Labour sets out more detail on pledge to cut NHS waiting lists
Hospitals would be expected to pool staff and share waiting lists as part of a Labour drive to deliver an extra 40,000 NHS appointments a week.
Under the plans, hospitals will run evening and weekend surgeries, with staff and resources pooled across a region.
Pooling sounds like some kind of punishment regime for recalcitrant staff, but probably refers to an NHS vapourware scheme which won't survive the election.
It probably won't even survive "Sir" Keir Starmer's next opportunity to kneel before another progressive totem. With all that kneeling, his political trousers must take some punishment, but we won't go into that.
5 comments:
If it is sensible and produces a positive outcome - why are we not doing it already?
If it is sensible but produces a negative outcome - why are we thinking of doing it at all.
Or perhaps Labour think that the idea of working shifts will be easier in winning over nurses and striking doctors because 'Labour' are 'the good guys'?
Jog on.
Sooo. The NHS will require a super new umbrella department looking at the instantaneous demand - sick damaged people needing help - as well as the instantaneous resources - medical staff, wards and operating facilities - and matching both minute by minute. Hospitals will need teams of people compiling these demand and resources data and deciding which, considering their own financial benefit, they will forward to the umbrella. Will they volunteer their best staff and high profit healthy patients to be exported? Hmm.
Up until now the policy of NHS managers, following Parkinson's Law, has been to eliminate a multitude of local hospitals (for local people) with few managers and build super duper huge blocks, mainly in congested city centres. Which seem to be infection - bacterial, fungal, viral - incubators.
This new policy is good because it will need many many more managers with concomitant minions, offices, carpet etc.
The ministry of health, or whatever it's current trendy name is, will need more civil servants to do whatever it is they do. More offices, carpet etc.
The inter- city highways will have increased numbers of consultants, who cannot be paid less for travelling and eating rather than operating, and more ambulances with highly skilled crew, carrying patients to distant operating facilities. All using EVs as battery powered transport is now called.
Of course NHS Legal Departments will be busier when blame is now shared among multiple hospitals and the umbrella department when the inevitable tragedies occur.
This all a Good Thing because all this extra pointless effort will require "funding" and because of the weird way we measure economic advancement, will boost our GDP.
Plus Honours and bonuses all round.
We're fooked.
After a four year gap when nothing happened and it was impossible to contact my consultant, the NHS started taking an interest in my case again. (I think registering with a new GP put me in a new Health Authority.) They have handed me over to the private sector, who are actually getting things done and booked me an operation. I know little about health provision funding, but I think these guys get paid per treatment, rather than how many patients they have registered.
If I were Starmer, I 'd give that a lot of deep thought.
DJ - there is a tinge of competition about it which probably explains why it isn't routine even though it is done to a limited extent already. It is easy to imagine Sir Humphrey -
"A courageous idea Minister, but with some unfortunate and expensive technical barriers."
Doonhamer - spot on, that's what will happen under Starmer and will probably happen even if they don't bother much with shunting patients around. Armies of people who don't even know how to open a box of plasters but they do know how to sit round a table, plan and churn out reports and data proving how underfunded they are. That's when they aren't working from home of course.
Sam - good news, I hope all goes well. If Starmer realises or already knows about quietly shunting patients to the private sector, then it is possible he'll go with it as a way to bring down waiting lists. He'll have to tackle the ideology though, which he seems to share. There is a cost too of course.
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