All the fuss about health tourism, too many managers, etc, etc, is just deflection. Both the Kings Fund and the OBR agree that the level of funding for the NHS has fallen way below what it needs to be simply to keep in line with GDP.
That is still just a magic figure, there is no evidence it will solve anything. In any industry if you need to increase funding you look at where you can save first, total standard practice. Simply throwing money at the NHS is not the be all and end all, if money can be saved before it is injected it should be. I am not saying we should cut though, that is different and is a choice to be made. I am talking about eliminating waste and removing excess practices which the NHS is riddled with. Until that is achieved, why should the taxpayer be burdened when any appreciable funding increase will depreciate in value out as waste. If you run a manufacturing company and your products cost more to make, do you look to make savings or do you spend more money on it?
My mum worked in accounts and she told me they had to introduce a pension ceiling for doctors which was 7 figures and it was soon reached by many of them. These are the same people who are telling us the NHS does not have enough money, the same people striking over salaries and the same people striking because their pension contributions have been brought in line with the private sector. They do a fine job but they should not have benefits someone in the private sector doesn't, if so then what are the merits? There is none of that in the NHS, the bonus, reward, competency based culture does not exist, everyone works in the public sector and they demand better benefits simply because it is public money.
The whole thing is not run as a company would be, it is run on the basis that we have money to use so lets use it or they will take it off us, that money is then directed into waste. The people making those decisions are committees of people on £100k+ a year, commitees that should not even exist. I worked in prescription pricing about 7 years ago, my sub team had 5 people in it and 2 of them were team leaders? That means there were 2 of 5 people on a higher salary band for no reason whatsoever and then we had a couple more managers above them.
I bet if someone tried to draw a structure graph for the NHS it would be impossible because there is no link between care and management, the management structure is what it is and the care structure is what it is. No-one has thought do we actually need this and that, that is because the people deciding are the ones who will probably lose out..
It is a mess and the last thing we should be doing is accepting it for what it is and just throwing money at it, especially when we know that at least 1% of it will end up lining someones pension or being chucked in the bin.
Last edited: