egafd.com

You may wish to read this and then reflect on where billions of ?????s of NHS money is being squandered !sad!

Thanks for this. A really interesting article. I was in favour of using the private sector to cut down waiting lists but this wholesale outsourcing we have seen since the top down reorganisation of the NHS that the Tories promised would never happen and for which they had no mandate, is criminal.

Typical Tories - sell off anything that isn't nailed down. And it is the taxpayer who picks up the tab for the "market".

In 2010 the Health Select Committee found that running the NHS as a
?market? cost the NHS 14% of it?s budget a year.

The Select Committee noted that the NHS would have some administration
expenses even if it didn?t run itself as a ?market?. But they noted evidence
from the NHS Chief Historian, Professor Charles Webster that in the
pre-market late-80s, the NHS spent only 5% of its budget on administration.

I think both the main parties need to take a look at themselves

"I think both the main parties need to take a look at themselves"

I agree

A few years ago I needed an investigation of my stomach that required me to drink some dye drink.

When I got to the hospital I was given a box containing 4 packets of the dye, told to drink 1 and throw the other 3 completely unused ones away.

The guy next to me was having a similar test done, needing the same drink, using 1 packet of dye and was also given a box of 4.

A women came in after us and needed a drink using 2 packets she was also give a box of 4, as did all other patients who came before I went for my scan.

My 1 box could have been used on the first 3 of us with.

Was there any way the other 3 could have been considered contaminated after the box has been opened?

I've posted before that I used to work for an equipment supplier to the health service. A major aspect of finding another job was to be away from seeing the financial drain day to day.

The company could certainly have charged less and still made a decent profit but equally the system was there to be exploited and pricing was competitive with other suppliers ( read cartel? ) , except of course unique service items and spares but even then the more savvy purchasing departments required quotations to include total cost over say 5 years so again must have been competitive.

Where things really changed was the outsourcing of patients at home. When I started the patient care was by specially trained NHS staff and equipment support by NHS engineering departments.

Gradually this was outsourced and my belief driven by administrators trying to reduce their spending by simply moving all they could to another budget.
The private companies of course aimed to make a profit and built in margins.

Equipment maintenance and especially breakdown became an issue. These companies often had neither a pool spare of spare equipment or suitable skilled technicians.
Hence the company I was working for would get a panic phone call. They would then take a new machine from stock, arrange a taxi to deliver it and collect the faulty item. This would be serviced / repaired and the taxi sent to swap the unit back. Using couriers for the return was tried but too often resulted in issues getting the new item, hired at a rate of course, back safely. A total taxi mileage of 500miles was typical.
All this of course billed to the contractor and no doubt they had a clause that this was not covered in their contract with the NHS so passed on with a suitable mark-up.

Once back the loaned item had to be surgically cleaned, a ' back-hander ' arrangement with a suitably equipped hospital.

My firm belief is that had the equipment been produced and supported by an NHS department and care kept to NHS employed staff the costs would have have been significantly lower.


We heard of numerous issues with home care staff coverage. Once to get a nurse to visit a client ( the work patient was not used in the private sector) on Christmas Day was ?70, I can't remember if per hour or for the visit but the visit unlikely to be more than an hour anyway.

If a nurse is employed by the NHS it is presumed they will work a number of weekends and bank holidays as part of their contract.



When my father was in hospital long-term over 15 years ago agency staff were regularly needed to make up the numbers but often because totally unfamiliar with both the hospital and patients in reality a hindrance despite no doubt being the highest paid at their grade.
I guess this is worse now.

Only when the NHS makes best use of the current funding will I support anything additional.


As to the suggestion of a hotel fee given the patient will not be working how much would end up paid by the state from another budget with significant administration costs. Another issue is the worry placed on the relatives to find the money on top the situation.


My father would be turning in his grave .....

Waste is as equally bad as it is inevitable.

There's outright waste (eg "use 1, throw 3 away", such as argued above) and subjective waste (best of luck definitively proving the cost/benefit of the "waste" that is the NHS England reforms......)

We could eradicate all waste in the UK public sector, by not having a public sector. Although that would be a gross waste of opportunity.

Friend of mine is a consultant. She gets a weekly bollocking from her chief exec no matter what has happened on her wards. In a bad week she lost 3 patients, far more than the average...and her boss as more concerned about the laundry bill than the grieving families.

The Time: February 1981

The Place: "Yes Minister" (The Compassionate Society episode)

The Story: A newly built and completed hospital still has no patients (or indeed, medical staff) after 15 months, while employing over 500 administrative staff of some sort or another.


Having so many "administrators" rather than doctors and nurses is not a new problem... it just seems to have gotten worse. The problem now, of course, is that, thanks to "Call me Dave" helping out all his rich mates who own/run/work for private health care companies, the NHS will soon be run by the Pay or Die Corporation of Tallahassee and their ilk.