Posts Tagged ‘NHS’
The NHS for the US
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on August 15th, 2009
The US has polarised the argument about the NHS and made unreasonable arguments the order of the day.
Just because I say (as I have in the real world) that the NHS doesn’t do a particularly good or efficient job does not mean to suggest I am criticising the NHS’s staff or that I think it is anything but a moral imperative that people are treated for injuries and ailments regardless of their ability to pay. It’s just that I believe that the inevitable redundancy required in genuine competition would provide a better, more efficient and, if well-regulated, a fairer healthcare solution for the British people.
There are many problems in the UK which result in our current levels of excessive taxation, and the NHS is just one of the bigger of those problems. Even if people thought that the current levels of taxation were reasonable, shouldn’t we have at least one service provided by them that is world class?
An NHS alternative
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on January 18th, 2008
The road to hell, says DK (of the excellent Devil’s Kitchen), is paved with good intentions. And he’s right. The NHS is a stinking tax vacuum which, if left in the hands of the socialists, will one-day become the largest employer in the world (rather than just in Europe).
But in a previous post I also criticised the US’s can’t-pay-then-die system which is, to put it simply, wrong. In a civilised country it is right that provision of healthcare for those who cannot afford to pay is made from general taxation. If that makes me an impure libertarian then so be it.
But this system does not have to be the NHS. It doesn’t even have to be in place somewhere else. So here’s what I propose:
The railways in the UK were privatised by the last government in the most awful way. Ticket prices are not set by individual operators and so if I buy a ticket from Brighton to London it effectively does not matter which company’s trains I use. This ruins the point of privatisation — competition.
Oops, I just lost some of my audience by talking about privatisation; well come back will you?
The NHS needs genuine competition. The way I propose to introduce that is to allow half of all hospitals in each area to be run privately. Whatever the state spends per patient, the private hospital in the same area would get the same money. The incentive, then, would be to attract patients to your private hospital in order to receive some of that funding. Money that is not required to provide patient care is then made available to the private hospital’s shareholders. The drive for efficiency to create profits would be balanced by the need to attract patients and so be better than the NHS hospital.
The private hospital would be free at the point of use (because it receives matching funding from the state) and would be heavily regulated in the same effective way the financial services sector in the UK is (and which is clearly not working in the US).
Alongside this revolutionary healthcare system would be a change in incentives for drugs companies. Currently there is a clear conflict of interests whereby drugs companies can make more money from treating illnesses than from curing them. So the drug companies need an incentive to attempt to cure ailments. This should be done by using a competitive prize system where prizes are larger than the likely profits from symptom-relievers. I challenge some philanthropist to start up a charitable foundation to fund these prizes — I would happily contribute to that fund!
And finally, let’s be clear, Sicko is not even as unbiased as the BBC; it is a propaganda work which sits on a body of fact and then changes aspects to suit the maker’s own ends. I enjoyed Sicko, I found aspects of it (that are true) disturbing and I found aspects of it laughable. The reactions of British patients and doctors was clearly genuine — Brits do tend to laugh at that sort of question in a way that Americans do not.
NHS – best of British
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on December 15th, 2007
[Cameron] held up the NHS as a “best of British” institution: “created by a Welshman and benefiting from the skills of doctors trained in the great medical schools of Scotland.”
… and financed by the poor of England to the benefit of the poor and wealthy of Scotland.
Health Public Meeting
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on September 18th, 2007
I thought I’d remind you there’s a Health Public Meeting by Worthing and Southlands NHS Trust at the Shoreham Centre, Pond Road, Shoreham-by-Sea on Friday 21st at 7pm.
You never know, it may not be a done deal!
Worthing Consultation
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on September 17th, 2007
Tonight there was a consultation held at the Shoreham Centre. I have loads to write, and there are people to mock, but it’ll have to wait. I left the house at 7.25am this morning, returned just now and I haven’t yet had dinner. Oh, and I’ll be leaving tomorrow at around 7.45am with a Council meeting in Worthing straight after work, so that will be nice.
Still sign the KWASH petition if you haven’t already.
Cameron gets tough?
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on August 29th, 2007
According to the right-wing press and (oddly) the BBC News Website, Cameron’s returning to logic-land and has now, in the space of two days, championed the proper Conservative ideals of lower immigration and tough action on crime.
The two years of near-silence on the subject has made one slightly cynical, but that he sees that he needs to talk about these issues is gratifying. Let’s hope, when or if he gets power on our behalf, he acts as he’s talking.
As I say to people when talking about these and other issues: It seems so obvious if you don’t allow the status quo to muddy your thinking. It is entirely moot how things are today, it is what we want them to be that matters and if the barriers to achieving that are significant, all the more worthy is the effort.
Tories on Hospitals
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on August 20th, 2007
The local campaigns to save major hospitals have been going for quite a while now. KWASH, for example, which aims to save Worthing and Southlands Hospitals — and particularly Worthing’s A&E, Intensive Care and Maternity functions — has been running for over a year.
So some may ask why it has taken until now for David Cameron to call for the protection of these massive NHS assets: BBC News.
But I think he’s right.
If he’d mentioned it when the campaigns started the media and the public would be bored and cynical. By mentioning it now, when the decisions are nigh, he’s able to gain nationwide support, raise the profile of the pillaging Mr Brown’s government is undertaking, and actually run a risk of getting the great apathetic public to be motivated for once!
…
And how can I let this go without pointing out that this isn’t happening in Scotland or Wales. Oh no! This is happening in England where a significantly smaller amount of tax is spent per person. Upset by that? Join the CEP.
Worthing and Southlands Hospitals
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on July 27th, 2007
The PCT proposes that Worthing or Chichester’s hospital loses its Accident and Emergency and related facilities. It also proposes that Haywards Heath’s hospital be closed.
Our MP, rightly, asked the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Health Services whether she thought this was fair. Tim said:
Last week, the Worthing Herald reported that Worthing’s accident and emergency department had 1,258 admissions. That equates to 65,500 people visiting every year. Under reconfiguration proposals—not scare stories—the PCT proposes to close that accident and emergency department, and it expects people to join the car park that is the A27 and go to either Chichester or Brighton. How many of those people does the Minister believe are timewasters who do not actually need an accident and emergency department in the hospital of the largest town in Sussex?
They say ‘honourable’ but they cannot mean this response from Ann Keen (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Health Services), Department of Health):
The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue on accident and emergency services, but how could I possibly know who was attending the accident and emergency department without looking at the figures? I would expect the local management and the local PCT to do that, and I would expect the local MP to conduct a responsible consultation to ensure that patient care is delivered appropriately in accident and emergency department. That is why reconfiguration of the health service can be good for patients, as I am sure he would agree.
That was taken from They Work For You.
Support KWASH
Oh, and why on God’s green Earth would you vote Labour and live near here?
The State of English Politics
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on July 17th, 2007
Adur District Council and Worthing Borough Council are embarking on a pioneering method of governance which will involve our two Councils sharing one Officer Management structure and sharing the provision of services between the two.
The process was initiated when Worthing’s Council was run by the LibDems and is continuing now that the people of Worthing have seen fit to give the Tories a go. So it should be plain-sailing. We should be finding it easy — two Conservative Councils working together. And it is and we are.
But it’s new to me — in Adur we have one LibDem and two Independents. The LibDem has never spoken at Full Council and the Independents are reasonable people who vote according to their beliefs; normally with the ruling Conservative administration. What’s new for me is having an opposition.
Tonight’s meeting was the first Joint Committee of the two Councils that wasn’t the cabinet of Worthing and the Policy Committee of Adur (SEMS). And because of political balances requirements, it was the first committee I’ve had which had an opposition present and able to vote. Tonight’s meeting was on the Redundancy Policy.
The reason I am telling you all this, other than for general interest, is to point out a couple of odd things:
- This isn’t political point-scoring, but the LibDems really didn’t seem to understand the Officers’ report
- Worse, when it was obvious they’d missed the point of it, they didn’t ask for clarification from the presenting Officer
- Worse still, when it came to voting on the Recommendations, the LibDems voted against or abstained despite having, apparently, no objections to the subject matter and having mooted no alternatives during debate
One has to wonder why they bothered? Their number are too few to change the result without winning the argument, but they didn’t bother to tell the Conservatives what their apparently better idea was. I suspect, though this is me being cynical, they just want to be able to say they were against it if the merger of services goes belly up and redundancy payments are more expensive than we expect, but in whose interest is that?
This and another incident recently at Adur make me ask, out loud now: Do people really know what they are voting for?
I am more worried now than I was last year that I was elected unopposed. It shows a complete apathy on the part of every person in Buckingham Ward who does not normally vote Conservative. But there are other cases where I am sure Councillors would not be returned if their record was scrutinised or if a single member of the public attended a Full Council or Committee meeting.
My concerns over the ademocratic nature of devolution (which has deliberately excluded England),the EU and other issues are going to fall on deaf ears all the time people are voting, year in, year out, for Councillors who don’t work for the people or who are not up to the job. The position of Councillor is similar to the management board of a reasonably large company — we have the Directors reporting to us and we make the important strategic decisions as well as setting policies for the Directors and their reports to act upon. And yet the people who are most affected by Councillors actions are apathetic. They allow sub-standard democracy.
So this is a call to the people: pay attention and watch your Councillors, MP, MEPs and AM (Wales/Northern Ireland) or MSP (Scotland) — it is very, very important.
I may have mentioned this after last Thursday’s meeting but I think it’s worth mentioning as this post is turning into a rant: A member of the public asked what the Council was doing about the proposed closure of two of West Sussex’s three Accident and Emergency facilities. The question was asked in an accusatory way as if all the work on KWASH was being done by someone else. The question was asked as if by being Councillors we weren’t already doing our civic duty to some extent and as if, maybe, it would be helpful if the people did a little more themselves.
That’s unfair: amazing numbers turned out to encircle the two Hospitals with protestors, but it was Councillors and our, apparently tireless MP, who were doing the work there too. It’s such an important issue but I have not been contacted by a single constituent about it — not one.
