The NHS reform discussion thread

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

This heretic's not for burning.

Bizarre isn't it that some feel the second largest part of state expenditure after welfare and the largest employer in the UK should be immune from financial scrutiny or proceedural reform especially in these straitened times.

I want to see every penny spent to the best medical effect, not to satisfy some narrow political ideology.

No i make you right on that and will wait for these reforms to bed in before seeing the effects.

The only thing i would say is whilst publicly owned he NHS does provide countability and therefore its not always a bad thing and private ownership of services is not always a bad thing either.

But having seen how the NHS has been fleeced by profit hungry PFI companies i would issue a caution be careful what you wish for these companies have shareholders to feed.

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

The PFI fiasco just shows what happens when you let naive civil servants negociate contracts with private companies. We need some hard nosed individuals, probably with good private sector credentials, to be employed by the government to oversee and approve major contracts.

Private firms would be accountable if the contracts are correctly formulated: Along the lines of "If you screw up or fleece us, then you're out, pronto"

At the moment too many contracts are essentially for life with no comeback.

This would all cost a lot of money employing those sorts of people i have seen "consultants" such as these would be in use plenty of times at vast cost ,we had some in our department around about a year ago in the NHS.

Would they save lots of money the juries out on that one they would certainly cost it,but i would say a lot of specialists in that line of work may have links to companies awarded contracts anyway or certainly know directors of said cmpanies ,just as many top directors sit on each ohers renumeration commitees handing out contracts for the boys.

It may work but that is a gamble at least, and another thing he NHS is open for freedom of information as a public entity so info can be obtained, freedom of information ASAIK does not apply to private organisations,so the ability to get info could also be compromised in the process.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by denphone

Well there is a ballot box to show your disgust Alan and if you are unhappy with things use it.

Which is why I did not vote either Tory or Lib Dem last time round

---------- Post added at 11:15 ---------- Previous post was at 11:05 ----------

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Rubbish!

I couldn't care less who "owns" the NHS or parts thereof so long as the original ethos is maintained:

"To each according to need and free at the point of delivery"

(I paraphrase)



I'm completely fed up with the idiotic mantra from some here that public ownership is always good and private always bad. It's stupid, partisan and has no basis in reality. If it did the Soviets wouldn't be dropping it like a hot potato. Until they embraced change they were still queuing for bread!

The drive to make profit ensures that private will always be more efficient than public. Why anybody should think that a civil servant, often public school educted, should be able to run any kind of business or service better than somebody who has had to learn the hard way is completely beyond me. But it seems that some think that a publically owned utility would be some kind of charity augmenting the welfare state and not asking for bills to be paid.

But then I experienced the shambles of the seventies when publically owned companies and utilities were riddled with strikes and Spanish practices and where service was a dirty word. Heaven forbid that they'd actually give the customer (and wage payer) the time of day. I remember when it could take months to get a phone put in and then you could only have the offerings from that company. No sockets to be able to chose your own equipment.

It is not always the case that prviate is bad/efficient and public good/inefficient, the NHS should never be run like a business, if you don't agree then see this film before making up your mind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicko

There are well run public sector organsations/companies and poorly run private sector organsations/companies

Remember the sell offs of the Gas/Electric/Water companies, all it benifited was the rich and we had to pay the price

Remember Enron and the banks, look how well they were run

Remember the fact the system benefits the rich at the expence of us

Lastly the 70s was manly caused by high fuel prices, bad management, underinvestment and the decline of the UKs power on the international stage

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

Which is why I did not vote either Tory or Lib Dem last time round

No l think any party who knew you were voting for are likely to run halfway around the world to get away from your voting intentions.