. Day surgeries were not affected, neither were out-patient appointments.

That was for the winter of 2016/2017, and it was successful.

No sign of this policy this winter though.

A big stumbling block that is causing bed-blocking is the lack of council services available to support recovering patients in their own homes. And that is just down to budget management and "austerity".

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

Bed blocking is a issue for our department as well, some are on kick beds but again everything is slow to put in motion for outside services often left for the wards themselves to sort out causing hours of lost man hours chasing round just to get a healthy patient off the wards

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

Home care and relying on council/social services is a societal issue as well as political. At one time families were more closely cohesive so when care was needed the family would provide it. Now the family is more dispersed and so isn't always as available to provide that role. Yes there is always the need for more specialist cover in some cases.

But there are only finite resources that need to be managed. But that management isn't always very good and as resources shrink but cost increase managers appoint more managers to help manage the shortfall creating more shortfall.

My grandmother used to say that hospitals need to return staff positions like matron to "rule" the wards, someone with experience that could apply common sense rather than the risk adverse "silliness" that can cause so many difficulties.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

I'm sorry, but politicians should definitely not be running the NHS. They can set the funding arrangements, standards and principles, but the day to day running and management of the organisation should be left to managers.

Re: Crisis in the NHS
 

Typical of our politicians never giving a straight truthful answer to simple straight questions.:(

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...-a3733866.html