I worked in the NHS for 10 years, and then in the medical industry supplying goods and services to both the NHS and the Private Healthcare Sector for 40 years.
The amount of waste in the NHS is jawdropping. Partly due to incompetence within, and partly due to abuse by the public. I could write pages. Just two examples (I will not identify any establishments or people)
Asked to tender for replacement equipment with specification. I knew the customer and knew what was needed, the specification was excessive and increased the cost by thousands. I was told to meet the full specification. We got the order. On delivery the end user asked about all the extras that had been ordered. I explained. The extras got shoved in a cupboard never to be used or seen again.
Equipment training at a major teaching hospital. After basic training this is done "live" at a real clinic with patients. Five patients booked, not one of them turned up, just one called to cancel at short notice. Cost: The sterile consumables that had been prepared: A morning's pay for one consultant surgeon, one senior nurse, one nursing assistant, and me. Plus of course the waste of appointments that could have been used for others. This never ever happens in private hospitals as the patient or their insurance company is paying.
The NHS is not underfunded. It will happilly swallow all cash that it is given and still ask for more. It is badly managed, and taken for granted by the public. It is a political hot potato, so no Government dares to undertake the radical change required. It was fine in 1948, but not now.
Incompetent managers like to build empires, thus the DIE jobs.
Just to add something else NHS related . .
PFI is an arrangement where the private sector (banks, building companies etc) totally build a new hospital. The NHS Trust then pays for the use of it on a contractual basis usually for around 35 years but sometimes much longer. It avoids the initial big spend. It was devized by by the Conservative, but it was Labour that really used it particularly for nice new shiny hospitals. The long term cost is many
many times more than the initial build cost, plus within the contract tha NHS sometimes has to pay inflated prices to the PFI provider for almost all works and maintenence.
However, I was once talking to a hospital engineer at a PFI project. The work is specified to last the length of the PFI contract. So if the contract is for say 40 years, the quality of materials and construction will aim to last that long and just a bit more.
In the light of the ongoing RAAC concrete in schools (cheap build years ago), just wait a few decades
) and the music being thrust at us included "The First Noel" which has the words "born is the king of Israel".
