Senior health managers need to recruit, retain and motivate enough staff

The Department of Health and Social Care has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (117395):

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many senior managers in the NHS, including NHS Trusts and administrative bodies, earn over ÂŁ100,000 a year. (117395)

Tabled on: 06 January 2023

Answer:
Will Quince:

At NHS Trusts and other core organisations, between October 2021 and September 2022, 3,010 staff earnt over ÂŁ100,000. Furthermore, in the same time period, at NHS Support Organisations and Central Bodies, 500 staff earnt over that amount. All remuneration, including non-basic pay elements such as band supplements, medical awards, geographic allowances, local payments, on call payments, overtime, recommended retail prices, shift work payments and other payments, are included in this total.

The answer was submitted on 07 Feb 2023 at 14:30.

 

Comment

It is interesting that central bodies for the NHS employ 500 managers earning over £100,000. It makes the absence of a full manpower plan for so many months that much more difficult to understand, given the central importance of sufficient well motivated and rewarded personnel to run a good service. One of the prime tasks of well paid senior managers must be to recruit, retain, and motivate staff to deliver a good service. I continue to seek replies to questions on what use NHS managers are making of promotions, increments, pay gradings and the other flexibilities they have to reward and encourage good staff on their books and to switch away from the short term  contract model which so often forms part of their service response.

 

88 Comments

  1. Mark B
    February 10, 2023

    Good morning.

    Well done, Sir John. But what to do about it ? This problem of over paying people and not seeing the results one might expect and, nothing done about it has been a problem going back to the, Blair years.

    Perhaps a better questions aimed at the various Board Trusts who are, I would imagine, equally well paid, might be better ?

    I know of one former MP (Labour) and former Home Secretary who is making a nice living from one of these.

    1. Gary Megson
      February 10, 2023

      Brexit has caused many good workers to leave the UK, either because they were forced to or because they didn’t want to live in such an inward-looking country any longer. So the pool of workers is smaller. Supply of workers is reduced, demand has not changed, so we can’t fill vacancies and have to pay more to fill the ones we can fill. So the UK is much worse off. Brexit, economic stupidity. But hey, you knew what you were voting for, right?

      Reply Pay has gone up and the UK can invite in more if it wants. Most of us do not want more migration to keep wages down

      1. Shirley M
        February 10, 2023

        Why did over 6 million EU citizens remain in the UK and apply for settled status? Logic tells me that number far exceeds the numbers who went home. In any case, do we run our country and make decisions on behalf of UK citizens or EU citizens? Oops, a dodgy question. It certainly isn’t being run for the benefit of UK citizens.

        1. Ian wragg
          February 10, 2023

          I bet the net zero zealots are glad handing and backslappinfnow they’ve managed to chase Astra Zeneca I er to Ireland to build their new factory.
          Net zero by exporting all the well paid jobs.
          Oil companies not bidding for new licences due to penal tax rates in the UK

          Keep it up John oblivion is just around the corner

          1. Timaction
            February 10, 2023

            It’s the Governments tax policies including the 19 to 25% tax hike in Corporation tax driving Astra Zeneca’s decision to move to Ireland. As a share holder a wise decision. As a taxpayer in the net 46% paying for all the benevolence, I can’t think of a more stupid Government. Net zero will drive more manufacturers abroad for them to import those goods back here. More net stupid from the Tory’s. Fracking ban anyone? Get rid of our ice cars for…………virtue signalling. Good riddance Tory’s.

          2. glen cullen
            February 10, 2023

            Soon we’ll all be forced to purchase the Chinese £10k EV, made by prisoners, using materials mined by children, undercutting the costs of western OEMs manufacturers with a carbon footprint bigger than an ICE car 
and the battery will only last three years costing another £10k 
.life under the Tories

      2. Dave Andrews
        February 10, 2023

        It seems to me all the people who bleat about Brexit have stayed in this country, and not grasped the opportunity when they could to emigrate to their beloved EU.

      3. Original Richard
        February 10, 2023

        Gary Megson :

        You made this point concerning the NHS last month (13/01) and another regular poster to this site replied :

        “In June 2016, there were 58,702 NHS staff with a recorded EU nationality, and in June 2022 there were 70,735 – an apparent rise.
        22 Nov 2022 commonslibrary.parliament.uk”

        I would also add that I find it totally immoral for the UK to save money not training its own people and instead acquiring trained personnel from countries poorer than ourselves and far more in need of these people.

      4. a-tracy
        February 10, 2023

        This is not true Gary, there are more EU workers in the English NHS than before 2016.

        1. hefner
          February 10, 2023

          Have you accounted for the fact that prior to the 2016 referendum, people working for the NHS were not obliged to give their nationality? No, I guess not. And I had already made this point a couple of weeks ago.
          Now they have to declare their nationality and it is likely that the ‘additional’ 12k EU citizens working in the NHS had already been there in 2016. Therefore the apparent increase of EU workers in the English NHS. QED.

          1. dixie
            February 10, 2023

            Your proposal is not provable so you can’t even say it is “likely”.
            You offer zero evidence so the QED claim is mistaken and quite arrogant, but fully expected from a euphile.

          2. Narrow Shoulders
            February 11, 2023

            Even before 2016 all employees needed to show proof of identity and authorisation to work. Any responsible employer would have been collecting this data hef.

            I don’t think it is as cut and dried as you wish

          3. hefner
            February 16, 2023

            dixie, Given that there are about 6 millions of EU citizens in the UK including 3.4 millions (?) who got their settled status (implying that they had been in the UK for more than five years) I don’t think it was unreasonable to say that ‘it is likely that the additional 12k EU citizens’ were working for the NHS before 2016. But OK, QED might not have been appropriate.

            NS: For what I know, before the June 2016 referendum, one certainly had to justify their identity but ‘the authorisation to work’ was a much more fluid concept. For a lot of non-specialised jobs in hospitality, shop assistants, primary school teaching assistants, low-level service, and NHS residential carers, porters, and cleaners, I very much doubt that an ‘authorisation to work’ was specifically required given that EU citizens were supposed to have the same rights to work as the UK citizens.
            Before the referendum it might have been required by some employers, the same way as some landlords were already discriminating between UK citizens (good) and the others (bad).

        2. formula57
          February 10, 2023

          @ a-tracy – Gary does not do truth, just anti-Brexit.

          1. a-tracy
            February 10, 2023

            I’m just quoting government documents. If hefner has actual evidence from NHS employment statistics to disprove the gov.uk claim then why not provide it? The NHS would have undertaken checks on eligibility to work here, as an employer you have to check “Employers in the UK have a legal obligation to conduct basic checks on every UK based employee to verify if they have the required permission to work here. The checks must be carried out indiscriminately on ALL potential employees, regardless of their nationality, race, or ethnicity”. The NHS Employer will have all of these facts recorded, where people originated, who left after 2016. Then again the NHS workforce plans are none existant, John has been struggling to get hold of them for weeks.

      5. Narrow Shoulders
        February 10, 2023

        The pool is relatively large. Many have decided not to work, maybe the problem is the benefits and taxation system.

        There are plenty of potential workers out there they just need the right incentives, or in the case of disabled workers adjustments.

    2. Nottingham Lad Himself
      February 10, 2023

      Aw, it’s all those managers’ fault, and nothing to do with Tory England’s telling all those wonderful European Union staff to go back from where they came, is it?

      It’s not just about pay, it’s about the moral, social, and cultural ambience of a country, but those are invisible to some aren’t they?

      Reply We are losing medical staff to early retirement thanks to over taxation.

      1. Lifelogic
        February 10, 2023

        Four of the recently UK trained doctors I know about circa 50% now work in Australia, New Zealand or have left medicine. Taxes being too high is also reducing tax revenues.

        Junior doctors start on ÂŁ30k less circs ÂŁ10k of interest on their student debt so ÂŁ20k really not easy to live on that when rent might be ÂŁ12k just for a room.

      2. Nigl
        February 10, 2023

        Maybe you should read Sir Gordon Messengers report on management in the NHS before writing this tosh.

        ‘Blame culture and responsibility avoidance’

        money will be wasted, not spent effectively unless they get this right. Supermarkets identify and develop managerial talent better than the NHS.

        And if you see the NHS’ whining response and jargon filled action plan, diversity close to the top, you should stop your knee jerk defence.

        1. Peter
          February 10, 2023

          Nigl,
          To whom are you responding ?

          It is difficult to put your remarks in context without a name. I do also see your other reference to G. Messenger below in another post, but I am still none the wiser.

      3. Peter Wood
        February 10, 2023

        Sir J. You and others are pressing for tax cuts, fine, but there needs to be joined up thinking, we don’t want a Truss repeat. Treasury, BoE, and major institutions need to be on board. The tax cuts MUST NOT INCREASE BORROWING. If your plan can achieve that, you’re on to a winner. Good luck.

      4. MFD
        February 10, 2023

        Those wonderful European Union Staff ? Not! Blood sucking leaches more like.

        1. Nottingham Lad Himself
          February 10, 2023

          Thanks for confirming exactly my point!

      5. Bloke
        February 10, 2023

        Will Quince’s response indicates that 3,100 staff each received over ÂŁ100,000.
        However, he claims that those 3,100 earned that amount.
        How would he know?
        NHS chaos reveals that he doesn’t.

      6. matthu
        February 10, 2023

        I have just spent several months in hospital being cared for by staff from the UK, the EU, Sri Lanka, Caribbean, India, Ghana, even Afghanistan. I don’t see why you think all those wonderful European Union staff are necessarily any better than staff from elsewhere in the world, nor why they should have preferential treatment at the border?

        Perhaps you can explain.

      7. agricola
        February 10, 2023

        NLH,
        You are correct to a point, the Health Ministry is responsible for the management structure in the NHS. It’s scribes are the ones creating the diversity managers and politically correct carbunkel that adds up to 47% of all the NHS employ at vast expense. Tory government for sure is responsible for not stamping it out and diverting the money to front line staff.
        As to EU medical staff in the NHS, like all employees they are free to take their expertise wherever they wish. Brexit contained no compulsion against EU staff remaining or any other EU citizens for that matter. The reciprocol was also true, I lived in the EU until September last with no problem what so ever. I can also return should I so choose. At times I feel you live in a reality vacumn.
        Moral is low in the UK, it is low due to the lack of leadership you infer, with the exception of a relatively small number of MPs we are faced with con/lab/lib socialism that has nothing to offer but more of the same. A 2024 cull is the only answer. Our hosts answer is but one small part of the problem.

        1. Narrow Shoulders
          February 11, 2023

          The NHS is merely over reacting to various public sector requirements as dictated by Parliament (and inflamed by Stonewall).

      8. Mickey Taking
        February 10, 2023

        reply to reply …and pensions that are far better than other workers who might wish to retire at similar age.

      9. IanT
        February 10, 2023

        My own experience is that standards of care vary enormously between different NHS Trusts NLH. What I witnessed in one of them was not caused by lack of funding but very poor (and apparent) work practices. If I can observe this, then the local management should be able to (assuming of course that they took the time to go and see). Whilst Heathcare was not my industry, I certainly do understand how easy it is to become overwhelmed by immediate problems. There are usually a few simple things you can do (Pareto helps) to relieve these pressures while you get longer term solutions in place. But you do have to make the effort to understand them first!
        The NHS is goinmg to cost ÂŁ170B+ in 2022/23 and throwing more money at it (in it’s current state) just doesn’t make any sense. The current Government isn’t going to make any difference to these issues and frankly I don’t believe a new Labour Government will make any difference either. So I’ll be very pleased (should we get Starmer in charge of our well-being) if you can come back in a few years time and tell us how well everything is going then – but I won’t hold my breath.

      10. Nottingham Lad Himself
        February 10, 2023

        They are retiring early because their jobs – like many people’s – are awful under the Tories.

        Pay is a secondary consideration in many cases.

        1. Mickey Taking
          February 10, 2023

          So NHS workers start their day by thinking who is in power? Answer: Tories….oh in that case I hate my job and want to leave.
          Now if only they could answer: Labour ….I love it, helping the public, working hard, its a vocation – pay is secondary. Strike – no never!
          It will not be that long before we see the transformation.

      11. Mickey Taking
        February 10, 2023

        Remember the days of ‘Sandwich Courses’? Those thought worthy of eventual promotion might be offered a spell in numerous operations, departments, work at the coal face, in order to get a rounded understanding of the business. Now it is not sandwich, more likely ‘Taster Menu’!

    3. Anselm
      February 10, 2023

      I recommend Parkinson’s Law to be read by all concerned.

      1. glen cullen
        February 10, 2023

        I believe its been adopted in full throughout the civil & public service

  2. Cuibono
    February 10, 2023

    People used to be proud to work in the NHS
and happy.
    Then came wokery.
    “Experts” slithering into hospitals and trying to save money by changing disinfectant policy. Use bubble bath instead was the advice!
    Later it became worse. “Equality” led to consultants being cheeked by nurses. And told not to wear collars and ties. And on and on.
    Obviously now the whole thing is a total mess. But I doubt if all the top dogs ever listen to reason anyway.
    Isn’t there some bonkers and uber expensive study going on now, looking into this huge failure?

    A “Health Service” that closes its doors when plague strikes
give over.

    Earnt?

  3. DOM
    February 10, 2023

    Keep clapping Sir John. That’s your worthless party’s answer to all today’s problems. Happy, clappy, rainbow coloured bullshit. It’s evidence of a dead party with politicians who simply don’t give a toss any more. Like vile Labour but with an added dollop of deceit

    Nice to see good ole Boris raking in the cash

    ps I note new laws to come about employers being made criminally liable if they fail to prevent some of their employees being exposed to harm by banter or conversations overheard. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. This descent into the authoritarian rabbit hole is a calculated and cynical political attack on freedom and speech in all areas of civilian life

    SHAMEFUL. Parliament will not be happy until we’re all neutered and chained

    1. Cuibono
      February 10, 2023

      +many
      Lunatic tricks like “doing away with banter” will make work places even more intolerable. No more or less than a gagging law.
      They wonder why they can’t retain staff and why no one wants to go to work!
      Or maybe the whole idea is to destroy all employment and put everyone on UBI?

    2. a-tracy
      February 10, 2023

      Dom, when vicarious liability was applied to employers even at out-of-work functions like work parties, they became a nightmare, with people drinking, having a laugh, and much too much risk. A lot of companies have never had a Christmas Party since.

    3. glen cullen
      February 10, 2023

      Dom you’re describing events of all governments following a third term of government, they don’t just lose their way and ideas 
.they believe they’re better than everyone else and fall down the rabbit hole of Marxism – we’re just plebs being told what to do and how to behave

  4. Cuibono
    February 10, 2023

    Oh
handily the WEF has just issued results of a survey entitled. “ What do people want from work”.
    Govt. needs look no further.
    As if it would!

    1. BOF
      February 10, 2023

      Cuibono, as they looked no further when it came to introduction of fifteen minute cities by LA. Now being rolled out in Canada. One has to ask, not just who runs the country, but who runs ze vorld.

      1. Cuibono
        February 10, 2023

        +many
        Exactly!

  5. David
    February 10, 2023

    All senior NHS administrators do is expand their power base by creating more bureaucracy for junior administrators to administrate. Paper shufflers, the bane of the NHS. The same applies to the civil service, NGO’s etcetera.

    1. Gabe
      February 10, 2023

      Indeed the whole of the state sector. But worse still the state sector creates endless such pointless “work” and whole parasitic industries for the private sector in compliance.

      Even the cleverest Tory can’t make socialism work
      It was a defining belief of Conservatism that the state can’t pick winners. Apparently not any longer

      David Frost in the Telegraph today.

      They are however very good at wasting billions on losers. Net zero, renewables, HS2, test and trace, the lockdowns, the net harm vaccines, the appalling NHS structure, the vastly bloated state sector, incompetent defence procurement 


  6. Berkshire Alan
    February 10, 2023

    Clearly I have been retired too long, as these sort of level of payments, to so many people, seem astonishing to me.
    If over 3,000 Managers and administration people are earning over ÂŁ100,000, (and how ever many thousands over ÂŁ75,000) then clearly something is very, very wrong with the set up, because this is the area in my and my families direct experience, which is failing patients the most.
    Throwing ever more money at a system that is not fit for purpose, will eventually bankrupt us all.
    The front line staff appear to be working hard, but behind them it appears to be chaos !.
    Time for a full scale investigation as to what is actually going on, and how it can be improved and made more efficient, without thousands of people being paid these huge salaries, let alone all the other benefits which go with HNS employment, Great Pensions, sickness pay, generous holiday entitlement, and it would seem a virtual safe job for life. !.

    1. Mark B
      February 10, 2023

      This is because it is State (taxpayers and lenders) cash and there is no need to worry as it will, or so they all think, keep coming. There is also no reasonable alternative so you get what you are given or go without. Yes you could go private but, do we all have the money ?

      I suggested here many times that perhaps employers should be allowed to offer employees private healthcare that is no taxable. Silly me, I did not think that MP’s and the Upper Classes would want that as that would lengthen their queues and force them to rub shoulders with the great unwashed.

  7. Old Albion
    February 10, 2023

    Meanwhile; MP’s grab a pay rise of ÂŁ2400/yr. While the Gov. offers ÂŁ1400/yr to nurses.
    “Everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others”

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 10, 2023

      and fully paid up pensioners will get about ÂŁ1000, give or take a bob or two!

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      February 10, 2023

      Nurses are if anything, overpaid and earn very much more than MPs per hour worked!
      Let’s hear what these people earn per hour worked! I am shocked at the hours NHS workers actually work per week.
      Of course you might think that a nurse is a more responsible job than running the country?
      Personally I think that only the very very best should ever get into Parliament. Anyone can empty a bed-pan.

      1. Mickey Taking
        February 11, 2023

        and anyone can look at their mobile while some MP is rabbiting away when you are not interested. Then when called to vote just follow the crowd as expected. Pretty cushy number for too many it seems. Not many do as our host.

  8. Donna
    February 10, 2023

    Now you have the overall number Sir John (3,510) perhaps the next enquiry should be an FoI to ask for Job Titles to be provided in list form.

    If they know how many there are, they can also find out very easily what they are employed to do. I wonder how many are in “woke jobs” completely unrelated to provision of healthcare.

    That would be very interesting – and essential information if any kind of rationalisation process was being considered. Which of course, they’re not, but the Government should be.

    1. Original Richard
      February 10, 2023

      Donna :

      Agreed, we need some transparency.

      Perhaps each NHS trust should be required to publish a yearly spreadsheet with the headlings along the lines of :

      Job Title / No. of employees / Basic Hourly Rate

    2. Mark B
      February 11, 2023

      +1

      Very good idea

  9. Nigl
    February 10, 2023

    People heed to read Sir Gordon Messengers report before responding with their own personal prejudices.

    Sir JRs question adds little value. It should be “it is clear from Sir John Messngers report that the management blame culture and responsibility avoidance is leading to inefficient spending, will the government publish its action plan to address this.

    And in other news a major drug company has invested in a new factory in Ireland because of the (high) tax culture in the U.K. Treasury doing the EUs job for them.

    And surprise surprise the ECJ has found for the EU in relation to cheap Chinese imports despite the U.K. clearly setting out the actions it took. Yet another example of this kangaroo court and why it should have no role in NI.

  10. agricola
    February 10, 2023

    No, Senior Health Managers need culling. 47% of NHS staff are none medical, a grotesque overload of scribes and none managers. Who needs a diversity manager when the service is already too obviously diverse. From personal experience it all works very well and the last thing it needs is an influx of political correctness. From personal experiense this week I would say it needs a moral boost. It isn’t just a matter of more money, the medics need to be able to do their job well for the personal satisfaction this engenders.

  11. majorfrustration
    February 10, 2023

    Really! Despite all the advice the present management get from various consultants aka UK Accounting firms who are making a bomb.
    I always assessed the effectiveness of a company on the number of directs to indirects – the NHS is overloaded with indirects – what the NHS does not need is more indirects.

    1. a-tracy
      February 11, 2023

      Mf, most companies need a sales/marketing/customer services team a big % of the employer’s budget and costs. The NHS have more ‘customers’ than they want. Do they have targets on treatments per hour worked by each unit/team? I’d love to know what these over 3000 £100k Managers KPIs and targets are, there doesn’t seem anyone checking and that is what our MP and his department should be reviewing.

  12. a-tracy
    February 10, 2023

    Is this just England alone?

    219 trusts / 3010 or 3610 between those over ÂŁ100k pa. 14 top-level pay managers per trust! And they can’t organise workforce planning and provide the statistics immediately, I smell a rat.

    How many NHS hospitals are there in England? Working out the number of hospitals in England is challenging. All NHS hospitals are managed by acute, mental health, specialist or community trusts and as of 2021 there were 219 trusts, including 10 ambulance trusts.13 Jan 2022.

    I still wonder how many people aged over 50’s they employed in the NHS full-time over the past two years? Let’s start truly finding out just how diverse they are with the age bands breakdown of who was employed full-time. We hear people all the time over 60 saying they can’t get jobs. The private sector employs people over 60 so does the NHS?

  13. a-tracy
    February 10, 2023

    In every other degree subject the government doesn’t control the maximum number allowed to train; it is a free-for-all, and universities take advantage of it. No check is made on how many graduates are working and paying down their student loans from year two after graduating in a job relevant to their degree.

    Yet nursing and doctor numbers are controlled; why? Why not vastly increase the numbers training, even if this means cancelling other subject courses that are not providing people with the means to get graduate-level jobs.

  14. Anselm
    February 10, 2023

    Nursing and being a doctor are very emotionally draining and often very demanding jobs. How much better to take off those scrubs and retire to a nice warm office and boss other people around instead? You get coffee unlimited, no more bedpans. Lots of opportunities to meet lovely important people like yourself. And you can wear a suit!

    Once this happens, professional nurses and professional doctors cease to be trusted. They become operatives of the system. They are excused filthy duties and set aside to fill in forms. And then there is all that diversity training…

    We need a Doctor Beeching for the NHS fast. The 3/4 million non nursing/doctor staff need to be culled urgently. The 1/2 million front line staff ought to be encouraged and managed by people who are on the wards. That way, convalescent homes could be built and professional people might perhaps get the respect their skills demand.

    There is so much that could be done. And nobody seems to be doing it.

  15. a-tracy
    February 10, 2023

    20 Jul 2021 — The change confirms the ever-increasing diversity of NHS staff – with 42% of medical staff working in the NHS now from a BME background.
    England NHS what is the BME % of the population in England now?

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 11, 2023

      Why not, the country’s biggest employer, mostly well paid, almost unsackable staffing, you get clapped for doing the job…what not to like?

      1. a-tracy
        February 11, 2023

        The source was England.nhs.uk I thought I’d typed that sorry.
        We are told almost daily the NHS staff are very unhappy at work. That hundreds more diversity officers and Managers on big pay packets have been hired. Perhaps they are going too far with diversity and more British people should be trained. They can’t fill vacancies they say well let’s check their HR and who they are interviewing. Let’s get more over 50’s and over 60’s retrained in the NHS caring roles. The whole recruitment practice of this organisation needs inspection because something is going seriously wrong if they can’t fill those jobs with the perks and benefits on offer and the extra holidays even on the lowest grade. Perhaps they should offer people the ability to trade in holidays (over the 28 stat minimum) for extra pay if its actually extra pay they want rather than work life balance. Perhaps they should just offer NEST and give them an extra 10% pay and just a 10% employer’s contribution to their opt in defined contribution pension.

  16. Original Richard
    February 10, 2023

    The NHS is a perfect example of Robert Conquest’s second and third laws of politics :

    – “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”

    – “The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.”

    The NHS is no longer fit for purpose as a result. Diversity has replaced meritocracy. The nursing profession has been destroyed by the necessity to have a degree. So we have a group that does not really want to nurse but is not sufficiently trained to be doctors, and at the same time has a large debt to pay back.

    1. Timaction
      February 10, 2023

      ……………..Diversity has replaced meritocracy. …………… This has been so since Bliar. I have witnessed it first hand and like many others been a victim of so called positive action. In reality it’s discrimination against white men. This has become the norm in all our woke PC Health and public services as must be witnessed in the Treasury, Home office and all our institutions. The fact that we have had a Tory Government for almost 13 years proves that they actively support it. Bit like pretending to want to balance the books and stop mass legal and illegal immigration…………..yawn. GB news about to show that grooming gangs haven’t gone away either. I think your party have been found out Sir John.

  17. Sea_Warrior
    February 10, 2023

    Having just seen AZ decide to make a new investment in low-tax Dublin rather than high-tax Britain, can I trust that you’ll be keeping a close eye on the ‘Laffer curve’ for us?

    1. glen cullen
      February 10, 2023

      +1

    2. R.Grange
      February 10, 2023

      Sea Warrior: If your AZ means Astrazeneca, I say let them live on immoral earnings somewhere else.

    3. Berkshire Alan
      February 10, 2023

      Sea Warrior

      Yet still some people think even more windfall taxes are the answer !

      Clearly they have never ever invested any of their own money in trying to run their own business, and that is the real problem, too many people with little real commercial experience, making the rules for those that have.
      The World is full of Deluded fools.

  18. Bryan Harris
    February 10, 2023

    Once again our host demonstrates how top heavy the NHS is as regards staffing – What on Earth do all of those managers do all day?

    Yet, all we hear about as far as solutions to NHS problems is that people should be charged for appointments and a host of other things, making the NHS no longer free at the point of services — WHAT AN ABSOLUTE INSULT TO TAXPAYERS, who already pay through the nose for a very poor service.

    Nobody it seems has got the strength of character to address the real issues, and the only viable solution – The NHS has to be revamped, from top to bottom – totally reorganised, totally new think, to make it suitable for this century.

  19. Keith from Leeds
    February 10, 2023

    Good question, interesting answer. But as with Andrew Bailey, why are these people not sacked for failure. If you tolerate & accept mediocrity that is what you will get.

  20. glen cullen
    February 10, 2023

    Its within the gift of government, especially with a 70+ majority, to pass a law restricting any government sector paid salary or funded salary to a maximum of e.g. ÂŁ80k and this government could do it today if there was a will
    MPs will hum and haw about high public sector salaries but in reality they won’t change anything 
.so why bother complaining about it

  21. William
    February 10, 2023

    These individuals in the NHS and NHS England are obviously receiving high salaries for failure to produce positive steps in the provision of Care to the population. NHS England for example had No Policy for dealing with an Epidemic let alone a Pandemic. They had produced a Policy for Influenza which had not been reviewed since 2014! Had they even had a Policy regarding the Provision and Quality of PPE we would have not only saved ÂŁmillions but we would possibly have saved many, many lives.
    Management in the NHS itself have been infatuated with Diversity and LGBTQ+ spending monies on rainbow flags, rainbow pedestrian crossings etc rather than focusing their energies and budgets on direct patient care. The manner in which finances are dealt with in the NHS needs immediate review. Currently Budgets are allocated, Trusts retain a big percentage of their Budget till late in the year in case of emergencies, then in February each year Departments are requested to submit their ‘Want Lists’ in order that Trusts spend all their Budget. If they don’t, then the amount remaining is deducted from their next years allowance. This method results in large amounts of monies being hurriedly wasted; not good enough.

  22. glen cullen
    February 10, 2023

    ‘’MPs deserve ÂŁ162,000 package and a medal when they lose elections, committee suggests’’ 
.would that included Jared O’Mara
    All Parliament needs to show some leadership and refuse any pay rise this year – than and only than you can tell NHS staff to lower their salary rise expectations

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 11, 2023

      Some might sniff at ÂŁ162,000.

  23. Bert Young
    February 10, 2023

    The NHS has been in a terrible state almost from the beginning . It never should have been centrally managed or had Direction from non- medically qualified individuals . It is too vast an organisation and it must be broken down into sensible regional groups . This advice has been presented to the Cabinet Office on more than one occasion . Why is professional guidance ignored ?.

  24. formula57
    February 10, 2023

    So Minister Quince can answer about those paid (albeit with suspiciously round numbers) but cannot say how many are chief executives!

    Would it be illuminating to find out if a disproportionate amount of staff are paid sums in the high nineties (thereby to avoid being reported as high earners)? Are those working less than full hours also featured in any of the reported numbers or would they be if salaries were grossed-up to full time equivalents?

  25. Ian B
    February 10, 2023

    Of Topic – from the MsM
    “Just three months ago, the Bank of England forecast that the UK economy would be facing its longest recession on record, with policymakers forecasting two years of economic decline. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the Government’s independent tax and spending watchdog, also predicted a downturn lasting longer than a year.”
    “However, getting it wrong incurs a cost to the Government if it is making big tax and spending choices based on that outlook.”

    Who would have thought those pillars of advice along with the Chancellor and PM would get it so wrong in such a short space of time – or was that the plan?

    Getting rid of the actual elected Conservative Government was always the intention.

    1. Original Richard
      February 10, 2023

      Ian B : “Getting rid of the actual elected Conservative Government was always the intention.”

      I don’t think it is done to get rid of any particular elected government. All parties are pursuing the same policies – high tax, high spend, high immigration (legal and illegal), Net Zero, HS2, banning fracking, wasteful spending and funding of the NHS, civil service, quangos, charities (even those that take the taxpayer to court), foreign aid, wars etc..

      The policy is simply to make the country poorer. That’s why there’s no difference between the policies of the parties currently represented in Parliament.

      It also explains why the BoE and OBR forecasts are always wrongly predicting doom and gloom. It is to curb innovation, entrepreneurship and investment. AZ are off to Ireland.

      1. IanB
        February 10, 2023

        @Original Richard. It was subtle left field remark, Conservative Leaders/PM’s are chosen by the Conservative Party – the present crowd have virtualy appointed themselves. The Conservative Party were excluded from the process. Therefore the last elected Conservative Leader was ejected by what appears a Blob extension in action

  26. forthurst
    February 10, 2023

    The government’s response seems very unclear because it mixes up Arts graduate types who do not perform useful functions with technically qualified staff either as doctors or nurses or pharmacists or pathologists or medical equipment support staff or consumable purchasing staff etc.

    There needs to be comparisons made between the incompetent Arts graduate run NHS and the competent
    e.g. German systems in terms of staffing and organisation. We also need to know the proportion of medical staff
    in Germany who were trained in Germany or the EU and the proportion of NHS doctors who were qualified in the third world.

    The question to the government was about senior managers; senior managers in the private sector do
    not receive “on call payments, overtime, recommended retail prices, shift work payments”. “recommended
    retail prices” – what ?

  27. Mickey Taking
    February 10, 2023

    In the last couple of days I read that response time for people requiring an ambulance for a stroke, severe burns or chest pain was 93 minutes (in January), but was now down to less than 30.
    Just goes to show that ‘miracles’ can be performed when a payrise is sought.

  28. glen cullen
    February 10, 2023

    Home Office –9th February 2023
    Illegal Immigrants 125
    Boats 3
    still coming everyday 
everyday

    1. Berkshire Alan
      February 10, 2023

      The Governments own computer calculations suggest anything between 60 – 80,000 this year in rubber boats !. So not as if they are not aware.

    2. Diane
      February 11, 2023

      01 to 31 Jan inclusive : Total 1136 / 27 boats
      01 Feb to 10 Feb inclusive: 890 / 20 boats
      And this is during the ‘slow’ period where 29 out of those 41 days were recorded with Zero arrivals. ( All official figures as issued by the Mod & now H.O. ) A figure back in November in the media was stating 419 hotels being used at that time. How many now.

  29. glen cullen
    February 10, 2023

    If anyone needs a bit of a laugh over the weekend 
our government has produced a new policy paper entitled ‘Making Government Deliver for the British People’ at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-government-deliver-for-the-british-people

    I presume that they say ‘British People’ and not ‘UK People’ due to the current Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) negotiations

  30. Lynn Atkinson
    February 10, 2023

    I understand that the problem of NHS Management is that they are out ranked by senior Consultants who refuse to co-operate. For instance, in order to allocate beds they need to know by 10.00am, which patients are being sent home, and from which wards. Senior consultants refuse to do their rounds before that time. Therefor there is a scrabble for beds with heart patients sent to other wards etc. this means the heart consultant is, in turn, slowed up because he does not have all his patients in his ward and has to trudge about the whole hospital, and all the other consultants in the same position.
    We need many spare beds so that each ward has excess capacity and Consultants can have all their patients in their own wards.

    1. Mickey Taking
      February 11, 2023

      You expect people to work before 10am? Pretty unreasonable?

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