The Tories

[Margaret Pilkington]

I am not a Tory, I did not vote Tory..but I worked in the NHS for almost 30 years......and have recently been at the sharp end of the NHS as my daughter has been in and out of hospital for the last two years......so I am speaking from experience...both as an insider and the family of a user.

[cashman]

Am well aware of the damage the last Labour Government did. in fact the Blair government stopped me voting Labour fer the first time in me life, and i sure as hell slagged em fer it. But they aint in power any more simple as, So now its Torys that are decimating it n i will slag them fer it. If were gonna go back in history then the only fact we have an NHS is down to a Labour Government, but that to me is not the way to go. Its slag who's damaging it now, simple as.

[accyman]

i have said this before so will keep it short as possible

under labour and the conservatives the NHS will happily buy a pair of insoles for the podiatry department for say around £11 per pair and scalpels etc needed in the same department for much more than they are worth

i know for fact this happens as i used to be in a relationship with someone who worked for a company who sold podiatry equipment to the NHS. The NHS was her biggest customer and responsible for her many sales bonuses that she got.

all of the items she sold to the NHS could have been purchased by the NHS or even myself our yourself for half the price if not cheaper from the companies ebay shop

i have no idea why the NHS dosnt buy them from the same company at the much reduced price nor can i not understand why when the NHS is purchasing thousands upon thousands of things from a company on a regular basis that they dont get a discount that is cheaper than what you or I can buy them at from the very same company

its not just politics that is crippling our NHS is the severe mismanagement of NHS money or very shady backroom deals that allow the NHS to pay highly inflated prices,,

maybe im just plain wrong and someone at the NHS hasnt heard of ebay or the internet and thought to look for the item they need at a much cheaper price.

just to clarify in case people think the item the NHS pays for it is better quality or something ....It isnt its the exact same item , packaging the whole kaboom.The only difference is that the NHS pay twice if not more for the item

different NHS trusts around the country will pay a different price to the same company as it relates to the person of that trusts ability to negotiate but none pay the same or less than the ebay price or amazon they all pay more

[Margaret Pilkington]

When I was working I was involved in the Product User Group and I used to go to meetings where procurement of items was discussed and at that time, I know that we used to source items from different suppliers and we used to play companies off against one another to get better deals.
Obviously,I can't say what happens now as I have been out of the NHS for 12 years.
Shaving just a few pence off items that were used in their thousands meant a real saving.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by cashman

Am well aware of the damage the last Labour Government did. in fact the Blair government stopped me voting Labour fer the first time in me life, and i sure as hell slagged em fer it. But they aint in power any more simple as, So now its Torys that are decimating it n i will slag them fer it. If were gonna go back in history then the only fact we have an NHS is down to a Labour Government, but that to me is not the way to go. Its slag who's damaging it now, simple as.

Damage that was done then has been cumulative.....and it is difficult to restore the situation that was caused by the change in GP contracts and the PFI because these both have really deep and damaging long term effects.
All political parties need to stop using the NHS as a football and something to slag each other off for.
The general public also need to be educated to,take more responsibility for their own health.....not everything in life can be cured with a pill.

[accyman]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

When I was working I was involved in the Product User Group and I used to go to meetings where procurement of items was discussed and at that time, I know that we used to source items from different suppliers and we used to play companies off against one another to get better deals.
Obviously,I can't say what happens now as I have been out of the NHS for 12 years.
Shaving just a few pence off items that were used in their thousands meant a real saving.

my understanding is that these companies the NHS get quotes from go to the same conferences and go out socializing together after the conference day is over.Here is where they get each other drunk in the hope that lips become loose and contacts , prices etc are slipped out

as far as i could make out from what i was told the NHS gets visited by reps from medical companies and yes the NHS procurement team will negotiate a price but that will only be between a small number of reps from a small number of companies

what they wont do is look outside the box or indeed directly at the company selling to them and simply purchase the items they require at a much lower price

there is something severely wrong when a company can sell something for lets say £10 to the NHS that a person sat at home can buy for £5 from the exact same company from the exact same warehouse

it seems to me that when selling to the NHS prices are over inflated because its government footing the bill.The worrying part is that i can figure out how to buy things cheaper yet people employed and entrusted with NHS money cant

[Margaret Pilkington]

Well, it didn't use to be like that.
I used to see reps, I used to go out to companies to see their products and I was involved in brokering deals.....I would bring samples back to the Group and we would determine which was best value.
This was because at the time our unit had a budget and I tried my best to stay in the budget.
We didn't use agency staff either, we had a bank of our own nurses who knew the ward and the patients..this was by far the most effective use of resources.

[accyman]

lol i can only say it as i saw it but my then partner would travel the country visiting various NHS trusts leaving samples when needed but the majority of visits were just checking in on them and seeing if they wanted anything else or making sure they were happy with the product and not thinking of going to a rival company

conferences would be held where they would have a stall and people from the NHS and private sector would visit these stalls or stands to view upcoming products etc

the NHS as far as i am aware didnt go out looking for better deals they quite happily say and waited for the deals to come to them

like i said earlier its not just politics that is destroying our NHS its the high wastage of money and although it means yet another pen pusher there should be an independent body asking why money is been wasted in the way i have highlighted and most likely many other aspects.

were not taking about an odd fiver here and there on just one item alone hundreds of thousands of fivers are been wasted

[Gordon Booth]

PFI- between 1997 and 2008 90% of all hospital construction was funded by PFI.
The NHS now owes £80 billion and is paying over £2 billion in annual repayments. By 2017/8 the repayments are expected to rise to £10 billion as they are linked to inflation and the maintenance cost, set by and carried out by the PFI suppliers. Total cost £301 billion on 30 year contracts!
Some trusts will have paid up to 12 times what the hospital cost by the time they've finished, including maintenance.
If I offered you a £15,000 car on HP and told you the total cost would be £180,000 would you snatch my hand off? Especially if you were left with a 30 year old car?

The Labour Gov could have borrowed the money quite cheaply but that would have showed on the balance sheet, PFI didn't(And the cupboard was still bare as that note said).
The ConDems carried on and it looks like the Tories will.

It's a sin!

In the meantime some already rich investors are guaranteed to get much richer over the next 30 years.

Until some very hard men(and women) are given a free hand to sort the NHS out from top to bottom things will continue to get worse and more and more of our taxes will vanish into the mouth of a deteriorating service.

But no Government has had, or will have, the gonads to allow that.

[Barrie Yates]

Originally Posted by cashman

If were gonna go back in history then the only fact we have an NHS is down to a Labour Government, but that to me is not the way to go.

Just a small point Cashy but an important one. The White Paper that created the NHS was drawn up by the Minister of Health in 1944 and was implemented in '47 or thereabouts by the Labour Government.
However, the Minister of Health in 1944 was a Tory - this is a matter of record.
So even though it was a coalition government in '44 one can argue that the NHS was the creation of the Tory Party

[JCB]

This video of a programme made by the BBC for the 60th anniversary of the NHS is worth watching .

It shows what can be done when there are politicians with principles , fire in their bellies and a deep concern for the poor .

[Margaret Pilkington]

Yes, but where are those politicians now JCB....It seems to me that most politicians ask not what they can do for us, but what they can do for themselves.

And I agree with Gordon, that until someone with the cojones tackles the root cause of problems (rather than just tinkering round the does and offering the sound bites that seem to show the electorate that they are concerned about the health of the NHS) then things are not going to improve.
What would I like to see that would make a vast difference.
I would like to see the debt to the providers of PFI wiped out. I would like to see a return to in house provision of support services.
I would like to see the use of agency nurses and doctors strictly curtailed.....maybe even stopped altogether....unless of course the services were at a much lower(more reasonable) cost.
I would like to see suppliers of consumables to the NHS have their prices capped at a profit of say 10%.
I would like to see GP's having to provide a continuity of care and doing their own practices weekend and evening cover.....it is not beyond the brains of the practice managers to work out a fair and equitable rota for such a development. It might cause howls of protest from GP's but it would relieve the pressure on A&E departments and would be safer for patients to have someone who knows their history looking after them.
I would like to see patients who book an appointment with a GP fined if they miss that appointment without just cause(death or hospital admission being just cause)
Am I going to live long enough to see any of this?
I really really doubt it

[accyman]

perhaps if MPs had to use the nhs and wait like the public do to get treatment or diagnosed they may look after the NHS a little better..

[DaveinGermany]

Originally Posted by Barrie Yates

one can argue that the NHS was the creation of the Tory Party

Wicked man! Doing that to poor ol' Cashy!

[Barrie Yates]

If PFI had not been introduced there would be a great deal more money for the running of the NHS. Am I correct in thinking that it was Labour who introduced PFI?
I cannot understand why hospitals have to use Agency staff rather than employ staff as it much more expensive to use Agency staff?