NHS A&E: A Trusted Brand!

On last count: over 20 million patients would have attended A&E: A rise from 12 million around 10 years ago!

It is not difficult for anyone in the NHS to see how the internal market has continued to fragment and disintegrate our health service.

Attempts to badmouth our Hospitals and their A&E department did not seem to put people off and attendances continue to climb.

NHS:
A trusted Brand? So the Genius is going to pump £500m in, well a small sum compare to £42 billion for RBS.

It is important for SoS/Genius to recognise that the extra money should go directly to hospitals to salary employed staff and not for the likes of Harmoni or Serco to offer a service that punters (sorry, patients) no longer believe in. Did the Genius realise that for OOH and the like there is no control as to who was making the calls. If Serco could fake data.....Well! 


Why not abandon NHS111 all together, prosecute Harmoni & Serco  for gross breach and let Bevan smile.

While you are at it, cancel all UCCs as punters prefer A&E (so do not change the name to ED or worse, ER). Abandon the market system too.

In a Market system, A & Es are run by Hospitals and OOH by CCG/GPs; business rivals so to speak. Hospitals wants to maximize income and CCGs did not want anyone to attend A & E if at all possible.     NHS A & E: Unpredictable, Unruly & Ungainly

  The Genius knows that the GPs are too powerful and will not take back OOH unless there is a lot of money. so the funding to A&E should not be via CCGs although the hospitals have a system of charging CCGs and that was the bit CCGs do not like. Do not wait, Genius as the objections from the GPs will be coming. Employing more GPs does not cure the 24/7 coverage problem at all.

Also, why not cancel CCGs and let hospitals run everything. They are committed to 24/7 service, aren't they?                                                                                                                                                                       -              

HSJ: Commissioning will never work in the NHS

‘There is no evidence that GPs as a group are empowered with supernatural abilities to manage large budgets and organisations’

The right configuration?

So what would be the main characteristics of an alternative system based on previous experience? The key features would be:

·                                 Integration of service provision and planning around a defined population and individual patients.

·                                 The best degree of fit possible with social care and other local government services.

·                                 Integration of support services for the defined population, crucially finance and information, to reduce unnecessary overheads.

·                                 Consistency of policy around the key indicators of health of populations, patient outcomes and their experience so comparisons can be made across organisations and time.

There is no right answer to the configuration of health organisations across England and the solution will always be a compromise. However, experience would suggest that London is always a special case and should not influence the best arrangements for the rest of England.

Unnecessary division

For the last 20 odd years, dividing the health service into commissioning (or purchasing) and provision has been the only show in town. First, NHS trusts were divided from health authorities and GP fundholders added to spice the brew. Then primary care trusts were created with practice based commissioning bolted on.

Interestingly, in both cases, GP purchasing/commissioning was run in competition to health authorities/PCTs; rather than to provide synergy. When this ran into difficulties, particularly in restraining the costs of acute trusts, the “world class commissioning” programme was created and PCTs were encouraged to buy in all the best brains in the private sector to smarten up their act. PCTs were even forced to divest themselves of direct management responsibility for community services in case this sullied the purity of their commissioning role.

Now all faith is being placed in clinical commissioning groups and GPs being the magic ingredient that will make commissioning the powerhouse of efficiency and effectiveness in the health service.

Read all here>>>Commissioning will never work in the NHS

The internal market’s billing system is not only costly and bureaucratic, the theory that underpins it is absurd. Why should a bill for the treatment of a patient go out to Oldham or Oxford, when it is not Oldham or Oxford that pays the bill — there is only one person that picks up the tab: the taxpayer, you and me.

…….Instead let them help the NHS do what it does best — treat patients, and do so efficiently and economically without the crucifying expense and ridiculous parody of competition.

                                                 Prof Waxman in an earlier post.

This is not on when you have an internal market system. Through A & E, Hospitals can admit patients without a referral and believe you me, whatever anyone might say the CEOs of FT Hospitals are quite pleased with that.

For CCGs, it is becoming uncontrollable. All Hospital Avoidance tactics will not work. Funding will flow uncontrolled to FT Hospitals.

I have written about this earlier and I will simply reprint them. It is more true now than ever.

NHS A&E: Unpredictable, Unruly & Ungainly

Related: The New York Observer, The Guardian, The Curse of Nye Bevan

NHS: Budget 2010-£110 Billion, McKinsey

Enemy Of The People: NHS, Internal Market & Safety Net