There is so much we luddites in the NHS could learn from the giants of Silicon Valley, if only we’d stop fearing change. As someone whose hospital is already part-branded by that global health giant, McDonald’s (yes, the accommodation for parents in my children’s hospital is genuinely named Ronald McDonald House), I can only hope we embrace more of this tantalising NHS-private sector synergy.
A charity – yes, a genuine bloody charity – provides rooms so that parents can sleep near or in the hospital while their children are receiving treatment. In fact, they provided 2.5 million such overnight stays in 2015.
A facility and option which our glorious NHS did not and does not provide in fact.
And this is to be sneered at as some part of the privatisation of the NHS?
Go fuck yourself Ms. Clarke, right royally.
She goes on about surgeons wasting theatre time.
They do. I work in a Aus. Hospital with a private hospital adjancent the theatre time differences is stunning. We regularly have patients waiting 15-20 minutes for their surgeons; under anaesthetic in theatre waiting. In the private hospital its charged by the minute the same surgeons are on time everytime and everyones under pressue.
As well they should be.
PS Ronald McDonalds house is genuis. In NZ public healtg types got them banned from middlemore hospital. Because its more important the hospital isn’t seen to endorse fast food than parents be in the same city as their kids.
I suggested exactly this at the ASI a couple of days back. Charge the NHS surgeons for use of the operating theatres. Sure, only a paper based transaction but it’s amazing how making clear the cost of something alters behaviour.
Further proof that for the left, their emotional reaction to something is more important than other people’s actual lives.
“up to £1,000 per month renting out your spare room”.
You would have thought it would cheer Rachel up to know what the market rate is for a spare room… something that might be worthy of a tax perhaps?
“There is so much we luddites in the NHS could learn from the giants of Silicon Valley, if only we’d stop fearing change.”
You can’t even get your fucking IT right. You can’t book a fucking appointment in a hospital outside your region without phoning a few people. That’s not even “giants of silicon valley”, you utter cunt. That’s what Hilton managed at the start of the millenium.
Iirc this person was one of the individuals throwing accusations at J Hunt during the Junior Doctor episode.
First hand experience of the Australian system, public hospital operating theatres running in shifts, surgeons operating into the wee hours of the morning .
All Pathology is a free visit to anyone of several privately run pathology chains open in every high st. No waiting list for ‘an appointment’ , no hospital visit and queueing , requesting doctor has the results delivered in 48 hours.
The average Britisher (myself included) have nfi how bad the nhs is until you’ve experienced health care elsewhere in the west
Joe Blow,
The weird thing is that huge numbers of people see how great the likes of Specsavers, Boots and their local dentist are, yet the NHS is shit, but defended by people.
Huge numbers of people are happy to pay £100s/yr on private health insurance for their cats and dogs, and then demand (and receive) levels of service unheard-of in the nationalised health service. Yet they wouldn’t dream of paying similar amounts on private health insurance for themselves, or demand similar levels of service.
Surely the main point of having a nationalised health service is to persuade a majority of the populace of the benevolence of the state. As a side effect it also persuades a large number of people that doctors and nurses are selfless saints, rather than well paid professionals.
To have charities, businesses or other non state actors credited with the provision of health care rather defeats the object.
Tim, from Friday’s Times:
Sir, Further to Duncan Geddes’s article (“NHS could perform 750 more operations a day if it were better organised”, News, Oct 25), I worked as a consultant vascular surgeon in Sheffield hospitals for more than 25 years and was frustrated by the theatre time needlessly wasted due to multiple factors that any effective manager could have sorted out.
My routine operating lists were supposed to start at 8.30am, but it was rare for a patient to be ready for surgery before 10am. Consequently, the last patient on the list was regularly cancelled because the staff were reluctant to send for a patient after 3.30pm even though the list was supposed to run until 5pm.
In the hope of improving this sad state of affairs, I offered a bottle of champagne for all the staff in my operating theatre if we could start an operation before 9am. The prize was never claimed.
Professor Jonathan Beard
Sheffield
Gerry Robinson did a TV programme a few years ago about a NHS hospital, and the lack of structure and efficiency of theatres was one of this main points.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_Gerry_Robinson_Fix_the_NHS%3F?wprov=sfla1
“I suggested exactly this at the ASI a couple of days back. Charge the NHS surgeons for use of the operating theatres. Sure, only a paper based transaction but it’s amazing how making clear the cost of something alters behaviour.”
I’ve thought for a while that giving patients an invoice with “paid” stamped on it might have a similar affect by making everyone realise what and where the various costs are and there’d me more than a few wtf moments. I suspect that it would be a non starter because it would be seen as a major step towards doing away with free at the point of delivery.
njc,
The problem is that while Robinson understands the problem (bad management) he falls for the fallacy of hiring better managers, which isn’t the problem. You can hire the smartest people around. You put them in a shit structure with bad incentives, they’ll get ground down. They’ll either give up or quit.
My routine operating lists were supposed to start at 8.30am, but it was rare for a patient to be ready for surgery before 10am.
Fucking hell. Envy of the world.
@Hallowed Be, October 28, 2017 at 9:35 am
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5022531/Tom-Utley-Left-s-outrage-idea-save-NHS-millions.html“>Trust the Left to howl down an idea that’ll save the NHS millions and spread a little human happiness
Abridged
If they are lodging in a local house they might actually get fed and watered by people who don’t have a nursing degree so don’t feel themselves to be above that sort of thing. Where would it end?
Rob: they might actually get fed and watered by people who don’t have a nursing degree
People who do have a nursing degree will make sure that their charges are hydrated rather than just watered – unless they forget, can’t be bothered or consider themselves above such menial chores.
COI. I’m a Doctor.
She is awful.
What I will say is that post-op patients have been cared for in Hotels in the US for years. They book you in and you get visited daily until you go home.
Hospitals are bloody dangerous, it’s probably a good idea to get people out of them.
Pcar- just saw your response. Interesting. However much i think its a great potential idea i am rather inclined to pessimism. A scheme like that is always going to cause worry for politicians. All it takes is one or two awful events, an injury or a death and then politically they can’t carry on with it. Anything of that nature happening in a hospital just doesn’t carry the political fallout, and if it does the blame goes on lack of funding or at worst individual management. The NHS vested interests and the general public instinctive interpretaion of reform or innovation as attacks on the beloved NHS makes this a very sticky wicket to play on.
@Hallowed Be, October 29, 2017 at 2:58 pm
It’s not new. Similar already exists with full support of Gov’t, Councils et al:
http://sharedlivesplus.org.uk/
Difference is it’s not an efficient private profitable company; it’s a bureaucratic mess meaning more public sector employees