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[pscocoa]

Just been told that the NHS is the "4th largest company in the world". Whilst company maybe a simplified term in this context it nevertheless is food for thought if true given how it is being funded.

[tunnie]

Quick Google suggests it has in excess of 1.4 Million members of staff 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12819538

To give context, Sky has a little under 23,000 - BT as around 90,000 and Microsoft around 97,000

 

[albitz]

More people work in the NHS than live in Essex. Over half of the employees have no medical qualifications.
In some ways its a wonderful thing,but in others its a gravy train with an almost unlimited budget. Imo,it needs to change radically.
It isn't possible for it to continue to grow with no apparent limit to its size. Currently it takes mind boggling amounts of money to run it,but its never enough.
A good start imo,would be to greatly reduce the power and influence of the unions and other organisations with vested interests.
The interests of patients should be right at the top of a very short list of priorities,but that isn't always the case.
Problem is, its a sacred cow and anyone who wants to introduce reality into the situation gets torn to pieces. If it doesn't change it will eventually destroy itself imo.In fact it could be argued that with recent revelations (mid staffs etc.) that process is already underway.

[bigegg]

looking at the other companies on the lists.

Walmart (asda) 2.2M employees worldwide
China Petroleum 1.6M people
China Electricity 1.5M people
NHS 1.4M people

So basically, it takes as many people to provide healthcare to 60M people, as it does to provide fuel, or electric, to the entire 3.5BILLION people + all the industries and infrastructure in china!

That's brekking ridiculous!

[MV6Matt]

.......and do you remember Mr Cameron saying 'the NHS is safe in our hands'.......?

I left in May after 23 years. Had enough.
The demand for service is greater than ever. Teams I worked with over the last 23 years either don't exist any more or are a 1/3 the size they were in 1997.

The Trust I worked for most recently was prepared to spend 250,000 on a management consultant company (who said that there were too many staff in teams who were not working 'smart' enough), but would not fund staff to deliver the service. Trust HQ is now groaning with 25 year old MBA graduates & a culture of outcomes and databases. I get the impression that patients and staff are viewed as a massive inconvenience, that continually present obstacles to getting enough data to DOH.

There are certainly 'gravy train' elements in the current way the NHS works, and a management philosophy of clinicians as scapegoats.
Goodwill is almost non-existent now and the willingness of staff to do more than they could is now mostly absent.
I think that the sooner the NHS is staffed by robots, the happier management will be...........

The NHS, why bother? 

[Sir Tigger KC]

The NHS, why bother?

Because the NHS saves peoples lives (mine included), that's why! 

[albitz]

It saved mine too,on more than one occasion. I try to think about it logically rather then emotionally though,and imo logic says it needs to change,radically,sooner rather than later. Getting rid of those who are supposed to manage it would seem worth while,as the management of it seems to be appalling tbh.
I don't buy into blaming the current govt. tbh,although Im not a fan of them by any means.They have ringed fenced the NHS budget (probably wrongly imo) and the last lot used it as a political branch of the Labour party and stuffed it full of their cronies to run it. They then fiddled all sorts of figures to try to con us all it was doing superbly when reality,experience and then the revelations from mid staffs and many other places assured us that it was in many parts, anything but superb.
As I said before,it needs to change and the top (and almost only) priority should be treatment of patients in its care. Including not treating those who shouldnt be in its care at all,or should be visiting somewhere else other than a hospital.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I'm not saying that the NHS dosn't need to change, just giving an example of why we should all be bothered about the NHS. 

In fact we should all have a massive bee in our bonnets about the NHS and we should all want it to be the best it can be.  The trouble is that as soon as anyone mentions reform they are accused of wanting to abolish it! 

If we all took a long hard look at the healthcare situation in the US, we'd maybe realise how lucky we are to have the NHS.  Warts an all!! 

[pscocoa]

We must be a nation of mugs to let this go on - people milking the system is met by increasing the resources and not by challenging the validity of treatment needs or ability to pay.

Are we such sick whingers? Or is the claims culture the root cause of the layers of bureaucracy. If we dared to introduce a contract which said if you come to the NHS which you know is over stretched any claim for negligence is capped. Analyse a & e admissions for drink, drugs etc type causes and introduce a charge.

[albitz]

I'm not saying that the NHS dosn't need to change, just giving an example of why we should all be bothered about the NHS. 

In fact we should all have a massive bee in our bonnets about the NHS and we should all want it to be the best it can be.  The trouble is that as soon as anyone mentions reform they are accused of wanting to abolish it! 

If we all took a long hard look at the healthcare situation in the US, we'd maybe realise how lucky we are to have the NHS.  Warts an all!! 

It seems we have one extreme and maybe the U.S. has the other extreme.Those with vested interests in keeping the NHS just as it is, seem to want us to believe that they are the only two options,but the fact is that lots of other countires have different systems which are somewhere in between the two.

[Rods2]

As you can see from this world health ranking there are countries spending far less to achieve much more.

This is what we need to do and it is impossible to do that with the current system. We would get much better outcomes if we had a tax based system, free at the point of access, free to choose where you are treated, but the hospitals only getting paid for treatment given. This would transform the ethos and quality of treatment as we would avoid poor hospitals and poor service like frequent cancellations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranking_of_health_systems

[omega3000]

We must be a nation of mugs to let this go on - people milking the system is met by increasing the resources and not by challenging the validity of treatment needs or ability to pay.

Are we such sick whingers? Or is the claims culture the root cause of the layers of bureaucracy. If we dared to introduce a contract which said if you come to the NHS which you know is over stretched any claim for negligence is capped. Analyse a & e admissions for drink, drugs etc type causes and introduce a charge.

All self inflicted alcohol abusers should be fined for using up a&e resources , see how long they keep going back then