Brexit - Post Match Reaction

[whelk]

17 hours ago, egg said:

What's done is done, and it hasn't gone well. I voted leave and rue the the day that I did. Naive doesn't come close.

The issue now is how and when the serious discussion begins about rejoining. 

I think that applies to a lot of people. Populist charlatans have had a go across many countries and the electorate seem largely to be working out that a lot easy to tell people what they want to hear but reality is all empty promises when they get a chance to deliver.

Media has lot to answer for constantly hammering simplistic messages. Loads wrong with the world but frauds like Johnson and Trump aren’t the ones to fix it. I see the Mail is banging on about taking an axe to NHS bureaucracy today. These cuts never hurt services they are just correcting and making efficient by taking out wasteful non-jobs. 

[egg]

33 minutes ago, whelk said:

I think that applies to a lot of people. Populist charlatans have had a go across many countries and the electorate seem largely to be working out that a lot easy to tell people what they want to hear but reality is all empty promises when they get a chance to deliver.

Media has lot to answer for constantly hammering simplistic messages. Loads wrong with the world but frauds like Johnson and Trump aren’t the ones to fix it. I see the Mail is banging on about taking an axe to NHS bureaucracy today. These cuts never hurt services they are just correcting and making efficient by taking out wasteful non-jobs. 

Yep, but none of that relates to people whining about how bad it is/a decision was etc but offering nothing in terms of what they see as a solution. 

On the NHS, an axe to the bureaucracy is the tip of the iceberg imo. I foresee private healthcare and health insurance as boom industries in the nearish future. 

Edited 20 November, 2022 by egg

[badgerx16]

21 hours ago, Guided Missile said:

Echo Chamber.

Empty vessels make the most noise.

[whelk]

1 hour ago, egg said:

Yep, but none of that relates to people whining about how bad it is/a decision was etc but offering nothing in terms of what they see as a solution. 

On the NHS, an axe to the bureaucracy is the tip of the iceberg imo. I foresee private healthcare and health insurance as boom industries in the nearish future. 

Maybe learn from shit voting decisions next time?

[egg]

17 minutes ago, whelk said:

Maybe learn from shit voting decisions next time?

Not that simple. That won't change a thing until there is the possibility of a next time on brexit. On the domestic front, the masses voted for this Tory machine. Hopefully labour will make policy decisions which offer us a decent alternative. 

[badgerx16]

11 minutes ago, egg said:

......the masses voted for this Tory machine.

Well, 29% of the Electorate did.

[RedArmy]

21 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Well, 29% of the Electorate did.

44% of voters. If 71% of the electorate didn’t want a Tory government, then they should have got off their arses and voted rather than moan for the next 5 years. 
 

The problem was Labour were still infested with momentum scabs, and had one of the most unelectable shadow cabinets the country has ever seen. Even the red wall rejected it. 

[badgerx16]

15 minutes ago, RedArmy said:

44% of voters. If 71% of the electorate didn’t want a Tory government, then they should have got off their arses and voted rather than moan for the next 5 years. 
 

The problem was Labour were still infested with momentum scabs, and had one of the most unelectable shadow cabinets the country has ever seen. Even the red wall rejected it. 

No, the problem is an unrepresentative electoral system where 54% of the votes cast are not cast for the Government that ends up with a massive majority. And just to be clear, this applies as much to the Tony Blair Governments as to the Tories. Another flaw in the current system is that the right of British politics is reasonably united under the Conservative banner, although it is at times an uneasy alliance, whilst the centerist and left of centre vote is split between the LDs and Labour, and further diluted by the Scots and Welsh nationalists, with interference also coming from the Greens. There is almost certainly a centre-left of centre bias in British politics, but without a proportional system it struggles to get a voice.

And the Red Wall vote at the last GE was more about either side's stance on Brexit, as most of those seats had strong Leave votes.

Edited 20 November, 2022 by badgerx16

[egg]

37 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Well, 29% of the Electorate did.

Whichever stat you pick, enough to leave us stuck with them. 

[badgerx16]

10 minutes ago, egg said:

Whichever stat you pick, enough to leave us stuck with them. 

I just get annoyed by people claiming that the Government was elected by a majority, or that the result of a GE shows the "Voice of the People". It is at best disingenuous, at worst shows an ignorance of the reality of UK politics.

[moonraker]

4 hours ago, egg said:

Yep, but none of that relates to people whining about how bad it is/a decision was etc but offering nothing in terms of what they see as a solution. 

On the NHS, an axe to the bureaucracy is the tip of the iceberg imo. I foresee private healthcare and health insurance as boom industries in the nearish future. 

Anyone who believes there is to much bureaucracy in the NHS needs to take a detailed look at the US health care system.  The very high costs of treatment are in large part due to the high administrative burden required to ensure every penny is recouped from patients.  A friend recently required an emergency appendectomy, it cost $45,000, the very first procedure they underwent was to have a bar code stamped on each arm.  To ensure every element of their treatment was recorded and billed.  Add to this the influence and power of commercial pharmaceutical companies and the non clinical cost element is far greater than that of the NHS.  

Edited 20 November, 2022 by moonraker

[egg]

1 hour ago, badgerx16 said:

I just get annoyed by people claiming that the Government was elected by a majority, or that the result of a GE shows the "Voice of the People". It is at best disingenuous, at worst shows an ignorance of the reality of UK politics.

You can't help your cause by cherry picking stats though. Nearly 44% of app votes cast were for the Tories,  which was about 40% more than labour got. To dilute that to the electorate is at best disingenuous, and shows a disregard for our system. The  fptp system is flawed, but the spread of the vote left the Tories with a massive majority, even if you choose to dilute their vote. 

[egg]

8 minutes ago, moonraker said:

Anyone who believes there is to much bureaucracy in the NHS needs to take a detailed look at the US health care system.  The very high costs of treatment are in large part due to the high administrative burden required to ensure every penny is recouped from patients.  A friend recently required an emergency appendectomy, it cost $45,000, the very first procedure they underwent was to have a bar code stamped on each arm.  To ensure every element of their treatment was recorded and billed.  Add to this the influence and power of commercial pharmaceutical companies and the non clinical cost element is far greater than that of the NHS.  

The bureaucracy and waste is mental. Something like £25 in total cost for a pack of prescription paracetamol. Just give them away, don't have layers if people being paid to distribute them - i.e. a GP to sign off the script, admin staff to process, then the pharmacist, then pharmacy staff processing their claim to the NHS, then their staff doing their bit, etc. There's wholesale waste across the system, and it's structure. 

Edited 20 November, 2022 by egg

[badgerx16]

1 minute ago, egg said:

You can't help your cause by cherry picking stats though. Nearly 44% of app votes cast were for the Tories,  which was about 40% more than labour got. To dilute that to the electorate is at best disingenuous, and shows a disregard for our system. The  fptp system is flawed, but the spread of the vote left the Tories with a massive majority, even if you choose to dilute their vote. 

Which is why I posted the second point on how the right of UK politics is generally represented as a single entity, whilst the centre and centre-left, which probably has more support, is fragmented. FPTP benefits the Tories provided they can show a united facade.

[Lord Duckhunter]

2 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

Which is why I posted the second point on how the right of UK politics is generally represented as a single entity, whilst the centre and centre-left, which probably has more support, is fragmented. FPTP benefits the Tories provided they can show a united facade.

The Tories aren’t on the right. They may talk the talk, but when it comes to any meaningful polices they’re Blairites. Cameron was more comfortable with his Lib Dem coalition partners than he ever was with the membership. Most of their MP’s would be in a Liberal party if we had PR. 

Edited 20 November, 2022 by Lord Duckhunter

[sadoldgit]

17 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

The Tories aren’t on the right. They may talk the talk, but when it comes to any meaningful polices they’re Blairites. Cameron was more comfortable with his Lib Dem coalition partners than he ever was with the membership. Most of their MP’s would be in a Liberal party if we had PR. 

On what Planet are people like Braverman and Patel Blairites?  They and  Raab and Williamson are far more comfortable in a pair of jackboots and are about as liberal as Attila the Hun.

[badgerx16]

55 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

The Tories aren’t on the right. They may talk the talk, but when it comes to any meaningful polices they’re Blairites. Cameron was more comfortable with his Lib Dem coalition partners than he ever was with the membership. Most of their MP’s would be in a Liberal party if we had PR. 

You may view some of the MPs as Blairite, but my point was about the voters, not the Parliamentary party. However, if those electing 'Blairite' MPs are themselves more centreist, ( as indeed many would have been for the first 2 New Labour victories ), then this supports my suggestion that the predominant political view being centerist/centre-left.

Edited 20 November, 2022 by badgerx16

[Tamesaint]

44 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

The Tories aren’t on the right. They may talk the talk, but when it comes to any meaningful polices they’re Blairites. Cameron was more comfortable with his Lib Dem coalition partners than he ever was with the membership. Most of their MP’s would be in a Liberal party if we had PR. 

...and we have a late contender for nonsense post of the year.

Soggy has already pointed out that the likes of Braverman, Patel , Raab and Williamson are as liberal as Attila the Hun. To that list could be added the likes of Redwood , Cash, Dorries, McEvoy, Bridgen etc etc. God knows what a true right winger would look like in Duckie's eyes.

 

[saint1977]

The Bruges Group and ERG foaming at the mouth today at the front pager in the Times and Beth Rigby’s tweet about Sunak and Hunt looking at negotiating more of Swiss/Norway model. It’s what Vote Leave proposed during the campaign but as soon as they got a scent of victory it was a push for the hardest and most economically and socially destructive and regressive Brexit. That would work for everyone - UK wasn’t keen on the integrative and political part of the EU but only the loons that obsess about the ECHR. The public for the most part just want decent public services and being back in the SM pays for them, reduces debts so taxes can come down a bit. Businesses can export again with more much less friction and start taking on more people, get us out of recession. 

[saint1977]

5 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

No, the problem is an unrepresentative electoral system where 54% of the votes cast are not cast for the Government that ends up with a massive majority. And just to be clear, this applies as much to the Tony Blair Governments as to the Tories. Another flaw in the current system is that the right of British politics is reasonably united under the Conservative banner, although it is at times an uneasy alliance, whilst the centerist and left of centre vote is split between the LDs and Labour, and further diluted by the Scots and Welsh nationalists, with interference also coming from the Greens. There is almost certainly a centre-left of centre bias in British politics, but without a proportional system it struggles to get a voice.

And the Red Wall vote at the last GE was more about either side's stance on Brexit, as most of those seats had strong Leave votes.

Labour and Lib Dems have to get smarter about squeezing the Tory vote in marginals and other target seats. Voters are getting smarter about tactical voting as they were in the 1990s and 2000s but the parties need to compete with the Tories and their dodgy donors by agreeing where to invest their campaign funding more strategically. Stay separate as parties but recognise the rise of populism in the Conservative movement and Trump means they have to be forced into reforming and cleaning themselves up as Labour had to in the 1980s by a long spell in opposition. 

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

The Tories aren’t on the right. They may talk the talk, but when it comes to any meaningful polices they’re Blairites. Cameron was more comfortable with his Lib Dem coalition partners than he ever was with the membership. Most of their MP’s would be in a Liberal party if we had PR. 

Your regular reminder that David Cameron stopped being Prime Minister in 2016, just the 6 and a half years ago now. And that party got purged of non believers in 2019.

Duckie is like a washed up old Communist whining on that everything would be brilliant, honest it would, but its never been done properly. No one has ever tried it. Not really tried it. Next time there's an 80 seat majority. Next time.

 

 

[Lord Duckhunter]

2 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Most of their MP’s would be in a Liberal party if we had PR. 

 

1 hour ago, sadoldgit said:

On what Planet are people like Braverman and Patel Blairites?  They and  Raab and Williamson are far more comfortable in a pair of jackboots and are about as liberal as Attila the Hun.

Soggy failing to understand the meaning of “most”. 
 

What have these “Right wing” jackboot wearing nazis done that is in anyway conservative. As I said they talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. The first Osborne budget could have been written by Alister Darling, and they done nothing since to deviate from that path. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

As for Brexit, if we’d have left it to , Redwood, Cash and the rest of the Tory leavers , they’d still be arguing about sub section c of regulation 3.7 or some other pony. 

[whelk]

1 hour ago, saint1977 said:

The Bruges Group and ERG foaming at the mouth today at the front pager in the Times and Beth Rigby’s tweet about Sunak and Hunt looking at negotiating more of Swiss/Norway model. It’s what Vote Leave proposed during the campaign but as soon as they got a scent of victory it was a push for the hardest and most economically and socially destructive and regressive Brexit. That would work for everyone - UK wasn’t keen on the integrative and political part of the EU but only the loons that obsess about the ECHR. The public for the most part just want decent public services and being back in the SM pays for them, reduces debts so taxes can come down a bit. Businesses can export again with more much less friction and start taking on more people, get us out of recession. 

Just a cursory look at this should tell them what voters think

 

[moonraker]

3 hours ago, whelk said:

Just a cursory look at this should tell them what voters think

 

Sadly the ERG and the arch Brexiteers are not interested in what most people think. They fooled them once and they are playing on that.  They have Covid and Russia to blame for the shitshow we are now living.  I am ever hopeful that enough of the British electorate will see them for the biggest bunch of charlatans and traitors they are, self interest and personal wealth is their only motivation.

[Tamesaint]

15 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

 

 

What have these “Right wing” jackboot wearing nazis done that is in anyway conservative. As I said they talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk.

You really don't half talk some twaddle. Were you pissed when you came out with this classic?

Where in the Lib Dem policies is advocating the removal of asylum seekers to Africa? Which Lib Dem MP's want the top rate of income tax reduced to 40% etc etc.

 Hope you keep your jackboots clean.

Edited 21 November, 2022 by Tamesaint

[Fan The Flames]

22 hours ago, egg said:

Yep, but none of that relates to people whining about how bad it is/a decision was etc but offering nothing in terms of what they see as a solution. 

On the NHS, an axe to the bureaucracy is the tip of the iceberg imo. I foresee private healthcare and health insurance as boom industries in the nearish future. 

So you've gone from believing one simple solution, which has failed. To believing another.

To provide proper healthcare you need more than just clinicians, you need maintenance, cleaners, security, lab technicians, drivers, medical record clerks..... they all need managing, which is the bureaucracy that some people rail against.

The biggest issue in the NHS is the lack of training during the Tory years. But hey lets get rid of managers and get the nurses to waste hours of their day ordering supplies, monitoring the cleaning and managing the reroofing on the hospital.

[egg]

26 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

So you've gone from believing one simple solution, which has failed. To believing another.

To provide proper healthcare you need more than just clinicians, you need maintenance, cleaners, security, lab technicians, drivers, medical record clerks..... they all need managing, which is the bureaucracy that some people rail against.

The biggest issue in the NHS is the lack of training during the Tory years. But hey lets get rid of managers and get the nurses to waste hours of their day ordering supplies, monitoring the cleaning and managing the reroofing on the hospital.

My main point was that an attempt to address bureaucracy in the NHS is the tip of the iceberg, and that I anticipate private healthcare and the related insurance as boom industries. That's not an attack on the NHS from me, rather that an attack on the NHS from government is coming. Today's reports coming from Scotland suggests that we are on that path already.

Those running and working within the NHS need to appreciate that there is no more money, and that they've gotta make savings and improve efficiency. You're not seriously suggesting that there is no slack in the system and that money can't be saved? I've worked in the civil service and the level of waste is a disgrace. People spend other people's money and don't give a monkeys. It's not the number of managers that matter, it's about having people and a system that does things efficiently. 

[saint1977]

CBI conference today set to apply further pressure on the Tories FoM stupidity. You can’t let an economy shrink because a minority of the public are bigoted and uneducated (not everyone who voted leave obviously). Without a bigger economy, we can’t afford to invest in skills. Jenryk’s responses sound like the TUC of the 1970s https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63697458

Meanwhile the same bigots will read - assuming that they can read - more hyperbole from the Express and Mail https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-63697978

Those rags are basically saying ‘let’s protect something that doesn’t work, and is shrinking the economy and shafting the NHS because some of the public don’t like people with foreign names or different colour skin’.

Egg - not saying NHS can’t be more efficient, because it can, but the major issue is the 120k plus clinical and allied vacancies. Not having policies copied from Nigel Farage and Nick Griffin by the governing party mean there aren’t the staff to tackle waiting lists or get cancer patients the timely treatment and outpatient follow ups needed. That’s more important to the public than poxy net migration targets and it’s why they wanted to believe the lie on the side of the red bus about the mythical £350m extra for the NHS.

We cannot be dictated to by the ERG and a few seats full of people like Lee Anderson in the midlands and north. We can grow our skills base but it takes time, and some carrot and stick with the domestic workforce. Nursing for example is a masters level profession for example and we are seeing what happens in the news when the wrong people are recruited to it. Lab technicians in the commercial and public sectors are another shortage, dentists and dental technicians too. 

A bigger economy by a Swiss/Norway deal would enable a much bigger programme of skills and training so publics wouldn’t feel so resentful towards other people as they’d have access to better jobs.

 

Edited 21 November, 2022 by saint1977

[Fan The Flames]

11 hours ago, egg said:

My main point was that an attempt to address bureaucracy in the NHS is the tip of the iceberg, and that I anticipate private healthcare and the related insurance as boom industries. That's not an attack on the NHS from me, rather that an attack on the NHS from government is coming. Today's reports coming from Scotland suggests that we are on that path already.

Those running and working within the NHS need to appreciate that there is no more money, and that they've gotta make savings and improve efficiency. You're not seriously suggesting that there is no slack in the system and that money can't be saved? I've worked in the civil service and the level of waste is a disgrace. People spend other people's money and don't give a monkeys. It's not the number of managers that matter, it's about having people and a system that does things efficiently. 

You seem to agree that an axe to beurocracy isn't what's required, it's the beurocracy that helps run the show. It's these over simplistic ideas that gain hold and get us into a mess.

There's always fat that can be cut from a large organisation, but the fact is that the NHS consistently ranks in the top ten in the world for efficiency and is high in outcomes. The US consistently ranks 30+ places below the UK for efficiency with worse outcomes.

A single provider has good buying power and that is why the US health players would live to break the NHS up.

[saint1977]

Brilliant article by Simon Jenkins https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/21/rishi-sunak-brexit-plans-sensible-swiss-style-eu-deal

[badgerx16]

15 minutes ago, saint1977 said:

Brilliant article by Simon Jenkins https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/21/rishi-sunak-brexit-plans-sensible-swiss-style-eu-deal

This is also a good, ( or possibly depressing ), read;

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/18/europe-brexit-business-export-paperwork-british

[buctootim]

4 hours ago, Fan The Flames said:

You seem to agree that an axe to beurocracy isn't what's required, it's the beurocracy that helps run the show. It's these over simplistic ideas that gain hold and get us into a mess.

There's always fat that can be cut from a large organisation, but the fact is that the NHS consistently ranks in the top ten in the world for efficiency and is high in outcomes. The US consistently ranks 30+ places below the UK for efficiency with worse outcomes.

A single provider has good buying power and that is why the US health players would live to break the NHS up.

Exactly. Drug companies often charge extortionate prices for drugs because people are desperate and they can play hospital chains off against each other. That doesnt work in the UK with its huge unified buying power. When I was working in the NHS the prices we were charged for drugs were a fraction of what American hospitals paid. Literally a fraction, not 10 or 15% less but often 75-80% less.    

Edited 21 November, 2022 by buctootim

[buctootim]

16 hours ago, egg said:

My main point was that an attempt to address bureaucracy in the NHS is the tip of the iceberg, and that I anticipate private healthcare and the related insurance as boom industries. That's not an attack on the NHS from me, rather that an attack on the NHS from government is coming. Today's reports coming from Scotland suggests that we are on that path already.

Those running and working within the NHS need to appreciate that there is no more money, and that they've gotta make savings and improve efficiency. You're not seriously suggesting that there is no slack in the system and that money can't be saved? I've worked in the civil service and the level of waste is a disgrace. People spend other people's money and don't give a monkeys. It's not the number of managers that matter, it's about having people and a system that does things efficiently. 

Same old same old. Its all inefficient and other places do it better for less. If only it were private we could have the Golden Ticket. Really? Who? name them with objective measures and reports.   

There many assessments of healthcare efficiency and most of them place the NHS near the top, regardless of what measures used. A simple money spent versus life expectancy like the one below demonstrates what everybody who has managed in the health service knows - its damn good for the spend, especially given its catering to a largely obese unfit population. Yes it not as good as some others who spend a lot more, but some spend a lot more and achieve less. Germany, supposedly one of the best healthcare systems (as assessed  by those people who look at the shininess of the lobby and how nice the rooms and food is) spends 50% more than the UK on a PPP basis and achieves what with it? slightly worse life expectancy.

If you compare Britain to neighbouring countries who have broadly similar climates, dietary habits and gene pools - Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, maybe Ireland they all spend between 20% and 50% more and get life expectancy ranges from three months less to six months more at best.

The US based Commonwealth Fund produces a more sophisticated multi dimensional analysis and again the NHS performs better than the industrialised world average. Fatally for the 'inefficient innit' argument, on bang for the buck efficiency measures it outperforms all the healthcare systems which are often touted as the models we should aspire to. So what magic beans you going to replace it with? Certainly not Germany, France or Switzerland. 

By all means privatise it fully. This is like Brexit. People have been promised free unicorns and they want them.  I can tell you now what you'll actually get - an almost entirely imported workforce, world class treatment limited to the very rich and an overall bill for healthcare more than it is now, probably around 30% more.  The only other alternative is to force everybody to eat a low fat high fish mediterannean or Japanese / Korean / Icelandic type diet. Can't see that going down too well.           

 

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly

Edited 22 November, 2022 by buctootim

[badgerx16]

15 hours ago, egg said:

 I've worked in the civil service and the level of waste is a disgrace. People spend other people's money and don't give a monkeys. It's not the number of managers that matter, it's about having people and a system that does things efficiently. 

The Public Sector is not just the Civil Service, and much of it has been severely squeezed. This, in part, is causative to the issues with the NHS - Local Authority Social Services funds are squeezed, as a consequence Social Care for people leaving hospitals is oveloaded, meaning patients cannot be discharged, causing bed blocking.

This is one of the most immediate and visible consequences of the squeeze to get rid of the 'fat', 'inefficiencies', and 'non-jobs' - or to put it another way, right wing dogmatic bullshit.

 

 

[egg]

8 hours ago, buctootim said:

Same old same old. Its all inefficient and other places do it better for less. If only it were private we could have the Golden Ticket. Really? Who? name them with objective measures and reports.   

There many assessments of healthcare efficiency and most of them place the NHS near the top, regardless of what measures used. A simple money spent versus life expectancy like the one below demonstrates what everybody who has managed in the health service knows - its damn good for the spend, especially given its catering to a largely obese unfit population. Yes it not as good as some others who spend a lot more, but some spend a lot more and achieve less. Germany, supposedly one of the best healthcare systems (as assessed  by those people who look at the shininess of the lobby and how nice the rooms and food is) spends 50% more than the UK on a PPP basis and achieves what with it? slightly worse life expectancy.

If you compare Britain to neighbouring countries who have broadly similar climates, dietary habits and gene pools - Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, maybe Ireland they all spend between 20% and 50% more and get life expectancy ranges from three months less to six months more at best.

The US based Commonwealth Fund produces a more sophisticated multi dimensional analysis and again the NHS performs better than the industrialised world average. Fatally for the 'inefficient innit' argument, on bang for the buck efficiency measures it outperforms all the healthcare systems which are often touted as the models we should aspire to. So what magic beans you going to replace it with? Certainly not Germany, France or Switzerland. 

By all means privatise it fully. This is like Brexit. People have been promised free unicorns and they want them.  I can tell you now what you'll actually get - an almost entirely imported workforce, world class treatment limited to the very rich and an overall bill for healthcare more than it is now, probably around 30% more.  The only other alternative is to force everybody to eat a low fat high fish mediterannean or Japanese / Korean / Icelandic type diet. Can't see that going down too well.           

 

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly

That's a long way to say that other countries are more inefficient than we are. It doesn't alter that we can trim waste and be more efficient. 

[egg]

7 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

The Public Sector is not just the Civil Service, and much of it has been severely squeezed. This, in part, is causative to the issues with the NHS - Local Authority Social Services funds are squeezed, as a consequence Social Care for people leaving hospitals is oveloaded, meaning patients cannot be discharged, causing bed blocking.

This is one of the most immediate and visible consequences of the squeeze to get rid of the 'fat', 'inefficiencies', and 'non-jobs' - or to put it another way, right wing dogmatic bullshit.

 

 

Bed blocking is a real issue. Ditto staffing. I've never suggested otherwise. Still nothing to do with waste. The NHS can save money where they're able to. Nobody can expect them to save money where they can't. 

[buctootim]

6 hours ago, egg said:

That's a long way to say that other countries are more inefficient than we are. It doesn't alter that we can trim waste and be more efficient. 

Nope. It means that the countries you and your ilk say are better, aren't. You shoot for the stars though - replace what we have with a new perfect 100% efficient healthcare system that hitherto doesnt exist anywhere in the world. When it fails miserably you can blame the EU. Worked for Brexit.  

Edited 22 November, 2022 by buctootim

[buctootim]

3 minutes ago, buctootim said:

 

 

Edited 22 November, 2022 by buctootim
inefficent duplication

[Lord Duckhunter]

36 minutes ago, buctootim said:

Nope. It means that the countries you and your ilk say are better, aren't. You shoot for the stars though - replace what we have with a new perfect 100% efficient healthcare system that hitherto doesnt exist anywhere in the world. When it fails miserably you can blame the EU. Worked for Brexit.  

I’ve used the health device in France, Greece, Spain & The US. By far the worst service I’ve had is here at home. It’s easier to get a vet to see my dog than a Doctor to see a human. If you told people 30 years ago that by 2022 you couldn’t see an NHS dentist & the Doctor will ring you next Tuesday for a telephone conversation, they’d think you were nuts. 
 

A small example this week. Me and the SD went to the canneries last month & they had a calima. She suffered badly as she’s asthmatic and was still struggling 2 weeks later. 10 days (10 fucking days) after she first tried to see the Doc she finally got a prescription. She went to the chemist to pick it up and got into a conversation with her cousin who works behind the counter. The pharmacist over heard and came over. He advised her he was African and was used to her condition. He said the stuff the doc gave her was shite and wouldn’t do any good. He wrote down the name of a medicine and told her to go back to Docs and get this prescription instead. He said that in Europe a pharmacist could do that. She went to the doctor and gave the note to the Gestapo member on the desk, telling her can you give this to Doc and explained how the African pharmacist advised it. She refused saying “it doesn’t work like that”and she had to arrange another call. It was another week before another doc finally saw her again, and guess what? She agreed with the pharmacist and prescribed the said drug. That’s just one example that shows the pure fuckwittery, lack of common sense & time wasting that must go on day after day. Complete uselessness that doesn’t involve a lack of money. Just a lack of common sense & flexibility. 

Edited 22 November, 2022 by Lord Duckhunter

[egg]

38 minutes ago, buctootim said:

Nope. It means that the countries you and your ilk say are better, aren't. You shoot for the stars though - replace what we have with a new perfect 100% efficient healthcare system that hitherto doesnt exist anywhere in the world. When it fails miserably you can blame the EU. Worked for Brexit.  

It's delusional to believe that our NHS cannot be made more efficient and cost effective. There's waste from top to bottom. I don't agree with this government on much, but they're on the money when they say that public services waste money and need to get their act together. 

[trousers]

19 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I’ve used the health device in France, Greece, Spain & The US. By far the worst service I’ve had is here at home. It’s easier to get a vet to see my dog than a Doctor to see a human. If you told people 30 years ago that by 2022 you couldn’t see an NHS dentist & the Doctor will ring you next Tuesday for a telephone conversation, they’d think you were nuts. 
 

A small example this week. Me and the SD went to the canneries last month & they had a calima. She suffered badly as she’s asthmatic and was still struggling 2 weeks later. 10 days (10 fucking days) after she first tried to see the Doc she finally got a prescription. She went to the chemist to pick it up and got into a conversation with her cousin who works behind the counter. The pharmacist over heard and came over. He advised her he was African and was used to her condition. He said the stuff the doc gave her was shite and wouldn’t do any good. He wrote down the name of a medicine and told her to go back to Docs and get this prescription instead. He said that in Europe a pharmacist could do that. She went to the doctor and gave the note to the Gestapo member on the desk, telling her can you give this to Doc and explained how the African pharmacist advised it. She refused saying “it doesn’t work like that”and she had to arrange another call. It was another week before another doc finally saw her again, and guess what? She agreed with the pharmacist and prescribed the said drug. That’s just one example that shows the pure fuckwittery, lack of common sense & time wasting that must go on day after day. Complete uselessness that doesn’t involve a lack of money. Just a lack of common sense & flexibility. 

Yep, I could bore people to tears with similar examples of inflexibility and incompetance. Don't get me started on the farce of moving from one part of the country to another whilst under ongoing hospital care for a chronic condition (Crohn's disease in my case). The amount of time I (and they) wasted trying to sort out the lack of inter-hospital transfer process and complete absence of common-sense is eye-watering. If they got the simple things right they'd save oodles.

P.s. I've recently received my third reminder to have my flu and covid booster jabs (on sheets of paper in the post) when I've already had them many weeks ago. How much has that wasted if repeated across the board. None of this stuff is complicated. 

P.p.s. my sister-in-law is a senior nurse / site manager at an NHS hospital and gets as exasperated as I do about the inefficiencies, weak management, poor practices, lack of joined up processes, poor communications,  etc.

Edited 22 November, 2022 by trousers

[buctootim]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I’ve used the health device in France, Greece, Spain & The US. By far the worst service I’ve had is here at home. It’s easier to get a vet to see my dog than a Doctor to see a human. If you told people 30 years ago that by 2022 you couldn’t see an NHS dentist & the Doctor will ring you next Tuesday for a telephone conversation, they’d think you were nuts. 
 

A small example this week. Me and the SD went to the canneries last month & they had a calima. She suffered badly as she’s asthmatic and was still struggling 2 weeks later. 10 days (10 fucking days) after she first tried to see the Doc she finally got a prescription. She went to the chemist to pick it up and got into a conversation with her cousin who works behind the counter. The pharmacist over heard and came over. He advised her he was African and was used to her condition. He said the stuff the doc gave her was shite and wouldn’t do any good. He wrote down the name of a medicine and told her to go back to Docs and get this prescription instead. He said that in Europe a pharmacist could do that. She went to the doctor and gave the note to the Gestapo member on the desk, telling her can you give this to Doc and explained how the African pharmacist advised it. She refused saying “it doesn’t work like that”and she had to arrange another call. It was another week before another doc finally saw her again, and guess what? She agreed with the pharmacist and prescribed the said drug. That’s just one example that shows the pure fuckwittery, lack of common sense & time wasting that must go on day after day. Complete uselessness that doesn’t involve a lack of money. Just a lack of common sense & flexibility. 

I agree, its falling apart and the service has become unacceptable. That's a whole different issue from efficiency though. My point is solely that the problems in the NHS are not due to its own inefficiency they are due to telling it to do too much for the money available and in a nonsensical way. That is further compounded by a record high staff shortage due to covid / Brexit / low unemployment / disllusionment with work conditions. 

We either need to agree to ration / prioritise care and not do everything for everybody, including thing like in- vitro fertilisation, sex changes and full cure cancer treatments for 90 year olds. Or fund it at a much higher level commensurate with the kind of universal high quality care everybody says they want but arent prepared to pay for.        

 

 

Edited 22 November, 2022 by buctootim

[badgerx16]

It would help if the NHS was actually a single entity. Instead you have a myriad of Agencies, Trusts, Partnerships, etc, each of which will have it's own administration staff, contractual obligations - especially within the Internal Market, and strategic aims. Add to this the constant changes of course and funding formulae whenever a new Secretary of State is appointed, and you have the recipe for the mess we are now experiencing.

I used to work closely with the local Hospital Trust's IT unit - our networks were interconnected and each of us had co-located staff in the others' premises. They told me that they had 37 different points in their various IT systems where patient name, address, etc, had to be entered, and for many of those it was impossible to integrate the systems to automatically exchange the information. Hopefully this has improved in the last few years, but it is indicative of the internal problems that NHS staff have to deal with.

 

Also, the NHS has a low number of medical staff when compared to the health care systems in many other 'developed' countries.

[buctootim]

6 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Also, the NHS has a low number of medical staff when compared to the health care systems in many other 'developed' countries.

Especially this. Past health ministers have made the mistake of trying to solve recruitment and retention crises by paying higher salaries when what most doctors wants is to not feel constantly pressured, have more time with patients and to have more colleagues to share the load.   

Edited 22 November, 2022 by buctootim

[buctootim]

1 hour ago, egg said:

It's delusional to believe that our NHS cannot be made more efficient and cost effective. There's waste from top to bottom. I don't agree with this government on much, but they're on the money when they say that public services waste money and need to get their act together. 

Thats why I discount your opinion on this. The inefficiencies in the structure the NHS have to work under were introduced by the Tory party. They are responsible for the same inefficiences they now complain about. Supporting this government in its campaign of blame deflection is risible. 

When I started work for the NHS the health services in each district were funded by a block grant based on the age, wealth etc demographics of the local population. 99.5% of the money went to patient care. A small team of public health staff then monitored disease and health levels within that population.

The Tories introduced the internal market whereby health providers got paid for every procedure they did. Everything a healthcare professional did had to be coded and recorded and that data was then used to agree the basis of a contract between health authorities and the hospitals and GPs. Doctors and nurse practioners now spend up to 40% of their time on systems. Both hospitals and health authorities spend a fortune on Badger's IT systems and contract teams. All so that they can produce the data that inform the contracts that new staff groups now haggle with each other over. They also introduced arbitary targets based on PR about waiting times rather than clinical need. So now a 20 year old who thinks their freckle is too big has to be seen in the same timeframe and as a 50 year old with a big black obvious melanoma on his back. But yeah ofc. The Government is right and it's the NHS' fault that there are too many managers running the system that the Government insists they use.       

Edited 22 November, 2022 by buctootim

[egg]

50 minutes ago, buctootim said:

Thats why I discount your opinion on this. The inefficiencies in the structure the NHS have to work under were introduced by the Tory party. They are responsible for the same inefficiences they now complain about. Supporting this government in its campaign of blame deflection is risible. 

When I started work for the NHS the health services in each district were funded by a block grant based on the age, wealth etc demographics of the local population. 99.5% of the money went to patient care. A small team of public health staff then monitored disease and health levels within that population.

The Tories introduced the internal market whereby health providers got paid for every procedure they did. Everything a healthcare professional did had to be coded and recorded and that data was then used to agree the basis of a contract between health authorities and the hospitals and GPs. Doctors and nurse practioners now spend up to 40% of their time on systems. Both hospitals and health authorities spend a fortune on Badger's IT systems and contract teams. All so that they can produce the data that inform the contracts that new staff groups now haggle with each other over. They also introduced arbitary targets based on PR about waiting times rather than clinical need. So now a 20 year old who thinks their freckle is too big has to be seen in the same timeframe and as a 50 year old with a big black obvious melanoma on his back. But yeah ofc. The Government is right and it's the NHS' fault that there are too many managers running the system that the Government insists they use.       

You seem fixated on the politics, not the fix. I'm not interested on the blame game. There's waste in the NHS, and inefficiency. Let's agree to differ. 

[whelk]

You cannot rid any organisation easily of ‘waste’ as will often be cultural. Very simplistic and convenient in terms of scapegoating.

[whelk]

3 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I’ve used the health device in France, Greece, Spain & The US. By far the worst service I’ve had is here at home. It’s easier to get a vet to see my dog than a Doctor to see a human. If you told people 30 years ago that by 2022 you couldn’t see an NHS dentist & the Doctor will ring you next Tuesday for a telephone conversation, they’d think you were nuts. 
 

A small example this week. Me and the SD went to the canneries last month & they had a calima. She suffered badly as she’s asthmatic and was still struggling 2 weeks later. 10 days (10 fucking days) after she first tried to see the Doc she finally got a prescription. She went to the chemist to pick it up and got into a conversation with her cousin who works behind the counter. The pharmacist over heard and came over. He advised her he was African and was used to her condition. He said the stuff the doc gave her was shite and wouldn’t do any good. He wrote down the name of a medicine and told her to go back to Docs and get this prescription instead. He said that in Europe a pharmacist could do that. She went to the doctor and gave the note to the Gestapo member on the desk, telling her can you give this to Doc and explained how the African pharmacist advised it. She refused saying “it doesn’t work like that”and she had to arrange another call. It was another week before another doc finally saw her again, and guess what? She agreed with the pharmacist and prescribed the said drug. That’s just one example that shows the pure fuckwittery, lack of common sense & time wasting that must go on day after day. Complete uselessness that doesn’t involve a lack of money. Just a lack of common sense & flexibility. 

BS. Never happened 

[badgerx16]

Ex MP Owen Paterson, who campaigned for the UK to break from the European Court of Human Rights, is taking the UK Government to the ECHR over the investigation that found him guilty of breaking lobbying rules.