Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
NHS chief admits to dismay at Jeremy Hunt's meddling
NHS England chairman Sir Malcolm Grant reveals frustration at health secretary's attempts to micro-manage service
Professor Malcolm Grant, Provost of University College London, London, Britain - 10 Oct 2011
Sir Malcolm Grant admitted to having 'some very difficult discussions' with the health secretary.
Sir Malcolm Grant, chairman of NHS England, has revealed his frustration at attempts by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to micro-manage Britain's health service.
Grant said politicians should stop meddling in the NHS at a time when clinicians were supposed to have been put in charge under recent reforms, and admitted fighting with Hunt over attempts to interfere through a detailed blueprint called the NHS mandate, which was published this year. Grant also revealed that he had been forced to block ministers' attempts to punish clinicians who failed to meet certain care standards by reducing their budgets.
Grant, a former provost at University College London, said: "I am a staunch believer that the NHS is one of the finest social institutions in the world and the people who make it that are the frontline staff. I think the way we design the structure to incentivise people is right, and to take money away and penalise poor performance is not the best way to get the best out of people."
He denied rumours he had considered quitting his role over his battles with Hunt, in particular over the NHS mandate, saying: "That would have been an abdication of responsibility. We had, shall we say, some really difficult discussions, which is absolutely right, it is what you would expect."
In a wide-ranging interview with the Observer to launch a new era for the NHS, Grant also claimed to be "quietly confident" that the service would cope with what is expected to be its busiest winter. He admitted to being surprised by the record number of people attending A&E departments in recent weeks. The "big uncertainty"would arise if there was a major change in the weather, but he said the system "will cope".
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
GPs surgery's are getting bigger and being run by practice managers,,been counters,,, the Pressure on employed GPs in that surgery is to save money
When a doctor attends your bedside he is under presser to save money.
The surgery has a money incentive not to send you to hospital.
Good GPs will put the wellbeing of the sick first ,,bad ones may not.
Don't assume all GPs are good.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
there will always be g.p's that are not top notch, the same as in any occupation.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,571
report recently showed NHS was above approach
but is getting better
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i found that it has slipped back in recent years with longer waiting times in accident and emergency coupled with longer waits to see a consultant.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,571
Has the move towards getting rid of to many managers happened
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Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Keith Bibby wrote:GPs surgery's are getting bigger and being run by practice managers,,been counters,,, the Pressure on employed GPs in that surgery is to save money
When a doctor attends your bedside he is under presser to save money.
The surgery has a money incentive not to send you to hospital.
Good GPs will put the wellbeing of the sick first ,,bad ones may not.
Don't assume all GPs are good.
Would you rather your GP was treating patients or spending time on duty rosters/doing the wages/answering correspondence/filling in the VAT return/paying bills, etc? That's what practice managers do; in smaller practices they double up as receptionists, too.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
No one (I imagine) would want their GP doing those things Peter, but it is getting harder to see a Doctor and in frustration, many people are going to A & E which makes people who need real emergency treatment, wait longer.
I don't know whether it is the way each surgery is run/managed, or too many patients for each surgery, or just not enough Doctors.
Roger
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Working to Reinstate, Protect and Improve your NHS
Thursday 26th December 2013
Christmas and New Year message from the National Health Action Party
NHS heads for a winter of discontent, but the National Health Action Party will continue to defend the NHS and provide solutions to restore and improve it
2013 has already been a very difficult year for the NHS, and pressures are only going to increase this winter. Ongoing austerity at a time of massive NHS reorganisation is clearly taking its toll with service cuts, staff shortages, bed shortages, hospital closures and management chaos, leading to crises in emergency care and social care, rising waiting lists, and intense pressure on GP services. Of course this was all predicted by the leaked version of the NHS Risk Register 3 years ago, which not surprisingly, the Government still refuses to publish.
The Government's costly and unwanted top down reorganisation was designed to dismantle and increasingly privatise the NHS, and this is happening at an alarming rate with £2.5 billion worth of NHS contracts given to the private sector since the new Health Act became law in April this year. The privatisation process will accelerate if NHS services are included in the EU/US Free Trade Agreement, which will irreversibly open the door to global private healthcare companies to bid for NHS contracts. As the first political party to raise this as an issue, we will continue to fight hard for the NHS to be exempted from this Free Trade Agreement.
NHS austerity is set to continue for at least another 5 years so that the funding gap could be between £44-54 billion by 2020-21. Worse still, the Treasury has clawed back £5bn of the NHS budget over the last 3 years, whilst still trying to claim that NHS spending has not fallen in real terms. The NHS will not be able to cope with this level of cuts and service failure is inevitable. It is already happening in places and that is precisely what this Government wants to happen to allow their privatisation plans to flourish.
Successful public services "crowd out" the private sector, whereas "failing" public services are seen as ripe for privatisation. NHS failures such as the Mid Staffs scandal have undermined public confidence in the NHS. The right wing media is constantly denigrating the NHS to soften up the public to swallow the privatisation pill.
Whilst we must accept that the NHS is far from perfect and there have been unacceptable patches of poor care in the system, we need to expose the real reasons for the problems in the NHS: chronic underfunding, constant re-disorganisations, and 30 years of a failed market in healthcare with the purchaser-provider split, which has separated General Practice from Hospital care and massively increased administration costs gulping up to 10% of total NHS budget.
The NHS needs restoring and improving, not dismantling and privatising. In early 2014 we will launch our new 12 point plan for the NHS, which will keep it in public hands, reverse privatisation, increase accountability, increase the focus on public health, and reject economic austerity, which is so damaging to the health of our economy and population. We will also be announcing our plans for the European elections in May 2014.
Meanwhile, here is some information about what our NHS does for the nation, which will help to put all the bad news stories in context:
The NHS manages over 1 million patients every 36 hours
The NHS deals with 15 million admissions per year (41,500 patients admitted every day)
The NHS performs over 10 million operations per year
There are over 300 million GP consultations per year
The NHS deals with 21.7 million Accident and Emergency cases per year (61,000 patients per day)
The NHS ranks as one of the most cost effective, equitable and efficient health services in the world
The NHS is amazing
The NHAP exists to defend the NHS as a public service and will never give up on it. It was a precious gift to our nation following the war effort, and it would be a travesty to lose it. Our committee and staff are absolutely committed and continue to fight hard, but we need your help and continued support if we are going to make a real difference.
Please help us by forwarding this e-mail and encouraging your friends and colleagues to join us, or at least follow us on social media. DONATE if you can. Please spread the word about the National Health Action Party and help us help the NHS.
We wish you a very Happy Christmas and New Year
The Executive Committee of the NHAP
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,571
Always been of the opinion its the slow process to privatisation
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Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Flashman .......2010.......I will not change the NHS.......NHS is safe in our hands................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7,000 key NHS clinical staff made redundant amid enforced cuts
Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA, says £20bn savings drive to blame, as doctors and nurses are made redundant
Department of Health has disclosed that 4,620 frontline staff were made compulsorily redundant between 2010-11. Photograph Bernardo Bucci/Corbis
An "arbitrary" straitjacket on the NHS's budget by Whitehall is leading to job losses, recruitment freezes and inadequate care for patients, the leader of the country's doctors warns on Tuesday.
Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association, said forcing the NHS in England to make £20bn of "efficiency gains" by 2015 at a time of rising demand for healthcare was wrong and damaging.
Porter was speaking to the Guardian after the Department of Health (DH) admitted that 7,060 NHS clinical staff, such as doctors and nurses, have been made redundant since the coalition took power in 2010, at the same time as David Cameron was pledging to protect the service's frontline from cuts.
Responding to a freedom of information request, the DH disclosed that 4,620 frontline staff were made compulsorily redundant between 2010-11 and 2012-13, and a further 2,430 voluntarily redundant.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
1489
so if we were not in the eu the problem would not occur.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,571
the argument continues,,,,,,
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Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Flashman........2010.....I will not change the NHS......NHS is safe in our hands .....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A call from the midwife: Why I am resigning after 10 years in the NHS
Exhausted, demoralised and fearful, one midwife has had enough of being the public face of a system that is moving away from high-quality care
Having a baby is a concerning time for any woman, but the experience of most mothers today is a far cry from the scenes of deprivation and tragedy depicted in Call the Midwives
NHS maternity services are high-tech and generally first rate. Women are offered a range of safe options for childbirth and most have a positive experience.
However, things are beginning to change - with a range of pressures making the work of midwives ever more challenging, unrewarding, and potentially dangerous for patients.
Many women now have additional needs in pregnancy which were not as prevalent in the past. This is due to a combination of factors, including some women getting pregnant when they have other illnesses (when they previously would not have been able to conceive), an increasing rate of obesity in pregnant women, and other mothers opting to have children at an older age.
As such, it is not just a change in the birth rate that increases the work load for midwives, but the management of the array of needs for each individual woman. However, we have been aware for some time that there is a shortage of nearly 5,000 full time midwives in the UK and I wanted to explain the effects of this.
As a midwife in an NHS hospital, I work on a joint antenatal and postnatal ward with capacity for 28 women and up to 16 babies. This includes women immediately out of theatre from a caesarean section and pre-term babies that need extra care. Often on night shifts, due to understaffing, there are only two midwives and one or two maternity auxiliary support workers to care for a constantly full ward.
This means that if there is an emergency, which can happen in childbirth, the limited staff must manage it, and so nobody else is available to support all the other women. I love supporting women to breastfeed but in this environment I am rarely able to spend the time at a woman's side.
Due to understaffing I regularly work for nearly 13 hours without a break, even though I know I should take one. The workload is so high that I know that if I do not complete a task for a woman, there is no one to do it. These tasks are essential to maintain the safety of women and their babies.
In our NHS Trust - as in many others - we have a deficit of millions of pounds, and so there is no opportunity to hire any more midwives. If a midwife is sick, we are not able to replace them, and the remaining midwives cover the work load. As this situation persists, the extra pressure means that more midwives become unwell and the problem can only get worse.
I cannot care for each woman individually when I have so many under my care. I find it nearly impossible to give safe, high-quality care to women and their babies when I have so many others to care for. I cannot always be compassionate and kind when I am hungry and tired from not being relieved by another member of staff. This is personally devastating, as it is caring for women, giving safe and high-quality care and being compassionate that first inspired me to be a midwife.
The reality of my work is that I am often left exhausted, frustrated and dissatisfied so that I am not able to do the good job that I know I am capable of doing.
I also face the disappointment and complaints from the public when I am not able to meet their expectations. I now go in to work with a fear that the safety of patients will become compromised and someone will be harmed. I regularly fear the loss of my midwifery PIN registration from factors out of my control.
It is widely known how understaffed we are, both locally and nationally, but with no capacity to hire more staff I do not know what we can do to make a change. We are not a workforce with the power to strike - who would deliver babies then? The last thing any midwife would do would be to intentionally compromise the safety of women,
The fact that there is a pay freeze for midwives - with increases capped at 1 per cent - only serves to demoralise hard-working staff further.
I am extremely upset that my only solution seems to be to resign as a midwife and leave a job that I love and I know I am good at. I have been a loyal and dedicated frontline worker in the NHS for over 10 years but enough is enough. I understand this worsens the staffing situation but I cannot work like this any longer - exhausted, frustrated and in fear.
I cannot bear to be the face of a service as it moves away from high-quality care for women, their babies and their families. I only hope that by writing this call-out from a midwife, I can inspire some public support for midwives and changes can be made so even more experienced staff don't leave.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,571
Such a great shame
over the years because of the creeping privatisation of the NHS we are seeing good staff chucking in the towel
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Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
UK has fewer doctors per person than Bulgaria and Estonia
The UK has fewer working doctors per head of population than almost all other EU countries, according to EC statistics
Some senior NHS doctors are claiming more than £150,000 in overtime to care for patients out of hours, it has been disclosed.
Dr Paul Flynn, Chair of the British Medical Association Consultants Committee, said: "Policy makers need to get a grip on NHS workforce planning."
The UK has fewer working doctors per head of population than almost all other EU countries, according to statistics branded "extremely worrying" by unions.
Experts called on the government to "get a grip" after European Commission figures showed the UK had 2.71 practising doctors for every 1,000 people - fewer than countries including Bulgaria, Estonia and Latvia.
The UK ranked 24th out of the 27 European nations, only beating Slovenia, Romania and Poland according to the data, published by the EU Commission as part of its 'Eurostat regional yearbook 2013'
Full story Telegraph.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,571
Time to sort it out
and decide do we want a NHS
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Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,571
I dont get time to read long articles brian
so most of that gets missed on me
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
other countries may have more doctors as they don't pay so high as the u.k.
i believe many of our g.p's earn in the region of a 100 grand.