Yesterday when senior medics connected to the NHS warned of a crisis in A and E the BBC World at One programme did interview a senior manager from NHS Scotland. He ducked a question about money, implying fault with the SNP government. The  BBC did not follow up. When asked for a way of solving the problems he emphasised the need for most patients to use a remote service to keep pressures off surgeries and A and E.
They then interviewed the Strategic Planning Director of NHS England. A good early question about the need for a new strategic plan was not followed through though clearly the current plan is full of difficulties. The Director did not offer a clear way to resolve the problems. He did point out they are working on a manpower plan which should be ready next spring. He was not asked why they currently lack a manpower plan or why it is taking so long to produce one. I and others have been calling for one for many months. You  cannot have a proper plan for the NHS without a manpower plan, as people are the main resource and cost in the service.
I remember urging PM, Chancellor and Health Secretary with Boris in office to require a clear plan on recruitment and retention of key skills when the NHS was asking for a large sum of additional cash. They  agreed but the NHS did not supply the manpower plan so the cash was given anyway. As the warnings all relate to lack of GP, A and E and bed capacity surely the solution must in part be recruiting and retaining more qualified people. As the population grows so we need more beds, more nurses and doctors and more treatments and operations.
It may well be possible to free more beds by improving social care, but bed numbers are still low by international comparison. Some  of us pushed hard for more capacity when covid hit, only to see the Nightingales  little used then closed. We also watched as the private sector capacity was not properly used though taxpayers were paying for its availability. Huge extra sums did not buy useful extra capacity. The new strategy should include realistic manning levels and bed numbers. Why wonât the media press the top management on the failure of current plans and ask why capacity is kept too low?
January 3, 2023
I apologise for repeating myself, but the NHS is itself simply repeating its management failures over the past 50 years at least (and please let’s have no more pleas for the return of Matron, since matrons were re-introduced some years ago, and frequently have little power over recalcitrant nurses and doctors):
Governments seek advice from the Royal Medical Colleges about NHS practices and development, and the lack of bed provision is almost entirely down to their advice 30 years ago that most surgery would involve one-day care only in the future – this of course, as is usual in the NHS, did not take account of an increase in patients nor in medical advances. Someone at the Ministry of Health should have firmly pointed this out, but apparently didn’t.
Similarly, the Royal Colleges did not want an increase in the number of doctors, because rarity value increases salaries – this was well known in medical circles, and confirmed by a BMA vote in 2008 AGAINST an increase in medical training positions. Funny how the media don’t sniff these matters out and publicise them, isn’t it?
Finally, doctors and nurses (along with politicians) come from the same source as the rest of us: the ordinary population. Some are outstanding, many are average, and some are appalling; some accept they are paid reasonably well and some are extremely greedy – just like the rest of us plebs.
The degree requirement should be dropped for nurses; medical training should be ‘free’, with the necessary proviso that in return, a certain term should be served within the NHS; and a Royal Commission should be set up NOW to consider what kind of NHS is appropriate to this century, not the last one.
January 3, 2023
Govt. Has put up Adult social care costs, despite saying it would be capped and resolved for years and years. How much does Sunak wants to squeeze the last penny from us.
January 3, 2023
Absolutely correct.
1) Nurses should not go on a three-year degree course. Nursing is essentially a practical occupation, time spent on the wards in hospital is of the essence. This country is obsessed with all young people going to university and acquiring very often useless degrees. Not only do nurses with a degree tend to look down on doing menial jobs, they also acquire a considerable dept at the end of the course. If any would-be nurses are capable of doing a rigorous three-year degree course, they should do an extra two years and qualify as doctors.
2) It is quite correct ath the medical profession is/was against an increase in the number of doctors. The BMA is a left-wing trade union posing as a learned society. It’s time the the public realised that.
3) Let us stop filling medical schools with foreign students, just for the money they bring, and start taking more home-grown students; there are plenty of capable school-leavers out there. There is no reason to demand such high A-level grades from potential medical students. Let us face it, medicine is not especially academic compared with subjects such as physics or mathematics. An all-round reasonable set of A-levels is adequate, together with a well-balanced personality.
4) Pay GPs for the number of patients that they treat per annum, not the number on their books.
5) Strip-out some of the superflous pen-pushers in the system. The universities did a very successfull cull around 1988 when they offered staff a generous time-limited severance package, with the threat that if it was not accepted a much less generous package would be introduce and certain staff would be obliged to take it. We don’t owe anyone a job for life.
I could go on but don’t want to bore everyone
January 3, 2023
SM
In total agreement with your last paragraph, have been singing that free training tune for more than a decade, but no one is listening, let alone acting, only proviso I would add is that those who do not complete the agreement then have to pay for their training, that agreement made up front, so everyone is aware.
Learn whilst you earn has to be the way forward, as University courses in many cases, are now very, very poor value for money.
January 3, 2023
I served a 5 year fully indentured apprenticeship when I left School as did hundreds and thousands of others at the time. When time served and experienced gained, many of those then took up research and development, design, production or general management positions, all having gained first hand a very good knowledge of the sharp end, which is invaluable !
January 3, 2023
Agree Alan. My husband did a 5 year apprenticeship with British Gas. He cannot believe the sub standard work he looks at today. Many of the so called trained heating engineers today don’t have a clue.
January 3, 2023
Itâs not rocket science, one of the main reasons for A &E long waits and bed blocking is because weâve had a open door policy to all the world to enjoy the freebies we offer (politicians) !!!thereâs just too many people on this small island stop letting them in, another reason is doctors passing the buck to the hospital A&E departments , when I was a growing up kid in the 50s 60s A&E was a last resort and it had to be pretty important to go to it, itâs all to easy for doctors to send patients to hospital is it because they arenât up to the job for diagnosis???
January 3, 2023
TWELVE years theConservatives have been running this country. Yet even now MPs like John Redwood try desperately to blame anyone but themselves for its dreadful state. No one is fooled
January 3, 2023
Where do all the illegals go to get health treatment? Where do health tourists go? If China cannot cope with current wave of covid why are their citizens allowed here? Anyone monitoring foreigners (by nationality) at hospital receiving treatment? They are not registering at local GP surgeries.
The invasion confuses so will overwhelming our public services all encouraged and allowed by Sunak and Hunt Marxist party.
January 3, 2023
Proposing solutions is neither desperation nor blameworthy.
January 3, 2023
@Libero – âTWELVE years theConservatives have been running this countryâ Are you sure? I must have missed that, no one has ever managed anything the taxpayer pays for in the last 12 years other than their own personal egosâ.
January 3, 2023
Libero, I too am surprised the Minister in charge of our NHS doesnât already have the Manpower plans from the previous five years in their hands (with updates each year on training places open and paid for by the State, recruitment from abroad and checking they are adequately training to UK standards, and retirement plan replacements). Especially when it takes three years in University to train a nurse now and five years before a doctor can start ward training. The NHS seems to be hiring lots of diversity managers and HR managers who arenât doing their basic part of the job properly.
BUT we pay NHS Management teams a lot of money, most are on double what we pay the Prime Minister, enough of they donât have any responsibility, it is ALL the responsibility of one MP given that portfolio. If these Managers arenât up to the job then they must go.
January 3, 2023
Hunt was in charge of NHS for six years!! He should know it inside out! If not what has he been doing! He lost ÂŁ34 billion on a failed IT system. No censure, sacking nothing.
January 3, 2023
He was a dreadful health secretary (also responsible for the botched pandemic planning during this time). He was after all a PPE graduate with zero medical or scientific training. His one talent seems to be that he was quite good at calmly apologising for the countless & almost endless NHS scandals that have killed and maimed so many people, children and babies. Alas not so good at preventing them. No suitable skill to be Chancellor either other than the apology for Sunakâs mess one perhaps.
January 3, 2023
I tried to find a link to the ÂŁ34bn IT project. It seems it has been going on for decades.
Launched 2002 to make computerised records in the NHS – 2010 ÂŁ10bn https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Six-reasons-why-the-NHS-National-Programme-for-IT-failed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24130684
Records are now in the Spine though arenât they. Personally I donât like it, I want to see who has been reading my records in the Spine, everyone that logs in and reads your private information should leave a footprint that you can check.
Spending watchdog says UK health service lacks oversight, can’t trace responsibilities The Register. Where is a link for the ÂŁ34bn
January 3, 2023
Who produced the Specifications, who kept revising it, who failed to tell the NHS ‘it can’t work if you keep moving goalposts’ – which heads rolled? I imagine the concept could have worked – centrally integrated database to treatment and operations planning. However it needed to set stages – data definition of a patient, similarly a GP practice, then a hospital and other treatment places. Begin with picking a few of each category, build with sample data, feed in events to test processes etc determine size of files, divide into subsets, predict data throughput and transfer rates required. Test each defined transaction – entry, update, revison, correction- whether offline or immediate update . The list of steps goes on until some basic operational use can be seen to work. Expand users, find restriction points agree change required, write and test modifications….
January 3, 2023
Oh it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that there are too many managers obviously not up to the job or providing the information government requires to sort things out then? It’s not as simple as blaming the government for how it’s run. It’s a joint responsibility but as Mick says we have too many people now.
January 3, 2023
Tories had Simon Stevens a Labour tony Blaire advisor in charge of NHS for years! Now the Tories have Blaireâs former minister Patricia Hewitt in place in the NHS! Labour in charge u derma Tory badge!
Hunt knows this he was there for six years and hired Hewitt!! What does JRâs party actually offer different to Labour when they copy their policies hire their former ministers and still copy EU dictates to the letter! Brainless, clueless and utterly useless.
Just get out.
January 3, 2023
Wise words
January 3, 2023
Do give it a rest.
Some Mainland countries have been far more accepting of immigrations than the UK, and yet a retired nurse writes”
“…’Other countries in Europe face similar crises’
I heard that line trotted out on R4 lunchtime news.
I live in Spain. Yesterday a friend fell and broke his hip early in the morning. By 4pm he was in theatre being fixed. He’ll likely go home Thursday, because of the NY holiday moving to today, a home carer can’t be booked until tomorrow. Otherwise it’d be Wednesday discharge.
My experience of the health service here is positive, as a retired nurse with good Spanish I often translate in hospitals and medical centres so I am in frequent contact for a wide variety of things. Please can we stop accepting the narrative that it’s just as bad everywhere else? It isn’t, really it isn’t. The NHS is being deliberately run down and the public is being fed the idea it’s not fit for purpose, it won’t be worth saving blah blah blah. The government know they’re on the way out (here’s hoping) and they’ll inflict inoperable damage on the way.
Wake up!!…”
The NHS is suffering seriously from an exodus of irreplaceable staff caused by your brexit.
January 3, 2023
There are more EU staff in the NHS this year than there was in 2015 I have already provided you with the figures.
January 3, 2023
Tell us about medical insurance in Spain, lad, especially for expats. Can you expect to pay âŹ1,000 a year? âŹ2,000?
Then are all costs covered?
January 3, 2023
My son-in-law is Spanish. He is so appalled by the NHS Dental Service here, that he goes over to Spain periodically for private dental teatment. He goes using Ryanair and including travel costs and having private treatment in Spain, he claims that it costs him less than half of what it would cost him here.
January 3, 2023
NL,
Utter rubbish. Nothing to do with Brexit. Created before joining EU, run effectively before EU and the open door policy from EU made all our public services overwhelmed.
January 3, 2023
NLH. Yes funny how none of the immigrants are using our NHS and dental services isn’t it? Nobody is saying it’s the whole problem but it certainly doesn’t help the situation.
January 3, 2023
Was her friend in Spain British, I wonder? with private medical as most Brits have to be, or treated and rebilled to the British NHS by a private hospital?
This is how EU citizens should be treated in Britain, not in our NHS hospitals but private with medical insurance or rebilled to the EHIC system.
January 3, 2023
I have very good experience of Spanish healthcare also. It is far better than the Uk!!
January 3, 2023
I guess we are all guilty of doing what you do, to some extent. That is, you take your beliefs and assume facts to support them. When someone provides facts that disprove your belief you put your hands over your ears and say âI canât hear youâ.
Can you substantiate your claim that there are less EU workers in the NHS now than before our make-believe Brexit?
January 3, 2023
NLH
Long serving staff have been retiring from the NHS for years, simply because of the excellent pension terms that are on offer.
Now we have the double whammy of a limit on Pension Pot scheme sums, which was introduced by the then Government, and which many Doctors have reached much earlier in their career than expected, so rather than being taxed into oblivion, they leave and do something else, or go private with other arrangements.
We have a similar situation with the Police, with full pension entitlement after 30 years service, hence the problem with senior and experienced long serving staff leaving in droves.
January 3, 2023
No charge at the point of use (for people who have never even contributed in) so the only way to deter people coming is long waiting times, making booking hard and a very poor service so GPs and A&E compete in exactly this way! “Customers” are a liability to be deterred as much as possible and that is exactly what happens.
January 3, 2023
@Lifelogic – NI national insurance needs to get back to being just that, you pay in and the insurance then pays for the service provided. The NHS then gets back to serving its customers in order to be paid. Isn’t that just like any business should be run?
January 3, 2023
I am pretty sure that NI is not specifically reserved for either State pensions or health care provision, plus of course neither children, nor those who are unemployed for whatever reason, nor pensioners pay NI, but all (should) have access to healthcare for the benefit of themselves and the country.
January 3, 2023
@SM – that’s the point it was introduced for that reason.
The concept of Customer Service starts when the money gets paid to the provider for the service provided. As is now the NHS management demand money, gets money and there is no obligation for them to deliver a service. The get all the mony they desire regardless. The UK is the only Country in the World is trying to do the impossible.
It is also why the State Pension is not a benefit but an entitlement. The Contradiction being if you donât contribute you then benefit from Pension Credits which gives you virtually the same as those that had no choice but pay.
I am not saying the amount is right, but why have people paying NI then in the first place if it has no real purpose.
January 3, 2023
The open door policy is what kept the NHS going, where do you think nurses and careworkers come from? You Brexiters hate immigrants, then act surprised at the consequences of reducing them
January 3, 2023
But we haven’t reduced them, Pauline.
January 3, 2023
You don’t know many Brexiteers Pauline, do you?
Immigrants are welcome to me, especially working immigrants without any recourse to the social state for housing or benefits.
January 3, 2023
Pauline Read A Tracy’s post before posting such rubbish.
January 3, 2023
…,….As the population grows so we need more beds, more nurses and doctors and more treatments and operations……
Why is our population growing? BECAUSE YOU ARE ALLOWING 1 MILLION PLUS PEOPLE HERE EVERY YEAR. YOU EVEN ALLOW MINMUM WAGE PEOPLE IN AT NET COST TO ENGLISH TAXPAYERS. They don’t of course have a carbon footprint, don’t need education for their children, healthcare, in and out of work benefits, housing, use our roads! You couldn’t make the stupidity of our politicos. Over 40,000 from the EU being allowed permanent residence every month, 18 months after the closure date. The Home Office can allow these but do nothing about the invading boat people. No one ever deported, just put up our taxes for their 4* Hotels, food, pocket money etc. The people are alive to the deceitful Consocialists.
January 3, 2023
Good morning.
Here is something that I have observed and has been mentioned elsewhere. Some are not going to like it, so cover your eyes and / or move on. These are my observations of being in A&E, and another persons, who I have never met or have any formal contact with but, came to the same view independently.
The NHS A&E is increasingly being used by persons who should not be here. They cannot register with a GP so go to A&E to be treated. No questions asked.
I have advocated Private Healthcare Insurance provided by an employer that is not taxable. I thought this would be a good idea as it would allow some people the opportunity to seek medical care quicker and so shorten the NHS waiting lists. It seems that this idea, although still sound, is never going to happen. Why ? Well let us say that the queues for Private Patients, including MP’s CS’s and probably the Lords as well, is a damned sight shorter that the NHS one and, the lat thing they would want to do is saddle next to us plebs.
Funny old world, ain’t it ?
January 3, 2023
Mark,
Private healthcare insurance provided by an employer?
In replacement of the 13.8% national insurance and 3% nest or in addition? Who then pays for and treats all those not in work?
January 3, 2023
The pre-vaccination Covid fatality has been peer reviewed across 31 national databases and has been found to be LESS harmful than an average flu year.
Pezzullo A.M. 2022. Age-stratified infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in the non-elderly population.
âAcross 31 systematically identified national seroprevalence studies in the pre-vaccination era, the median infection fatality rate of COVID-19â
Age Infection Survival Rate
0-19 99.9997%
20-29 99.997%
30-39 99.989%
40-49 99.965%
50-59 99.871%
60-69 99.499%
January 3, 2023
But that was being stated right from the start of the âpandemicâ. That is was is 98.% odd survival rate. Which is why so many were so sceptical of the ridiculous scaremongering and responses to Covid.
Itâs known that the âelitesâ think weâre stupid, but really⊠this one really took the biscuit!
January 3, 2023
Talking of ‘Elites’ and off topic, according to the Mail today, the Downing Street Chapter of the WEF are going to ‘postpone’ the legislation for removing large amounts of EU laws and edicts. This was going to be part of the Brexit Bonus. Seems our Government really isn’t going to leave the EU.
Sir J, any comment?
January 3, 2023
Just remember when you put your cross on the voting slip.
January 3, 2023
@Sharon – as you know the ‘ridiculous scaremongering’ was part of the WEF inspired World Government to bring the plebs into line
January 3, 2023
+many
Yes!
January 3, 2023
By comparison the flu is over TEN times more fatal than Covid. So WHAT on earth were we being told by the BBC?
The survivability rate of influenza in the USA by age from the statistica website, is as follows:-
0-4 – 98.2%
5-17 – 99.7%
18-49 – 98.4%
50-65 – 90.9%
65+ – 77.9%
January 3, 2023
Endless lies from the BBC, be this on big government, tax levels, climate alarmism, the net harm vaccines, net zero, energy policy⊠hardly even a mention of the 1/800 serious vaccine harm not how ineffective they are.
All due to Covid and Putin (according to the BBC) and not net zero and huge idiotic over reaction to Covid. The same lies we get from Sunak and Hunt.
January 3, 2023
Professors of Mathematics Norman Fenton and Martin Neil (Queen Mary’s College) have published on substack a study entitled “How Many Lives did the Covid Vaccine Really Save?”. For those who have pinned their faith on an industrially manufactured immunity it will not make happy reading.
January 3, 2023
Google does not give me a link to that particular study entitled “How Many Lives did the Covid Vaccine Really Save?â but I will look at their work in general. Even if the greatest direct value of a vaccine lies in protection of the health service from being overwhelmed by patients with the disease in question that is still of indirect benefit to other classes of patients.
January 3, 2023
With everyone vaccinated with the treble jab and booster âŠwhy is covid still such a worry
January 3, 2023
+1 well worth reading. They surely did net harm in my view.
January 4, 2023
It’s “vaccines”.
January 3, 2023
Yes
January 3, 2023
What? That says 22.1% of over 65s donât survive flu! I donât think so.
January 3, 2023
Indeed & yet serious adverse reaction to the Covid “Vaccines” as high as 1/800 but still they continue!
January 3, 2023
Yes the interview last night on GB NEWS with Farage was very scarey. They are even saying now that there could be serious problems months after vaccination and not just in the young.
January 3, 2023
Indeed the initial trials only looked at 8 weeks it seems.
January 3, 2023
LL. Yes and now they are saying the latest variant avoids immunity ftom vaccinations. What’s the point? Anyway it seems people aren’t that ill with it. I know 4 people who had Covid over the Christmas period and all had a ‘cold’.
January 3, 2023
My previously 100% fit daughter has developed an auto-immune disease following her Covid injection; my wife has developed diabetes following her vaccination. Coincidence?
January 3, 2023
but 799 are fine.
January 3, 2023
“They agreed but the NHS did not supply the manpower plan so the cash was given anyway.”
The government gave money in exchange for broken promises. No wonder requests for improvement are ignored. The government itself sets the example in broken promises and failures in every direction. Why do governments and organisations such as the NHS put more effort into empire building and building their own little power base than doing the job they are engaged for? From government down, everyone has forgotten who they are supposed to serve! They serve themselves!
January 3, 2023
As a project manager colleague used to saw: “Hope is not a plan”.
The NHS managers need to stop wasting time on trivia and look at different ways of solving a very clear problem. As I have noted, diversity in appearance doesn’t guarantee diversity of thinkers and only by getting fresh ideas in place will they see change.
January 3, 2023
PeteB, Ask your GP, or any doctor, nurse, ancillary staff, dentist, dental nurse if the CQC are a help or an impediment with regard to âtriviaâ.
Behind the expletives you will see a picture emerge, a useless overbearing and arrogant structure of apparatchiks and jobsworths that the âmanagementâ live in fear of.
January 3, 2023
+1. An organisation so poorly run that 25% of bright & newly qualified doctors (after 6 years expensive and demanding training) pack it in within the first year. Another 25% shortly after.
January 3, 2023
There are well over a million people employed in the NHS.
Has any one of them been capable of leading the others into organising better efficiency during the past 10 years?
Chaos has prevailed and endures.
Govt funds continuing muddles at great expense.
A proper leader, like Thatcher, would create a substantive improvement.
January 3, 2023
Agree on scale of NHS, last time I checked it was still one of the 10 largest employers in the world. Too big to be efficient, to change, to manage. Some brave Health Sec needs to break it apart and start again.
January 3, 2023
Pete, I donât believe the whole lot of the NHS is failing. I donât believe the whole of the English NHS is in staffing crisis either. If they are short of nurses over grade 5 then why were training places held down and British trainees turned away? Why didnât the nursing council revert back to decades of good training and bring young trainee apprenticeships on the wards from the age of 16 to 18 or 18 to 22? Why continue with something that has been failing for decades and is predicted by three independent think tanks will lead to 250,000 vacancies if they carry on without change. The current leaders are not capable of making these decisions they are failing us and someone needs to take charge and take trainee places away from the people currently organising it.
January 3, 2023
My feelings too PeterB. It must be split and each section should be forced to justify their budget. End of year reports should be submitted with their next year budget claim
January 3, 2023
In your post today, Sir John, you quite rightly ask why the media won’t do its job.
That implies the media is there to ask searching questions of those in power and inform the public.
That seems to me to be a very ‘last-century’ idea. I would have thought the last few years have shown the opposite, in all the major issues of the day. Whether it be Covid, climate or Ukraine, the media has typically functioned as an instrument of government policy. Covid made it particularly blatant, when Johnson’s government gave tens of millions of ÂŁÂŁÂŁ to the press in the ‘All in, All Together’ programme. As a result, we saw an entire newsstand of papers with an identical front page Covid rainbow wrapper.
All designed to nudge the public into accepting what the authorities wanted, including the NHS management you justifiably complain about. The media is no longer about investigative journalism, that at least should be clear by now.
January 3, 2023
Why rely on a biased, privately owned media? The job of Government among several things is to concern itself with the state of population health. We have ex-Pharma top money-makers transitioned to very highly paid Government posts with the gong carrot. They are interested in pushing their mates’ interests and financial position. Don’t expect independent thought from people of high vested interest.
The NHS needs a root and branch examination, triage if you like, to identify both low hanging fruit and restructure.
A form of audit of each of the main divisions of patient care and treatment should be produced, including dentistry, hearing and eyesight, largely abnadoned to the High St.
January 3, 2023
GB News has done a sterling job in investigating the mRNA “vaccine” safety data/adverse effects (particularly Mark Steyn, until he became ill, and Dan Wooten) and Nigel has done a magnificent job bringing the criminal migrant issue to the attention of the public and the outrageous policy of accommodating these criminals in luxury hotels at OUR expense.
It’s only the traditional media which shills for the Establishment.
January 3, 2023
The media is clearly bought in most cases. By Government, Charities, Big Pharma, advertisersâŠand pushed by the dire Offcom regulator & propaganda outfit.
January 3, 2023
@Hat man â the media want to maintain their journalistic independency, but donât want to act as a âfreeâ press. They now write stories and bylines with catchy headlines to draw you in, their focus is on creating exposure for their advertisers- nothing else.
There is no independence(or free press) the ownership is consolidated to just a handful of politically motived individuals.
January 3, 2023
+1
January 3, 2023
Two very telling statistics mentioned on GBN last night: (1) the NHS costs about ÂŁ13,000 per year per household; (2) about 4 million of us are suffering from that lifestyle (= wholly avoidable) Type 2 diabetes. We cannot keep shovelling money into an unreformed NHS. Few households come close to paying ÂŁ13000/year in tax and NI. It’s time for you MPs to take some detailed investigations into health services around the world and draw some conclusions as to how the NHS needs reform. I will also suggest that access to the service is restricted to UK citizens and that even they should be expected to pay ‘hotel charges’ when in hospital, a fine if admitted drunk to A&E, and pay for their prescriptions when of working-age.
January 3, 2023
Indeed. Asked about the excess deaths of 50,000 PW (it has been up to three time this recently) the government said they are awair ofr the pressure they NHS is under. What about the pressure the families of these thousands of failed patients are under? No mention of vaccine dammage still they push the vaccines.
An excellent interview with Andrew Bridgen on Dan Wooton show last night calling for a suspension of these net the vaccines (circa 9.45) followed by an appalling statement by MHRA the vaccines have met all of their standards. These people are not fit a regulate a childrenâs birthday party. 1 in 800 having a severe event post vaccination most who took them were never even at any risk from Covid!
January 3, 2023
There are many people requesting that the vaccine roll out should be stopped here and abroad, because itâs causing more harm than good! But none of the governments appear to want to listen, there being only a few exceptions. Why wonât they?
In Britain, after any reports, in committees (I watched Elliot Colburn MP) and at the end of a well evidenced discussion⊠it ended with âthe vaccines are safe and effectiveâ. Next on the agendaâŠIn Australia, itâs now law that any medic speaking out against the vaccine will be struck off. Why?
Clearly itâs thought weâre all too stupid to wonder and if anyone questions the narrative, they get sacked.
January 3, 2023
Why indeed? It seems that in relation to Covid vaccine harm they have no interests “in protecting the NHS” or indeed the public – they even want to give them to babies just of six months.
January 3, 2023
I’ve emailed my CONservative MP twice about Bridgen’s speech and the Yellow Card safety data. He’s ignoring me…… he’s an absolute waste of space which is why he won’t be getting my vote.
January 3, 2023
+1 most are it seems!
January 3, 2023
A common complain of the NHS is âit not our fault as we cannot dump people in long term care due to problems there – what a pathetic excuse. Sort out a long term care wars to hold these people amd release the other beds like the the unused nightingales. Hardly rocket science but beyond the NHS.
January 3, 2023
Sorry wards not wars!
A new study by the Financial Times suggests that, unlike previous generations of young people, millennials are not growing more Right-wing (and sensible) as they get older. Rather worrying, but where are the Milton Freedmanâs explaining reality to them he was on the BBC a lot in the 70s, little but dire Socialism form the Tories or the BBC/MSM now?
At least we now have GB news now I suppose.
January 3, 2023
On Talk Radio yesterday a care home manager said there are spaces in all the homes in her group, but bureaucracy and faffing is causing delays. Might this be common to other care home groups?
January 3, 2023
Of course there will be spaces – how easily do families pay ÂŁ2,000 per week without toiletries, haircare etc?
January 3, 2023
Sharon
“….spaces in all homes in her group…”
At what cost, and to whom, and likewise to what standard ?
So many conflicting reports, Care Homes going Bust because of high costs, others being shut down for poor care, lack of staff, low pay, others charging private residents 30% more than those funded by Local Authorities.
Visited 10 Nursing homes before finding just a couple that were suitable and we were happy with for a family member a few years ago.
January 3, 2023
++
Remember the swine flu jab debacle?
The only lessons learned there was to get legal immunity for the drug companies.
January 3, 2023
The old Scottish cry of weeing with what you got comes to mind.
The NHS do not utilise what they have got to it’s best potential.
Across the country there are thousands of surgery clinics that are empty from 1800 hours to 0700. In Spain where I once lived these centres were open all night with a trained paramedic technician with rapid response vehicle a junior doctor finishing their final training with a qualified doctor on call if required. The locality had medical assistance available within 15 minutes.
It was not perfect but it slowed up the stream of patients sitting for hours in the A&E and enabled staff there to draw breath and liaise better with the wards.
Patients being admitted have had all the triage and exploratory tests completed before they get. Stopping the waste of nurses time on the main wards.
January 3, 2023
Turbo. Very good post. I’ve had experience of the Spanish system and it’s excellent. All investigations done in one hit so no hanging around. Unlike a friend of mine who has waited so long for treatment for cancer here only to be told it’s spread abd it’s top late for the operation they were going to do.
January 3, 2023
You will not get serious reporting from the BBC. For an accurate account of how things are, on any current topic, other media are always preferable. LBC recently interviewed the Royal College of Nursingâs general secretary Pat Cullen, who spelt it out in very clear terms: 50,000 vacant posts means nurses are forced to work with unsafe staffing levels.
The NHS management that has allowed this situation to arise despite massive injections of cash surely cannot stay in post. Trained staff are being worn down by the stress and leave, and patients are put at risk. The NHS needs to be run by people who understand healthcare, not spreadsheets.
January 3, 2023
No…it needs to be organised and run by people who recognise challenge and respond with clear decisions and direction. Treatments and appropriate staffing are the province of healthcare professionals, not empire builders.
January 3, 2023
Why donât the media do the simple job of asking what grade these vacancies are? How many are over grade five, or are they the lowest pay grade healthcare assistants that are lacking, are they evenly spread through the English regions or is the North East not experiencing the same problems as the South East as NHS pay in the NE is at the top for the region?
January 3, 2023
Money pit – run for the benefit of the staff.
A staffing plan would be helpful but the highest priority is to move the NHS away from being paid for existing and towards being rewarded for clinical outputs. All NHS units should only be paid against an invoice for a procedure or appointment, a schedule of charges should be relatively easy to draw up.
Payments by results rather than existence.
January 3, 2023
So said Lansley in 2012 when he introduced the ‘internal market’. Can you imagine the number of invoices etc ((tens of millions) required and the waste of manpower in 220 different Trusts all duplicating effort? You already have what you are asking for and the result is clear to see.
January 3, 2023
@graham1946 & @Narrow Shoulders – The original concept or at least how it was presented. Our money, not theirs they donât have any was basically spent/authorised by your own personal GP, they got to buy the services that you as a patient needed. The concept being the service was for the Customer first.
NHS trust then got paid in a slightly convoluted way for the specific services provided. Not as now, the NHS Trusts demands money gets it and then the management decides if and when it is to provide a service. So we have a system that is out of control.
There is obviously more to it than just that, but the Customer First approach makes sense
January 3, 2023
Graham, how do you think any business could function without invoicing for its services, it takes no time now, its fully automatic, any off the shelf invoicing product. If the administration is as a big a problem as you suggest then farm out all none NHS covered patients first and give 30% of the invoiced money to the admin company. Can I sign up to do the billing. Happy to.
January 3, 2023
It’s not a business, it’s a public service for public good, paid by the public. Internal invoicing is just paperwork for the sake of it, it does not make it profitable. If you are suggesting charging foreigners then I agree with you. They tried to put in a computer system, paid millions of pounds for it and the IT company gave up as it could not be done. Don’t need to pay for any more admin, they pay too much already in useless managers. Trust doctors to provide the right thing at the right time and not have 50 grand managers trying to save tuppence.
January 3, 2023
Healthcare, especially to foreigners, is a business in Spain, graham or France; they also charge extra for appointments. Go anywhere on holiday; they want your health insurance details before treatment.
My daughter went to Korea and got a severe allergic reaction she was treated by a doctor immediately a bill was raised and paid and reclaimed from insurance in a matter of minutes in a local pharmacy.
Everything in the NHS is recorded in an administration system; every appointment and every treatment, and every drug is already entered into a computer system. Or do they not even open up a spine record for treatments of people without NHS records?
The public service of a hospital in Oxford is a very different experience from the public service in a hospital in Wythenshawe or Stoke yet we all pay the same NI.
January 3, 2023
With the number of accountancy staff already in post the manpower is there and data processing is much more automated these days. BUPA manages it.
Just because a previous implementation was not followed through does not make it a bad idea.
January 3, 2023
graham1946
In the early 90s I was a member of a Quality support network which had members from two teaching hospitals.
Following on from my Internal Customer Care presentation one of them followed it up and so a train the trainer course was set up in which I participated using some of my training material for them to rework to their own operational requirements. After nine months their Quality Awareness team had been disbanded. I heard much later the higher management levels withdrew their support as they said they had real work to do.
The same was tried in my company but we were lucky our Chairman would have none of it. This was the man who walked the talk everyday with an open door and direct telephone line 24/7. That is the difference its not top down the critical mass of energy was driven from the bottom up. Unlike the NHS.
January 3, 2023
NHS on the scrounge again. Create a crisis and then blame the bloody clueless Tories. Money for old rope. It’s what the unionised public sector have been doing for decades
I don’t see Sunak outside begging us to clap now..pathetic
How suffers? Patients, public and taxpayer.
January 3, 2023
That clapping!
What a disgusting attempt at psychological ( the âexpertsâ think âŠlol) trickery that was!
From what I have read those âexpertsâ fished deep into the past for âinspirationâ.
The Victorians put an end to gangs going around beating saucepans etc.
1918 flu outbreak local cinemas advised to contrive a through blast of air. Just made everyone super cold!
January 3, 2023
Iâve heard from a reliable source that if you give the nurses and doctors a 15% pay rise, all the NHS patient waiting times, staff shortages and bed-blocking will disappear âŠironic
January 3, 2023
a bit like train drivers – ‘we blame years of poor investment’ – but never mention rolling stock, signalling, station facilities, modernisation’ – somehow it will all change with a pay rise?
January 3, 2023
It appears that money can cure all evils
January 3, 2023
Perhaps Sir John could ask the Chancellor – who was Sec of State for Health for six years and was in situ when the Operation Cygnus Wargame and subsequent Report were held and issued in 2016 – WHY there isn’t a Manpower Plan for the NHS.
What was he doing as Sec of State for Health – filing his nails? He certainly doesn’t appear to have been asking any difficult questions or holding the Senior Management to account.
The NHS Management has no incentive to improve the service. They’re operating the same scam Sturgeon and the SNP are operating. Every time they let the NHS get “into crisis” they demand more money to fix it and every time the Government stumps up more ÂŁbillions with no strings attached because they are too cowardly to do anything else.
Even now, when the NHS has plainly collapsed, thanks to the lunatic Covid lockdowns, they haven’t got the guts to admit that fundamental reform is necessary.
January 3, 2023
D,
Absolutely. For any such plan there must be carefully planned resources especially for pandemic planning!
January 3, 2023
JR, you ask why the press wonât question properly, I do not know why⊠but I do remember Julia Hartley Brewer describing interviews with the BBC. They seem to want only proscribed responses to questionsâŠ
Fortunately, GB News arenât like that and do press on certain points to get a sensible response. But of course they need to get the people to agree to be interviewed.
January 3, 2023
Sharon
Sir John was on Talk TV this morning with J H B. I thought he put his case across very well in the limited time of the Zoom call. Better if he was a studio guest aka Alistair Stewart and Friends on GBNews if they would invite him.
He went down and came across very well when interviewed by Farage.
January 3, 2023
I agree Turbo. More MP’S with something useful to say should be on these news programmes that aren’t afraid to say what needs saying and reporting on.
January 3, 2023
The Telegraph leader today:-
âThe health service cannot go on like this
How much worse must the NHS get before our politicians do something beyond platitudinous hand-wringing? Astonishingly, MPs of all parties still appear to believe that the answer to the unfolding disaster is more taxpayersâ cash, as if that has not been tested to destruction.â
Stop the net harm vaccines now would at least be a good start but even that is beyond them. Then listen to the many excellent people like Prof. Dalgleish at St Georges London and Fire the useless PPE/Modern History graduates like Amanda Pritchard and all the diversity, lived experience and the net zero âexpertsââŠ
January 3, 2023
Well this reads like a litany of government failure. Spaff money up the wall and demand zero results. Yet again, our friend the Snake in the centre of the action – the same recipe as his Covid waste.
Now he’s coming after us to pay for his errors.
Please please push to sell the NHS off to an organisation or joint venture with proven logistics and tech track record. For example Amazon doesn’t specialise in making curtain rods/baubles etc but it does deliver them at cost and on time. e.g. Google could have mind-boggling ways of making sure people, resources and staff turned up in the right place at the right time. e.g. IBM could develop technologies to ensure the efficient use of online resources and that staff were remunerated appropriately by insurance from treatments provided. A completely new contract between provider and UK taxpayer or insured person to guarantee treatment that taxpayer/insured person has paid for.
That’s all it takes.
January 3, 2023
If healthcare were unregulated and freely ( competitively) on sale, without protection âŠ.
Who ONE EARTH would use or even work for the NHS?
January 3, 2023
err….the pay, the sick pay, the working week of shifts to 35 hours inclusive of breaks, the pension, the automatic increases, the adulation?
January 3, 2023
Beds – the clueless but dogma driven Osbourne cut 16,000 beds in his ludicrous ‘austerity’ drive, which had the effect of ruining public services whilst at the same time doubling the national debt. The Tories have since gone on to triple the debt, whilst services just get worse. Now we are paying much more to try to right the wrongs, just when we have the least money. And it looks like they want to do it all over again with another useless tax and p down the drain Chancellor and PM.
January 3, 2023
English NHS “The number of hospital beds has been falling over the past decade, regardless of who was in office.
The total number of overnight hospital beds in the English NHS has actually been falling almost constantly since the 1980s. The number of overnight beds in the English NHS actually fell by slightly moreâabout 26,000âbetween 2003/04 and 2009/10.” fullfact
They stopped treating so many patients overnight and started more day operations as technology improved. The average length of stay overnight in 2000 was about eight days, and itâs about five days 2017.
January 4, 2023
You seem to overlook that our population has increased by 10 million since 2000.
January 6, 2023
but we are told by the NHS and politicians that those 10 million aren’t using NHS services, they are young, fit â “the idea that migration has a negative impact on the NHS is not backed up by the evidence.” Health.org.uk
âno doubt that EEA migrants contribute more to the health workforce than they consume in health careâ.
https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/blogs/immigration-and-the-nhs-the-evidence
January 3, 2023
⊠due to my governmentâs policy of mass immigration.
Because the sainted NHS is above criticism so itâs easier to get a cheap headline blaming the government. That said, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Ultimately the government bears responsibility. Have you ever had a decent Health Secretary?
At this point outsourcing all routine treatments is the only answer. Outside treatments to private companies who do not burden themselves with ridiculous layers of management, do not employ diversity officers, do not employ agency workers and do not suffer strikes. Half the problem solved!
January 3, 2023
Reinstate local community hospitals and convalescent homes, staffed with a few nurses and helpers and with a GP on call and ideally visiting daily; so that our major hospitals have places to which they can send patients after surgery and discharge the chronic, freeing beds and staff to deal with the acute.
January 3, 2023
and when patients are deemed ready to go, hospital doctors must as a priority timely discharge them, not have them sit around pestering nursing staff for up to a whole day.
January 3, 2023
+many
Agree entirely.
The utter greed and stupidity that led to the closure of local hospitals.
And more greed and class envy in shutting private facilities.
January 3, 2023
Rather than reinstating local ‘cottage’ hospitals which would not suit modern medicine, the need is for very local clinics, with basic diagnostic resources such x-ray and phlebotomy + minor injury capabilities, which would reduce some of the pressure on District General Hospitals. They would also provide useful training grounds for medical students.
January 3, 2023
Too sensible, far too sensible. So it won’t be done.
January 3, 2023
+1
January 3, 2023
Well that was so easy, how come the so-called managers who are being overpayed could not think of the answer.
Do you want a job paying millions Walt?
January 3, 2023
When you use the words “manpower plan”, you are really getting too technical. Eyes glaze over and words go in one ear and out the other.
January 3, 2023
Dave. If it’s management that could get the boot they obviously won’t want to look at the numbers in case it’s them that gets shown the door. We have layers of pointless managers.
January 3, 2023
Retention is one of the biggest problems. Apparently 4 out of 10 Junior Doctors are leaving the profession, my son being one of them. The work rotas are designed for robots not humans. Burnt out on 60/70 hour weeks as the norm , mostly unsociable hours, vastly underpaid, used as administrators more than medics, and paying 41% in tax on anything over ÂŁ27,000 a year and thatâs before they move into the higher tax bracket that Hunt is luring everyone into with his fiscal drag. No wonder theyâre leaving the profession in their droves or taking their services to countries where they will be more appreciated.
Unfortunately this out of touch Government donât have the intelligence to sort it. Its only a small step but surely one gesture to make them feel a little more appreciated would be to scrap ALL student debt for NHS front line staff on condition they work for the NHS for a minimum number of years. After all this Government is happy to write off 78% all student debt for those who probably should never have gone to university in the first place yet theyâre not willing to do the same for those the country desperately needs.
And please John tell Sunak to stop conflating NHS workers with the public sector generally which he loves to do when defending pay rises. Itâs insulting. There is a vast difference between NHS staff who worked flat out through the âpandemicâ and are now paying the price for the Governmentâs disastrous policy of turning the NHS into the National Covid Service for two years and those public sector workers who worked from their sofas throughout and are still doing so.
January 3, 2023
Jools. There is alot of truth in your post.
January 4, 2023
leaving in droves…evidence ?
January 3, 2023
2019 Conservative manifesto- âOur NHS People Plan-âŠâŠ. our core priority is to make sure the work force can grow and has the support it needsâ.
So you have been saying this for 3 years, the message is getting tired and we are tired of the messengers.
January 3, 2023
I heard those woeful interviews on the World at One. I particularly thought the one with the chief strategy officer for NHS England showed the problem in the NHS. Given all the longterm issues & strategic failures he should be one of the first of the useless NHS management to be dismissed forthwith. He even mentioned extra demand due to baby boomers. Where has he been for the last 70 years?
January 3, 2023
âThey  agreed but the NHS did not supply the manpower plan so the cash was given anywayâ
That is now the embedded problem everywhere there is a demand for the TAX Payer to cough up. The Government, the Management of the UK will just GIVE money. No reason for it required, no responsibility for were it goes and in the end no accountability to be attributed.
I cant fathom the logic, its not the Governments Money they just take it from us and then just throw it away. Unless that is the point, they have been seen to do something, but that something turns out to be collect ever higher taxes. Its a sham Government they are not Managing any of the sub-empires they themselves have created.
January 3, 2023
Yes. At the moment if a department has money left over from its budget then it’s spent on unecessary items. If you add up all the money left over from all the depts I’m sure it could be put to good use and by that I don’t mean more managers.
January 3, 2023
We could have done without the safe and effective concoction being injected into tens of millions of the population. All those in public life, who failed to oppose this poisoning, now possibly transmissible to our descendants, should retire.
As for the increase in population, ditto.
January 3, 2023
Quite a few of us ….. far more than the Government cares to admit …… did our bit to help reduce the Government’s tax, borrow, print and pizz away spending plans by declining the “offer” to participate in multiple stages of the (unnecessary for most) medical experiment.
So we will also be adding far less to the longer-term health demands on the NHS ….. which the Government doesn’t care to admit, either.
January 3, 2023
Sir John, haven’t you told us that when you are pre-interviewed by the BBC, they check to see if they like what you’re going to say? Then if they don’t, the interview doesn’t go ahead.
I never watch or listen to news or current affairs on the BBC, and I’m surprised anybody else would.
January 3, 2023
Questions re covid financing.
Too much nest feathering going on for a âdiseaseâ that needed no more than normal care.
A totally out of control greed fest.
ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁ billions laundered from the system and as we can see nowâŠthere are many ways of doing this!
January 3, 2023
Because they don’t want to be seen attacking the NHS.
Shouldn’t it be the job of Parliament to make sure the NHS is run properly – Where is the monitoring of the detailed reports the NHS should be producing, and why hasn’t adequate pressure been applied by various Parliamentary bodies to make the NHS do better?
The media cannot be relied on – for anything!
Why isn’t the Health Secretary demanding real solutions from NHS managers?
January 3, 2023
To be fair, Bryan, Parliament does try to get better performance out of the NHS. The House of Commons
Health and Social Care Committee produced a report which I’ve read on the future of GPs.
https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/30383/documents/176291/default/
This was about three months ago. I’m not a health professional and don’t have specialist knowledge of this area. Still, looking through the Committee’s recommendations, it’s clear to me at least that they’ve got to grips with the issues and looked into ways of dealing with them. But is the government going to take up their recommendations? Is it going to link future funding improvements to NHS managers implementing what Parliament recommends? I wonder.
January 4, 2023
Indeed, but reports all too often get binned or ignored – I want to see sparks flying between Ministers and the NHS
January 3, 2023
I think what is becoming obvious is there is no plan.
Just dealing with what comes through the door and block.
As for the government paid for private hospitals during covid lockdowns, not only did government pay but the private insured sector also had to carry on paying their insurance premiums! After complaint some people got a small reduction but that isnât the point. Should a government just be able to close down the resource by using taxpayers money to buy it up without any expectation of use.
January 3, 2023
One persons’ extra beds and spare capacity is another’s “waste and inefficiency”.
We’ve spent so long hearing about the apparent evils of the latter and the need to eliminate them that is it any wonder that the former is no longer there?
January 3, 2023
Spare capacity has been an ‘issue’ since the 1970s to my certain knowledge, as far as both beds and operating theatres are concerned. Ideally, a hospital needs to keep some unused capacity in case of emergencies, and in order to allow time/space for thorough cleansing etc.
The waste and inefficiency is often down to administrative incompetence: files are mislaid, patients are not notified of appointments and are then blamed for missing them, both doctors and nurses refuse to do the non-medical tasks that are needed, whether it is arranging for the transfer of very sick patients between NHS hospitals or arranging district nurse care for the discharged, staff are sometimes unaware of the services that are available within their OWN hospital or refuse to contact other NHS bodies involved in a patient’s treatment….all of those examples are from my life and those of my friends, both in the present and going back 3 decades and more.
January 3, 2023
It was Blurred who started closing down wards, wasn’t it?
January 3, 2023
The NHS costs a few thousand ÂŁs per person each year.
Patients would spend their own money better.
Govt could instead allocate ÂŁ1k per year to each patient to spend as they wish on health, with unused monies being paid as a lump sum at age 50.
Those who need treatment would receive it normally, paid by the NHS as now, but wasters would be discouraged from ignoring appointments and malingering: at their own eventual expense.
Those who maintain healthy lives would be better off, and could donate to family, friends and others in need if they wish.
January 3, 2023
Bloke, I wonder how many wasters are because they can’t get public transport to get to these far distant hospitals now and can’t get through on the phone to tell anyone.
Giving elderly people 4pm appointments in other districts miles and miles away when they don’t like driving in the dark is poor planning too. You just have to be grateful for the crumbs on offer, take it or leave it now.
January 3, 2023
Clearly, the media is still enamoured by warm cosy feelings towards the NHS !
People I talk too have long abandoned any such feelings for “Our NHS” and are correctly starting to regard it as another service provided by the state which is dramatically failing. How many would be prepared to stand out in the cold and clap for the NHS today ? I refused to do so when it was in fashion.
The Conservatives cannot be accused of starving the NHS of funds but they have to be much more demanding every time the budget is increased. Right back to Gordon Brown’s day, we have seen what happens when money is thrown at public services without measurable targets. Nothing ! The money just disappears into the abyss.
To increase funding on condition of having a manpower plan in place and then hand over the money anyway, when one is not forthcoming, is ridiculous. The cash should have been withheld and the minister should have told everyone why and who exactly was to blame.
The current problems have been a long time building yet no plan has been put in place to deal with it. Heads should roll as a result. We need to switch to a German-style funding model with not-for-profit insurers able to set standards and prices for services from whoever runs the hospitals.
January 3, 2023
the NHS is a national disgrace
the complaints system holds no fears for the senior managers as they can just manipulate it or provide non answers and get away with it
the political control holds no fears as the politicians only ever replace people with others from the same mould
the patients have no power at all
just give up and copy the new zealand model of healthcare instead
January 3, 2023
Or another way to solve this minor problem in our much vaunted NHS is to fire a few of these pathetic ‘managers’ of the Trusts, because that would concentrate the minds of the rest of the CEO’s rapidly. Followed by a complete revamp of the Trust structures starting with those topping the worst list.
January 5, 2023
Shouldn’t we have the news channels interviewing Trust Managers? They work for us, this is the most important public service that is supposed to be in public hands. Yet, they don’t seem to be approachable to explain why nurses are writing in the Guardian that they don’t have sufficient HCAs to wash people when they have soiled themselves in bed and wet themselves because there isn’t time to get a bed pan to them.
GB News bill itself as the news station of the people, come on then one of you from 6 pm to 9 pm, or a weekend of NHS, lets start to get these health chiefs in from each region. Let’s discuss what jobs are available in their trust at each grade, what salaries, what locations, and what skills do people need to get the jobs.
January 3, 2023
Why we need strong regulation in banking (and elsewhere)
Science demonstrates that a certain amount of people in society are narcissists / sociopaths (no-one is 100% but you can get close to 100%) and these people are brilliant liars and manipulators and can do incredible damage to organisations (and the economy) even though these people account for only about 6% to 7% of the general population (including in banking although banking might attract a higher % as narcissists / sociopaths have an unhealthy attachment to money and connected to money, s-x and power).
However, the rest of the population who wouldn’t be described, by clinical psychologists, as ‘narcissists / sociopaths’ are drifting more and more, in the modern world, towards these traits.
These traits are essentially rooted in selfishness – not in work ethic or devotion to family or country (patriotism) and you can’t have an economy or country rooted in selfishness over work ethic / devotion to family / devotion to country. You just end up with chaos.
Which is why we don’t need just regulation from narcissists / sociopaths in banking and elsewhere but also there needs to be a drive to promote the values of traditional conservatism (work ethic / love of family / love of country) through Eduction / Media / The Arts / churches that simply isn’t nearly happening enough today. Instead we’re over-relying on economic policy and politics overall as well as just hoping the narcissists / sociopaths will go away / won’t bite – when of course they won’t go away and they will continue to bite as long as we allow them to.
Again, what I say is supported by, rooted in, science.
January 3, 2023
“Why wonât the media press the top management on the failure of current plans and ask why capacity is kept too low?”
Presumably, a Parliamentary Select Committee can question a few of the NHS CEOs to try and find out what is going on ?
January 3, 2023
The data below is for the 24-hour period 00:00 to 23:59 2 January 2023.
Number of migrants detected in small boats: 44
Number of boats detected: 1
Just 44 yesterday partaking of our âfreeâ medical service
January 4, 2023
I’m amazed at so few want a trip on the water, a nice hotel near Dover, all found, medicare sorted out, free jabs…pocket money.
January 3, 2023
1. The GPs new contract allowed them to work less & earn more negotiated back in 2004/5.
2. New Hospitals built with fewer beds than the one or more that they replace.
3. Unlimited immigration over the last 20 years; more people = more demand.
4. Closure of hospitals in big cities, Huddersfield being one example, people now have to travel to Halifax on a road that constantly carries heavy traffic.
5. Creation of a managerial class in NHS, taking money away from patient care & expanding their empires.
6. Politicians who worship the NHS, & pouring more money into it, instead of taking the tough decisions needed to fix it.
7. A staffing plan would help, but why has there not been one before?
January 3, 2023
You cannot have mass migration of people who donât cover their social costs AND a social care system of the same level.
You can have one OR the other BUT you cannot have both. The Conservative Party needs to decide if they want to live in a country with a social care system of the same level OR have mass migration. Make your mind up.
The high taxes and the failing social care system ARE the crossroads.
January 3, 2023
Most of the Press still believe they are committing sacrilege if they so much imply that it would be possible for anyone in the NHS to go about their jobs in any other way than they already do.
Of course the management of the NHS should be held to account in public interviews, and it is scandalous that their poor performance, and lack of forward planning has been allowed to go on for so long. But who has let this happen? It is the elected politicians, and they are the people who are ultimately to blame. It is they who have wasted huge sums of our money without demanding any reasons for why or how it is to be spent, and have lacked the courage to challenge the status quo in any way.
January 3, 2023
Decision , direction , control are all the essential aspects of management . Shareholders expect results and , if they are not produced , they can demand and create change . This condition has never applied to the NHS ,so , who is to blame ?. The NHS was never conceived as a nationally run organisation and it is wrong to operate it this way today . I also believe that the second overview that the Lords have over decisions reached in the Commons is an unwieldy and time consuming procedure .
January 3, 2023
Today I read that the Covid testing for arrivals from China will be voluntary and there will be no need for people who test positive to isolate!
I don’t understand how anyone can bear to work for a government that produces such stupid decisions. I would explode with frustration.
January 3, 2023
Iâve just washed my old mask awaiting this governmentâs proclamation that we all have to start wearing masks again âŠagainst the science but for our own protection
January 3, 2023
Generally speaking through out the MsM today there is a hiatus referencing the NHS
We have Mark Harper(Transport Minister) stating that the NHS have been given âsignificantâ extra resources. That misses the point, we all know that over recent years masses and masses of our money has been placed with the NHS. What is being asked from everyone is where has this money gone, how has it been accounted for and who is responsible for the outcomes of this additional spend? What we are not getting from Government as Managers of this valuable resource, âtaxpayers moneyâ, any answers.
A Government in charge of managing is just throwing money at things, they are not defining and paying for outcomes. There is no management accountability, simply the Government is refusing to do what it is paid to do – manage.
January 3, 2023
the extra money can be likened to pouring a bucket of water down a road drain – it disappears we know not where, but never over flows.
January 3, 2023
Who funds the health think tanks? There seems to be a lot of thinking and not much doing if you listen to Labour over the past 12 years.
Google search says: Most think tanks are non-profit organisations and may be based in the charity sector. Others are funded by particular advocacy groups, the voluntary sector, government, businesses, generate revenue from consulting or research or combination thereof.
The Nuffield Trust.
2020health.
The King’s Fund – supporting integrated care for patients
The Health Foundation – making suggestions for action!
CHPI – a vision of health and social care based on ACCOUNTABILITY
IPPR commission on health
Chatham House?
Reform think tank – calls for NHS overhaul.
Three of these health think-tanks predict a shortfall of 250,000 NHS staff. Wouldn’t we be better not having people working in thank tanks and just putting the direct front-line staff in place, ensuring training places are opened up and NHS doctors whilst working 40 hours + in our NHS don’t have to pay their 9% graduate tax unless they leave for New Zealand or elsewhere in the world to take advantage over our leaky training system.
These think tanks are lead by ‘experts’ the RCN says, well what sort of experts are they that they didn’t first tell us the NHS management doesn’t have a good/sufficient manpower plan? The RCN write “The Governmentâs earlier plan to increase nursing applications by scrapping the bursary has categorically failed – 1,800 fewer people have been accepted onto courses.”
January 3, 2023
Look think tanks are a waste of time because they are normally stuffed with people who think alike – what is needed instead are groups of ‘citizens assemblies’, assemblies that consist of randomly selected persons – maybe a hundred or so in each group that can sit at weekends over a few months and come up with some answers for the politicians to consider – that’s if we want to get an honest fix of what is needed
January 3, 2023
I realise that it is no consolation, let alone a solution, but the Irish are in similar difficulties:
https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2023/01/03/hse-appeals-to-people-to-consider-all-options-before-going-to-a-hospital-this-week/
“Public urged to âconsider all optionsâ before going to hospital amid surge in viruses”
“Pressure on hospitals is the result of high levels of flu and Covid-19, and increasing cases of respiratory syncytial virus”
And that’s despite Ireland still enjoying all those benefits of EU membership which we have so foolishly thrown away, unfolding disaster of Brexit, blah blah blah, never any effective reply from the UK government.
One thing I do notice is the inclusion of “RSV” or (as here) “respiratory syncytial virus” in most of the Irish reports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_syncytial_virus
“Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV),[a] also called human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) and human orthopneumovirus, is a common, contagious virus that causes infections of the respiratory tract. It is a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA virus. Its name is derived from the large cells known as syncytia that form when infected cells fuse.”
January 3, 2023
“and still they gazed and still the wonder grew that one small head could carry all he knew”
Oliver Goldsmith circa 1760
January 3, 2023
This government has taken the adage ânothing is certain except death and taxesâ to the extreme
With this government taxes are guaranteed to increase and the chances of getting a GP appointment are almost zero
January 3, 2023
In a few more years we might be consulting a ‘witch doctor’ shaman or faith healer, rather than the torture of trying to get a GP to assess what the ailment is. Seriously we might be best advised to ask advice from pharmacies or even vets! Yes, I know you’ll reply ‘barking mad’
January 3, 2023
Here we are talking about Government incapability to manage and deliver. Then over on the business pages Elon Musk is also getting the rocket. He had the aim this year of delivering 50% more cars for the year, unfortunately he undershot that and only managed to deliver 47% more cars. This is of course evoking a lot of angst from investors and commentators a like â loss of earnings all round. Wow people loosing because aims are not met.
Under the UKâs Governments requirements the Bank of England is charged with keeping inflation in the UK at 2%, instead it is running north of 10%, which is 500% above target. The NHS gets bucket loads of cash to up its delivery of service and nothing happens. And, from the Management, the UK Government we get a shrug of the shoulders as the best response. Inflation is now high and the State needs to consume more money, the plebs need to cut back to manage their lifestyles more frugally and effectively make sacrifices, so to give the Government more tax. It is important to Government that their own and their Establishment buddies lifestyles are maintained and the Government can keep chucking money around.
We have no âeconomyâ its not on the agenda and the only thing at the end of the day that pays for Government desires is the economy. Deliberate malicious destruction of a whole nation.
January 3, 2023
The Government should close the Health Department and STOP trying to run a health service. They should divide the nation into âhealth constituenciesâ, then accept tenders from Insurance companies to insure ALL the inhabitants of each bloc (in sickness and in health). The Govt can pay out of NI the Health Insurance of the infirm and poor.
The medical establishment must provide the facilities and personnel and tender to the insurers for the work or blocks of work. The insurers will ensure the quality of healthcare is as good as possible, because they will NOT want recurring health problems.
Politicians of all shades have proven beyond a shadow of doubt that they are incapable of running a bath much less a health industry or motor industry or for that matter any other industry.
January 3, 2023
I agree. We must do something radical now.
January 3, 2023
Sir John, as usual, you ask the most pertinent question.
Having lived around the world and having been born with poor health, I have regrettably had to use medical care in a number of different countries, but they have all been significantly better than the NHS and they have all been run by clinicians with almost nonexistent bureaucracies. Approximately 50% of salaries in the NHS go to non-clinical staff. This must be slashed and will thereafter provide a huge financial gain for the service to use. I was brought up in the Caribbean and have had to use the absolutely superb national health service in Cuba where they have more clinicians than they need and export them to other central American countries. You can get instant medical attention and even if you are from another island, it is free and immediate. The service is run entirely by clinicians and there appears to be no bureaucracy!
My wife is Chinese, and I have had to use the health service in my wife’s own city, although private, it is cheap and subsidised. I have always had immediate and excellent treatment and they seem always to have the latest US diagnostic equipment, unlike the UK. They have almost no administrative bureaucracy. It is run entirely by clinicians, some of whom have become good friends.
I have had experience in recent years in Spain, which is also immediate and excellent and they also seem to have very streamlined administrative bureaucracies with clinicians running the show.
We need at least to look at the best in Europe and learn, for example, from the system in France. We are being smothered by an overpaid administrative bureaucracy that must be largely eliminated. We must get rid of the wasteful “Trust” system. Install one central buying authority that will have massive power to purchase at the most competitive prices.
We also need to bring GPs fully into the NHS. My GPs now only work the contractual 3 days a week and they earn a very good living for so doing! This is unacceptable and bad value for money!
January 3, 2023
Sir John, I just wish to add my own recent experience with the NHS. I have a degenerative spine disorder which started to affect my mobility in 2019. Prior to this, I was speed walking for an hour every day in the local gym. It took a year to see a consultant at the Royal London Hospital and it then took until the beginning of 2022 to get the necessary MRI scans at Barts after formal complaints to the Trust. I finally saw the consultant some months later and at that point, he told me that he was not the right surgeon, so I had to start all over again. I could not go to China to get treated because China was closed. I will, at last, be seen by the Atkinson Morley hospital at St Georges next week, however, over this long wait, I am now wheelchair-bound and have considerable muscle wastage in my legs. This, I am afraid, is the dreadful state of the NHS. Radical reform is all that left!
January 3, 2023
Iâm afraid there are many horror stories of very ill patients and their very worried relations having to fight like tigers, issuing legal threats etc, in order to get medical attention. This is cruel! I am so sick of these heart-on-the-sleeve-caring-progressive woke-types delivering this inhumanity as a matter of course.
We really do need to revert to an independently employed medical establishment which has to earn its own income.
We need a real National Insurance System which insures all people so that the insurers canât cherry pick the healthy.
We need politicians to give all their attention to the things only the Government can do – like securing our borders!
The British people pay huge sums for absolute rubbish services. Iâm tired of being told that I get what I pay for! No I donât! I can confirm that high quality Cuban medics were sent to South West Africa where they did sterling work for next to nothing.
I hope Sir John that you will be bold and propose an alternative system. Your understanding of politIcal economy is superior to my poor effort. Now is the moment because the people are becoming agnostic regarding the NHS which fails them more often than not.
January 3, 2023
Iâm doing an LL – it just occurred to me that the solution for the Health industry is also the solution for education. Politicians must oversee the examination boards and ensure that every teacher is fully stretched trying to get her entire class through the examinations – no time for those subjects that are the prerogative of parents who can deal with each child individually.
January 3, 2023
Dr John. I have nothing but sincere sympathy for you. I hope your future is brighter.
January 3, 2023
There needs to be a complete clear-out of the Arts graduates running the NHS at every level. I’m not certain what the purpose of an Arts degree is but it most certainly does not represent a qualification for running an organisation of staff with high levels of technical skill. Without the training of a medical degree and experience of working in healthcare, people do not know enough to make intelligent decisions about healthcare provision.
Furthermore, huge waste ensues from Arts graduates inventing activities for themselves and for the medically qualified to follow which do not subserve any medical purpose.
Looking at the Board of Directors of the CharitĂ© â UniversitĂ€tsmedizin Berlin, it is noticeable that apart from
the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Nursing Officer, the Directors’ titles all begin with “Professor Doctor”.
It comes as no surprise that healthcare in Germany is better than in the UK.
January 3, 2023
a-Tracy – your comment re think tanks reminded me that there are 27 Quangos involved with the NHS.
No wonder it is in a mess! Even more money going down the drain & of no benefit to patients.
January 3, 2023
The NHS is a national institution. So, it seems, is warning about the NHS’s imminent demise:
‘Doctors’ leaders warned yesterday that the medical profession was falling into a state of “clinical depression” as it struggled to provide proper care for patients in an overstretched NHS. [The] chairman of the British Medical Association said it was no longer accurate to talk about a winter crisis in the health service, because problems of under-capacity and overwork continued all year round.’ Guardian 8-12-2000.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/dec/08/johncarvel
‘The last 12 months have been the worst in the history of the NHS. Our health system is under pressure like never before. The moment of crisis many warned of has arrived, and it is not clear that the NHS can be retrieved from this state of affairs.’ Guardian 4-1-2017
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2017/jan/04/2016-was-the-worst-year-in-nhs-history-we-must-fight-for-its-survival
Is it possible that we won’t take the crisis in the health service sufficiently seriously, because of all the times in the last 20 years or so that we heard it was just about to collapse, and it didn’t?
January 3, 2023
I can fix the NHS in one simple move. One sentence even. It doesnât even need a law. Just one sentence added to every MPâ Employment Conditions.
Namely: âMPs are not allowed to have for themselves and their partners and children private health insurance or to pay privately for medical and dental treatmentâ
Problem solved overnight.
January 3, 2023
We have had many Globalist puppet PMs, foisted upon us who fully support and promote the Globalist WEF agenda, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May Johnson, Truss, and Sunak and the NHS is not part of their agenda.
January 3, 2023
On the subject of bed numbers, it strikes me there could be more, but internal ward space is taken up with too much equipment – from my very limited observation admittedly. I’m sure I’m correct but vested interests will shout ‘nonsense’ if challenged.
January 3, 2023
Why won’t they do those sensible things?
Because they’re all socialists who have endless afternoons to devote to their cause.
They “weaponise the NHS” by shutting down debate about its failings, whether that’s the politicians calling it “world class” or “the envy of the world” or “our wonderful NHS” or the journalists/broadcasters failing to ask the searching questions – that is how the modern day left operates. If you can’t get elected, get appointed (whether that’s the EU Commission or a journalist/broadcaster or head of a quango, the police force, Electoral Commission etc)… they all collude to hide their failings while they shout stridently, in emotive language, about other people.
To the ill-informed and inexperienced, it seems as though everyone they listen to agrees that conservative, right-of-centre policies are bad… because the other voices are not heard, or only rarely. And when they are heard, they are shouted down.
Is it any surprise that younger people are socialists? All they ever hear is socialist doctrine.
January 3, 2023
We need to stop patients arriving at A&E for minor illnesses a Pharmacist could handle. We need to make GP’s realise that they are there to practice and not simply act as an agency to move people on to other places . We need all practitioners to complete jobs whilst they are being seen .Medics have gone through the system and have been trained with hand on skills . They should be strongly advised to use them and not send to A&E. Examples .. suturing, wound care, phlebotomy, ECG’s etc
January 3, 2023
I watched a (former) NHS ‘Chief’ earlier today. He was quite relaxed explaining how a 40% funding increase (in real terms) wasn’t how to “look at it”. We needed to take a more “historical perspective” and understand the previous lack of investment. His view appeared to be that the 40% increase in funding had just been in ‘operational expense’. It clearly didn’t involve any element of capital investment – that should (of course) be viewed as a Government responsibility (and nothing to do with him).
So let’s imagine a CEO (of BUPA ?) standing up at his AGM to address his shareholders thus:
“I’m delighted to announce that our revenues are up 40% – although (unfortuntely) so are our costs. Whilst we haven’t therefore made a profit for the past ten years, we haven’t had to make any expensive capital investments during this period either. I agree our Customer Service Levels are pretty dreadful but your Board passionately believes that another serious crisis (like last year) can be averted if Shareholders will support this (latest) Rights Issue. We would also very much appreciate your vote for our improved Directors Bonus Scheme (Dire.BS)” How would that go down I wonder…? đ
January 4, 2023
or even ‘Lets not bother with the minutiae, going straight to the Re-appoint the Directors, can I have a hand for motion and seconded?’
January 3, 2023
This is completely off topic for which I apologise but Senator McCarthy who won the speaker nomination through a majority vote for his party being prevented from becoming Speaker is as shameful as the ousting of Liz Truss as PM and has echoes of the Benn Act.
January 4, 2023
No more lockdowns, treat the disease.
Make Paxlovid antiviral available without prescription and keep in the kitchen cupboards across the land next to the paracetamol.
January 4, 2023
When a perfectly factual piece written after much thought yesterday and incidentally supported by a hospital docter today on GBNews is redacted in full, I begin to think you are just box ticking, going through the motions. Answers to your parliamentary questions never amount to more than a bag of beans. Very sad that politics in the UK is no more than dust on a bookshelf, but not surprising when most players are park league. Government is a yacht with blown sails, a bent propshaft and a crew that does not know the difference between a course and its reciprocol, despite changing said crew every five years.
January 4, 2023
GPs are working 3 days a week for the NHS and the rest of the time for private GP services. No wonder you can’t get an appointment. If it’s not too desperate, you get (if lucky) a phone appointment in 3 weeks time. If serious and immediate you get told to ring 111 or go to A&E. The NHS is great.
January 4, 2023
GPs are working 3 days a week for the NHS and the rest of the time for private GP services. No wonder you can’t get an appointment. If it’s not too desperate, you get (if lucky) a phone appointment in 3 weeks time. If serious and immediate you get told to ring 111 or go to A&E. The NHS is great. This is a duplicate comment, apparently.