John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Office for National Statistics published figures for the three years from 2020 to 2022, which state that public service productivity in general fell by an unprecedented 7.5%? That means that we needed to put roughly £30 billion extra into public services to achieve the same thing.
Mr David Davis:
My right hon. Friend is right: it is a systemic problem. It does not just affect Britain or the health service. Indeed, I think that numbers for those years for the health service were about 25%—so huge, huge numbers. I bring this back to the reality of the individual. If we delay diagnosis and treatment, we sentence people to death. It is as harsh as that.
I would like us dramatically to increase the amount of diagnostic capacity we have. If we look at OECD numbers on CT scans, I think we are third from worst. This is why I say it is not a single Government problem—we do not get to be third from worst in one term; it happened over the course of the whole 30 years. On MRI scans, we are the worst in the OECD. How on earth a country such as ours gets to that position is astonishing.
November 10, 2023
So David Davis states “How on earth a country such as ours gets to that position is astonishing”. I had never before taken him as that naive.
November 10, 2023
What was our position 13 years ago ?
November 10, 2023
“How on earth a country such as ours gets to that position is astonishing”
So is the position that the National Health Service couldn’t cope with a Low Consequence Infectious Disease …. with low mortality rates.
Perhaps David Davis should ask the former Sec of State for Health Jeremy Hunt, who took the money for the role for 6 years but appears to have done absolutely nothing to ensure that the NHS was capable of doing what we pay it for.
November 10, 2023
So Britain is almost the worst in the OECD for MRI and CT scanners. But surely our NHS is top of the international league when it comes to diversity consultants?
November 10, 2023
I wonder if they count all of the private MRI and CT scanners available. I think British radiography departments are very efficient right now, one week to wait for an MRI and it was done out of working hours either Tuesday night or on a Saturday.
Breast screeners are also very efficiently operated, I think the nHS should be congratulated as well as critiqued which I frequently do.
November 10, 2023
Oh, no doubt!!
November 10, 2023
The NHS is a financial black hole run for the benefit of its employees.
It is time it’s highly paid leaders started to take the Service part of its name more seriously and reduce the administrative burden and put the patient first.
Run it like a motor garage with fixed fees for every procedure and reimburse against invoice for activities not by grant where the behemoth merely gets paid for existing.
November 10, 2023
Chronic!
November 10, 2023
@JR Intervention; “[the ONS] published figures for the three years from 2020 to 2022, which state that public service productivity in general fell by an unprecedented 7.5%?”
Of course productivity fell during the pandemic, productivity in the private sector also feel off the cliff! Hence the need for HMRC to make furlough payments, allow tax holidays and VAT incentives etc.
As for David Davis’s reply, polite, but appears to brush-aside our hosts intervention in the second paragraph, unless he really doesn’t understand the link between patient numbers, available resources and funding.
November 10, 2023
David Davis agrees.
Then he goes off at a complete tangent and talks about MRI scans – instead of the ballooning costs of public services.
November 10, 2023
@Peter; Oh dear, if you can not understand the link between the ballooning costs of public services and the need for more MRI scans etc…. 😥
November 10, 2023
Jerry,
There is no link.
Ballooning costs are due to huge increases in manpower. Overpaid individuals in non-jobs, instead of frontline employees doing useful work is but one symptom.
November 10, 2023
Public services staffing growing, efficiency falling. In plain sight for years and years.