Friday, August 26, 2016

Joe Mellor — The beginning of the end? Huge NHS cuts across England


Looks like Theresa May is all talk and plans to pursue Thatcherism.
The NHS has been thrown into even more turmoil, after plans have been revealed to conduct huge cuts across England’s NHS.
According to the BBC, who have been able to access a draft planning document, the NHS will see ward closures, cuts in bed numbers and alterations to GP and A&E care across the country.
Many will see these cuts as the end of free health care as we know it, as services are cut and shortfalls may well be picked up by private sector care providers.
These plans are supposedly required to achieve efficiency savings of around £22 billion by 2020-21.…
Apparently the Her Majesty's government is running out of money (snark).

But there is apparently also a lack of real resources. The UK is not training enough medical personnel for the size of the population. But that is arguably a function of not creating enough financial incentive to recruit, against because of a funding shortage.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, believes “we are at breaking point: he said: “We’ve got this absolutely massive financial deficit which is the biggest in NHS history and then at the same time … we’ve got major shortages in key areas like nurses and doctors which effectively are meaning people are having to shut services.
“We are seeing more and more pressures on staff trying to run harder and harder.”
The idea is apparently to privatize NHS so that private companies can raise rates, increase financial incentives for recruitment, and meet the demand, preventing market failure while providing substantially better care for the country. Good luck with that.

Joe Mellor

1 comment:

Matt Franko said...

Yeah but Tom its like the Obamacare failure happening right now where it was a good idea but the people dont have the munnie to buy the plans being competitively offered via the exchanges...

Also what this brings out as far as people with the KSAs being not available is across other industries (infrastructure...) too...

So if they think they can just throw munnie at infrastructure that isnt going to work either... not without taking a few years to get the citizens trained first... engineers, operators, etc...