Saturday, May 3, 2014

NHS & Specialists: AQPs or Barracuda?

Was it Barracuda or Mad Dog?

Great Barracuda waiting / ©2009 Am Ang Zhang

Is it worth worrying about Monitor?  Too bloody right it is!  Worry, be anxious and lose sleep.

Monitor is David 'Mad-Dog' Bennett, ex-McKinsey and, it appears, paid well on the way to £300,000 a year.  He told us in the FT and the Times it is his role in life to 'dismember' the NHS.  Damage to clinical linkages aside, I'm not sure anyone actually voted for NHS dismemberment?

In my view David Bennet is clumsy, ham-fisted and a klutz.  Whitehall insiders tell me his 'dismembering' remarks did not go down well, particularly whilst the La-lettes were trying to calm everyone down.

Well, he's done it again.  With all the sensitivity of Colonel Gaddafi turning up at the Royal Wedding, Mad-Dog-Monitor is now saying the NHS will have to find savings of nearer 7% and not the 4% ordered by Big-Beast Nicholson. 



Mad-Dog Monitor is a menace.  He is a menace to the Big Beast, who has no power over him. One wonders; does he even have his phone number?  Mad-Dog is a menace to the morale of the NHS.  Mad-Dog is a menace to public confidence in the NHS.  He is a menace to LaLa, who is desperately trying to look like he is listening and an absolute nightmare for Cameron who is desperately trying not to look like he is selling the NHS.

In fact I cannot think of anything kind, warm or sympathetic to say about David Mad-Dog Bennet.  I cannot think there is anything he can do, or has done, or will do that makes him worth £300k to the public purse. 

A reprint: Rationing of Hospital Care: Very Clever!


Is it really that difficult to grasp!


Most people in well paid jobs (including those at the GMC) have health insurance. GPs have traditionally been gatekeepers and asked for specialist help when needed. If we are honest about private insurance it is not about Primary Care, that most of us have quick access to; it is about Specialist Care, from IVF to Caesarian Section ( and there are no Nurse Specialists doing that yet), from Appendectomy to Colonic Cancer treatment (and Bare Foot doctors in the Mao era cannot do the latter either), from keyhole knee work for Cricketers to full hip-replacements, from Stents to Heart Transplants, from Anorexia Nervosa to Schizophrenia, from Trigeminal Neuralgia to Multifocal Glioma, from prostate cancer to kidney transplant and I could go on and on. China realised in 1986 you need well trained Specialists to do those. We do not seem to learn from the mistakes of others.

When there are not enough specialists to go round in any country money is used to ration care.


So we are going to but in a peculiar manner as NHS hospitals used to be state run and free. Reform is needed!!! Enter GP commissioning. If it is your GP doing the rationing it is no longer the State's problem.
Some very clever people indeed are working for the government. 


Is it Conspiracy or Cockup? You decide.

But strangely they thought there is still money to be made.


That is why many GPs in the consortia have links with private providers.

It is a sure way of directing patients to secondary care.



The AQPs are already there and many specialists are working for them. It really does not need a genius to work out that Foudation Hospitals if they fail will be bought up by private firms.

So there are not enough Consultants and shortage creates demand and you can name your price. Consultants do not really want to waste time in consortia arguing about the price of hips or knees. 

Private patients will now have priority and NHS patients will fill in the slack. Very clever indeed. The notion that one should “let them eat cake” does not apply here.

More like: “Let them not see a Consultant!” And if you do, we will make money.

Reform will not save any money but it will make a few City people very rich, very rich indeed
David Cameron, it is not too late. We will believe you if you legislate against private involvement. Yes, legislate and we would hopefully not have another Southern Cross.            See FT

CIRCLE:

Looks like the future is here, one of them: the sale not the buy back yet!

Some smart people dreaming up some smart solutions: NHS for loss making hospitals and PRIVATE for the profit making hospials!!! 


1) Hinchingbrooke hospital is a modern purpose-built district general hospital, which opened in 1983.
2) Hinchingbrooke hospital serves people in Huntingdonshire and surrounding areas; approximately 160,000 people.
3) Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust provides a wide range of outpatient, daycase and inpatient services, a 24 hour accident and emergency department and maternity services.

4) Cambridgeshire Community Services provides services on the hospital site including 25 children’s beds and 12 special care baby unit cots*.
5) There are also two wards for patients with mental health needs, run by Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust*, and Addenbrookes runs a dialysis unit from this site*
*The services marked with an asterix will not become part of the operating franchise agreement detailed on the East of England website.


Circle will have the power to hire and fire staff, and change operating procedures as long as the hospital meets NHS standards. The move opens the way for other financially failing hospitals to be run by private firms. Around 20 are thought to be candidates for a takeover.

                                                                                                       Daily Telegraph 

RNOH: You are next!!!

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