Nhs

RIght....it was Thatcher's reign that screwed the NHS royally.....it needed funding and her solution was to introduce competative tendering - which basically meant things like cleaning were contracted to an outside firm. This was meant to save money as firms competed for the contracts, but it meant that the standards of service went down.....

Anyway....it's a problem....Mr Blair is stuck between a rock and a hard place here! He could raise taxes, but we never want that! British people already think they pay too much, although research does show that just under half or so would be prepared to pay more taxes....or he could introduce more prescription charges, but this would cause an uproar cos the NHS is meant to be "Free for all at the point of use"....

There's just all sorts of hidden problems here - our buildings are old and crumbly, so private firms basically pay the government and make the buildings pretty and clean, but that means our state-run hospital is in a private building! And sometimes the NHS beds are "rented" out to private patients, too.....

so basically the tories "Privatisation by stealt" of the NHS got too far progressed for any quick fixes.

Are these contracts with private industry watertight or can they be reversed?
And does the present government have the political will to do this?
and will it help?

What have you found.

Neil

I have found out more about PFI :

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Labour ministers prefer to refer to the PFI using the more generic and less politically charged term "public-private partnership" or PPP.

The term PPP describes any private sector involvement in public services including the transfer of council homes to housing associations using private loans, and contracting out services like rubbish collection or hospital cleaning to a private companies.

The PFI, the most well-known form of PPP, refers to a strictly defined legal contract for involving private companies in the provision of public services, particularly public buildings.

Under a PFI scheme, a capital project such as a school, hospital or housing estate, has to be designed, built, financed and managed by a private sector consortium, under a contract that typically lasts for 30 years.

The private consortium will be regularly paid from public money depending on its performance throughout that period. If the consortium misses performance targets, it will be paid less.

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People don't seem to like PPP/PFI - think it is a way of sneakily privatising everything!

The problem with performance targets, is that they are really impossible to choose in a health setting because theres no real clear goal, other than to treat everyone to the best of your ability.

Edited punctuation

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Originally posted by ilw@11 July 2003 - 13:09
The problem with performance targets, is that they are really impossible to choose in a health setting because theres no real clear goal, other than to treat everyone to the best of your ability.

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Yup and it puts staff under increased pressure to reach those targets, so they cannot work to the best of their ability if they are overworked.

Health care should be about quality, not quantity! Perhaps we should send Mr Blair a link to this topic.......?

Quote:

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Originally posted by ilw@11 July 2003 - 13:09
The problem with performance targets, is that they are really impossible to choose in a health setting because theres no real clear goal, other than to treat everyone to the best of your ability.

Edited punctuation

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the real problem with performance targets is that there being fiddled in order to pass the target.
One hospital transfered dozens of staff to A&E for the day/week of the testing and they passed.
also the fiddling of the waiting lists has become a science.
one hospital's management tean came in one night and cancelled all the follow up treatments for a couple of weeks and replaced the appointments with patients that were about to miss the targets
they did this without consulting the doctors and with no consideration for clinical need.
the only reason was to hit the governments rediculous targets just do Blair can say there is an improvement in performance

and when the punnishment for failure is dissmissal can you realy blame them.

The targets are there not to improve performance but to hide Blair's blushes

WeeMouse

So the privatisation still continues?

Neil

Basically, yeah - Tthe privitization still continues. Only in a sneaky and underhand way though so that most voters wouldn't realise.

Its not just that they're fiddled, its also that u can't measure the right things, for instance some of the measures like % of AE patients treated within a certain time are just stupid because the people most in need of treatment are likely to take longer to treat and so tie up doctors and nurses for longer.

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Originally posted by WeeMouse@11 July 2003 - 13:33
Basically, yeah - Tthe privitization still continues. Only in a sneaky and underhand way though so that most voters wouldn't realise.

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That's what I think also.
Do you have any idea what to do about the fiddling of the figures.
considering the government isn't going to stop interfeering.

Neil

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Originally posted by Neil__+11 July 2003 - 13:38--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Neil__ @ 11 July 2003 - 13:38)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-WeeMouse@11 July 2003 - 13:33
Basically, yeah - Tthe privitization still continues. Only in a sneaky and underhand way though so that most voters wouldn&#39;t realise.

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That&#39;s what I think also.
Do you have any idea what to do about the fiddling of the figures.
considering the government isn&#39;t going to stop interfeering.

Neil [/b][/quote]
Don&#39;t know what the govt is doing - will try to find out tho&#33;

I think that they try o discourage the fiddling of figures, but what can they actually do? THey could get people to check all of the figures but that would mean more cost&#33;