[tb]

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Sun Nov 13, 2011 12:18 pm  

You charge the taxpayer £X for managing the hospital, you make sure you spend (a lot) less than £X providing the service.


(look at the history of Independent Treatment Centres under the last government - contracts stipulated that the centres would be paid for a minimum number of procedures, whether they actually carried them out or not, so the NHS ended up paying private companies for operations that were never carried out)

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Sun Nov 13, 2011 1:40 pm  

tb wrote:

You charge the taxpayer £X for managing the hospital, you make sure you spend (a lot) less than £X providing the service.


(look at the history of Independent Treatment Centres under the last government - contracts stipulated that the centres would be paid for a minimum number of procedures, whether they actually carried them out or not, so the NHS ended up paying private companies for operations that were never carried out)

Your bit in brackets highlights the perfectly ludicrous scenario of trying to make profit from healthcare, a rather unique industry where the provider, and wage-payer, does not know what is going to walk through the door in the next five minutes but has to be prepared and able to cope with armageddon within those five minutes.

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Sun Nov 13, 2011 2:52 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

Your bit in brackets highlights the perfectly ludicrous scenario of trying to make profit from healthcare, a rather unique industry where the provider, and wage-payer, does not know what is going to walk through the door in the next five minutes but has to be prepared and able to cope with armageddon within those five minutes.

Which obviously makes a company that has so far managed to rack up year-on-year losses from running a designer "hospital" in Bath, the perfect vehicle to deliver superb A&E services and general healthcare in a hospital in Cambridgeshire. At least both are used to running at a loss, I can see the synergies

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Nov 14, 2011 8:15 am  

You could put the whole GDP into the NHS and it still would not be enough. Somehow you have to decide how best to use the resources available. This moral dilema will divide everyone on here and in country depending upon their personal circumstances.

It is possible to make profits from private hospitals where procedures are chosen, planned and financed appropriately, BUPA and Nuffield seem to make these work. However in a situation where you are obliged to undertake anything that makes things more difficult. A&E is an issue due to the abuses it suffers, how you stop that I am not sure but if people can wait 4 hours to be seen that doesn't seem to be an emergency?

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Nov 14, 2011 8:17 am  

tb wrote:

You charge the taxpayer £X for managing the hospital, you make sure you spend (a lot) less than £X providing the service.


(look at the history of Independent Treatment Centres under the last government - contracts stipulated that the centres would be paid for a minimum number of procedures, whether they actually carried them out or not, so the NHS ended up paying private companies for operations that were never carried out)

But if £x is less than the hospital was costing previously this is a win win for all.

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Nov 14, 2011 8:42 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

But if £x is less than the hospital was costing previously this is a win win for all.

Even the patients?

I seriously doubt that

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:36 am  

cod'ead wrote:

Even the patients?

I seriously doubt that

I think it is pretty evident that the waste in the NHS is not clinical but administrational - these types of initiatives should help to improve this position.

Will that affect patient care - unlikely. The problem comes if you reduce the clinical side and keep all the admin then patient care suffers.

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:44 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

I think it is pretty evident that the waste in the NHS is not clinical but administrational - these types of initiatives should help to improve this position.

Do you really think those in the administration side are going to cut their own jobs? Really?
What will get cut is patient care and frontline staff wages.

[tb]

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:45 am  

Sal Paradise wrote: I think it is pretty evident that the waste in the NHS is not clinical but administrational - these types of initiatives should help to improve this position. Will that affect patient care - unlikely. The problem comes if you reduce the clinical side and keep all the admin then patient care suffers. In fact the NHS (and the public sector generally) has a lower manager/admin to 'coalface' workers ratio than the private sector. And, despite the introduction of an artificial internal market by the 1979-1997 government, continued by the last Labour government, transaction costs are lower than in a private market between private companies. Administrative 'waste' is a myth … see the Commonwealth Fund report reference in the link below A doctor blogs btw - 'administration' is a key part of clinical care: without records how do doctors, nurses, physios, etc know what to do?

Sal Paradise wrote: I think it is pretty evident that the waste in the NHS is not clinical but administrational - these types of initiatives should help to improve this position. Will that affect patient care - unlikely. The problem comes if you reduce the clinical side and keep all the admin then patient care suffers. In fact the NHS (and the public sector generally) has a lower manager/admin to 'coalface' workers ratio than the private sector. And, despite the introduction of an artificial internal market by the 1979-1997 government, continued by the last Labour government, transaction costs are lower than in a private market between private companies. Administrative 'waste' is a myth … see the Commonwealth Fund report reference in the link below A doctor blogs btw - 'administration' is a key part of clinical care: without records how do doctors, nurses, physios, etc know what to do?

Re: Privatisation of NHS hospitals begins : Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:06 am  

tb wrote: In fact the NHS (and the public sector generally) has a lower manager/admin to 'coalface' workers ratio than the private sector. And, despite the introduction of an artificial internal market by the 1979-1997 government, continued by the last Labour government, transaction costs are lower than in a private market between private companies. Administrative 'waste' is a myth … see the Commonwealth Fund report reference in the link below A doctor blogs btw - 'administration' is a key part of clinical care: without records how do doctors, nurses, physios, etc know what to do? Yeah but does that really happen in the real, real world?

tb wrote: In fact the NHS (and the public sector generally) has a lower manager/admin to 'coalface' workers ratio than the private sector. And, despite the introduction of an artificial internal market by the 1979-1997 government, continued by the last Labour government, transaction costs are lower than in a private market between private companies. Administrative 'waste' is a myth … see the Commonwealth Fund report reference in the link below A doctor blogs btw - 'administration' is a key part of clinical care: without records how do doctors, nurses, physios, etc know what to do? Yeah but does that really happen in the real, real world?