Nhs Cuts Start In Earnest

[Analysis]

Our Trust has to cut 5% this year and 8% next year from the budget. If RPI persists at 5% this amounts to around a 23% cut in 2 years.

I am part of a team which has been set up to start axing services. This is starting with a diagnostic service which currently runs in 3 hospitals throughout the county. By the end of the Summer there will only be one department left with half of the existing diagnostic equipment.

There will be some additional efficiency as a result of this which is great, but this will be shared by a reduction in service scope and availability.

[The Knimbies who say No]

Our Trust has to cut 5% this year and 8% next year from the budget. If RPI persists at 5% this amounts to around a 23% cut in 2 years.

I am part of a team which has been set up to start axing services. This is starting with a diagnostic service which currently runs in 3 hospitals throughout the county. By the end of the Summer there will only be one department left with half of the existing diagnostic equipment.

There will be some additional efficiency as a result of this which is great, but this will be shared by a reduction in service scope and availability.

Are you going to axe the services of several strata of your trust's management?

[SarahBell]

On a and e 24 hr they had a clerk form filling as to why the trollies were broken. He had to go along with another staff member to tell him why.

Sack that.

Get the broken trollies to the man who mends them and let him mend them!

I bet there's tons of savings without cutting actual medical care.

[South Lorne]

Our Trust has to cut 5% this year and 8% next year from the budget. If RPI persists at 5% this amounts to around a 23% cut in 2 years.

I am part of a team which has been set up to start axing services. This is starting with a diagnostic service which currently runs in 3 hospitals throughout the county. By the end of the Summer there will only be one department left with half of the existing diagnostic equipment.

There will be some additional efficiency as a result of this which is great, but this will be shared by a reduction in service scope and availability.

...yes ...but your job is to identify waste and inefficiency in the current budget ....did you ever do this ...or just add 10% every year with closed eyes....?.....

[Lewis Gordon Pugh]

5%, oh no, now we will only be able to pay the paper shufflers 35k instead of 36.

[The Knimbies who say No]

5%, oh no, now we will only be able to pay the paper shufflers 35k instead of 36.

In fairness, it's more than that once inflation is taken into account (cheers Merv). 25% in two years(assuming inflation pans out at 5%/annum) is a decent chunk by any standards. I just wish they'd do likewise across the board of Government spending.

Can't help but feel that many of the managers will stay while visible services are cut though.

Edited July 27, 2011 by cheeznbreed

[Analysis]

Are you going to axe the services of several strata of your trust's management?

Already cut by 40% in terms of cost. Nearly all of them had to re-apply for the jobs which were left at the end of the cull / go part time etc.

[Analysis]

5%, oh no, now we will only be able to pay the paper shufflers 35k instead of 36.

A&C jobs at Band 2 pay £13,903 to £17,003. See http://www.jobs.nhs.uk/cgi-bin/vacdetails.cgi?selection=912707153 or similar if you want to apply.

[Analysis]

...yes ...but your job is to identify waste and inefficiency in the current budget ....did you ever do this ...or just add 10% every year with closed eyes....?.....

Just as the private sector has cut 'waste' which built up in the past 10 years to the tune of 1 million+ jobs in the last couple of years, the same process is now happening in the NHS. It is inevitable that there will be some efficiency savings which is great, but there will also be a reduction in front line services.

[Charlie The Tramp Returns]

Nhs Cuts Start In Earnest

I hope they hold back until after the 4th August when they cut out my pedunculated polyp measuring 2.5cm in the lower part of the sigmoid colon after I paid £500 for a private CT scan.

[cockrobin]

The NHS along with all the other public services will always waste money, its endemic.

[Analysis]

On a and e 24 hr they had a clerk form filling as to why the trollies were broken. He had to go along with another staff member to tell him why.

Sack that.

Get the broken trollies to the man who mends them and let him mend them!

I bet there's tons of savings without cutting actual medical care.

My tennis partner works for RBS. He had to take clients out for days out at Wimbledon this year. Never had that sort of inefficiencies available in the NHS.

[Lewis Gordon Pugh]

A&C jobs at Band 2 pay £13,903 to £17,003. See http://www.jobs.nhs.uk/cgi-bin/vacdetails.cgi?selection=912707153 or similar if you want to apply.

And how much do managers get paid?

[mkz]

Our Trust has to cut 5% this year and 8% next year from the budget. If RPI persists at 5% this amounts to around a 23% cut in 2 years.

You can't just add and subtract percentages like that!

If this year your budget is £100 then after a 5% cut followed by an 8% cut it will be £87.40.

If this year your costs are £100 then after 2 increases of 5% it will be £110.25.

You will then be able to afford 79.27% of what you could this year, so that's a 20.73% cut.

[Analysis]

The NHS along with all the other public services will always waste money, its endemic.

...and as we all know LLoyds TSB wasted £12Bn on HBOS, before promptly going bust. News International paid $580M for Myspace in 2005 and sold it 6 years later for $35M. So the private sector is clearly similarly good at wasting money.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Analysis

[scrappycocco]

I see it as 5% and 8% cuts, not much really, should be 35% and 38%. RPI is irrelevant for the public sector, we're in this mess because of the public sector's political party so why should they have index linked salaries. Why should we have to suffer through increased taxes, higher house prices, higher inflation etc so that the public sector can go on bankrupting the nation - please tell me what is the benefit to it? Is the public sector suddenly going to start exporting goods and services?

Also the public sector is a barrier to growth it is only right that in bad times it should suffer the most to get the private sector back on it's feet. What do they think is going to happen when theres a sovereign default because they won't stop spending.

[Analysis]

And how much do managers get paid?

How much do they get paid in the private sector? I think more to the point is that management costs at our Trust were cut by 40% last year.

You need good management to make good business decisions. Pay NHS managers poorly by all means, but don't then complain about poor decision making / inefficiency in the NHS.

[Analysis]

I see it as 5% and 8% cuts, not much really, should be 35% and 38%. RPI is irrelevant for the public sector, we're in this mess because of the public sector's political party so why should they have index linked salaries. Why should we have to suffer through increased taxes, higher house prices, higher inflation etc so that the public sector can go on bankrupting the nation - please tell me what is the benefit to it? Is the public sector suddenly going to start exporting goods and services?

Also the public sector is a barrier to growth it is only right that in bad times it should suffer the most to get the private sector back on it's feet. What do they think is going to happen when theres a sovereign default because they won't stop spending.

The benefits I would have thought were pretty obvious, in the case of the NHS, school system etc although I guess there are people who are lucky enough to die spontaneously without ever having to visit the doctor.

You could pay for all this via a different model of course, i.e. privately instead of through taxation. That way the healthcare system could make profits and not have to be a burden on the taxpayer.

So you would still have to pay for it one way or another. Or am I missing something?

[Analysis]

I see it as 5% and 8% cuts, not much really, should be 35% and 38%. RPI is irrelevant for the public sector, we're in this mess because of the public sector's political party so why should they have index linked salaries. Why should we have to suffer through increased taxes, higher house prices, higher inflation etc so that the public sector can go on bankrupting the nation - please tell me what is the benefit to it? Is the public sector suddenly going to start exporting goods and services?

Also the public sector is a barrier to growth it is only right that in bad times it should suffer the most to get the private sector back on it's feet. What do they think is going to happen when theres a sovereign default because they won't stop spending.

...and my team is already exporting our services - at a decent margin for the NHS. We do some work in Saudi Arabia. At my old Trust we had contracts in France. We also charge through the nose for the private sector in the UK to buy our services.

The way things are going we'll be charging other NHS organisations at the same rate instead of working in partnership with them, and then you'll really see healthcare costs kick off.

[DeepLurker]

Our Trust has to cut 5% this year and 8% next year from the budget. If RPI persists at 5% this amounts to around a 23% cut in 2 years.

So... the top man (or woman) is managing a budget 23% smaller. We can expect their wage slip to be correspondingly smaller?

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[Analysis]

So... the top man (or woman) is managing a budget 23% smaller. We can expect their wage slip to be correspondingly smaller?

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Overall management costs down by 40%. See other posts.

[Sibley's Love Child]

How much do they get paid in the private sector? I think more to the point is that management costs at our Trust were cut by 40% last year.

You need good management to make good business decisions. Pay NHS managers poorly by all means, but don't then complain about poor decision making / inefficiency in the NHS.

In fairness (and I work for the NHS) the use of external consultants (read more lucratively paid box-tickers) by which management abdicate their so-called responsibilities is rife.

[cockrobin]

...and as we all know LLoyds TSB wasted £12Bn on HBOS, before promptly going bust. News International paid $580M for Myspace in 2005 and sold it 6 years later for $35M. So the private sector is clearly similarly good at wasting money.

Yes you are right, but I though this thread was about the NHS?

[exiges]

...and as we all know LLoyds TSB wasted £12Bn on HBOS, before promptly going bust. News International paid $580M for Myspace in 2005 and sold it 6 years later for $35M. So the private sector is clearly similarly good at wasting money.

At least they were wasting their own money, not other peoples.

[Sibley's Love Child]

...and my team is already exporting our services - at a decent margin for the NHS. We do some work in Saudi Arabia. At my old Trust we had contracts in France. We also charge through the nose for the private sector in the UK to buy our services.

The way things are going we'll be charging other NHS organisations at the same rate instead of working in partnership with them, and then you'll really see healthcare costs kick off.

Agreed, our Trust is also looking at ways of increasing revenue via outsourcing.