Daily Archives: November 4, 2013

Opinion: Top doctors warn of ‘worst winter’ in hospitals as A&E crisis grows | Society | The Observer – John Gelmini

November 4, 2013 By in Austerity, Business Administration, David Cameron, Executive Interim Management, Executive interim management career, George Osborne, Healthcare, Independent Professional Services, Interim Management, Interim Manager, NHS, Outsourcing, People, Politicians, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
English: NHS logo

English: NHS logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Guardian, the Trades Unions in the NHS and the BBC collectively, are always calling for more money for the NHS because that is their solution to everything.

First mislead and frighten the people, with tales of gloom and doom, then frighten them some more, with tales of soiled and malodorous pensioners being left to die on hospital trolleys, bed blocking and long waiting lists and then put it all down to lack of money and Government callousness.

Dr Alf has lost none of the forensic ability to drill down to the facts that stood him in good stead in a successful commercial life as a Financial Director for substantial organisations and in his second incarnation as an interim executive, specializing in radical transformation, prior to becoming a professional blogger and commentator on the state of political life, global trends and the country he once proudly lived and worked in.

Dr Alf has correctly identified the NHS as being beyond repair and the UK in need of replacement by something better.

I know this from my insurance background, from having compared the NHS with better foreign healthcare systems in France, Germany and Italy and from intimate personal knowledge of the NHS involving tracking former tenants through the system from treatment right through to arranging their funerals, following the NHS complaints system through from beginning to end.

This was, with MP involvement in the case of my own parents’ treatment over cataracts, heart conditions, the fitting of my late father’s pacemaker, my late mother’s knee replacements and cataract operations, all which were initially refused on cost grounds by an NHS Trust which through gross mismanagement was discovered to be losing £50 million gbp a year and supposedly without the knowledge of the Chief Executive.

That Chief Executive is still there, even after bringing in PwC, at a cost of £1 million gbp, to tell him and his board that he was really losing £50 million gbp a year at a time when like 12 wise monkeys not one of them actually knew the extent of the loss or even if they were making one at all.

After that, the board was “strengthened” by adding more directors on salaries of over £100,000 gbp a year and all the other directors and the CEO gave themselves a pay rise.

We know from the Staffordshire debacle, and scandal after scandal, that it is not just a few bad apples but the rot continues.

The revolving door of multi-million pound payoffs to NHS executives, who leave on Monday and come back on Friday, at higher pay, continues and we have the lowest longevity out of all countries in Western Europe outside of Greece, and the worst cancer treatment outcomes in the whole of Western Europe.

Combine that with the fattest woman in Western Europe, a diabetes epidemic and a dementia epidemic, plus the running sore of Adult Social Care, we can safely conclude that the NHS needs to be replaced with something much better.

Can it be done?

The present Government has 19 months to run, and is in many respects a lame-duck on borrowed time.
It is facing the official Opposition which is packing the BBC and other organisations with Labour placemen, like James Purnell and his henchmen, ready to slow down reform, whilst the real roadblocks to meaningful change sit in the Civil Service and outside in the form of Druids and their fellow travelers, who if they could, would bring the UK back into the Middle Ages, Paganism and serfdom within a feudal society, in my view.

That is to say, a Britain without computers, industry, infrastructure, mobile phones, high tech medicine and the exports, productivity and inward investment needed to remain a first world country with a fit for purpose healthcare system and a healthy and mentally sharp population guided by Judeo-Christian philosophy and the “Golden Rule”.

John Gelmini

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Opinion: Bill for sacking troops to hit £500m: MoD discloses huge cost of the controversial cuts for the first time | Mail Online

November 4, 2013 By in Austerity, David Cameron, Fiscal Policy, George Osborne, Growth, Keynesian, People, Politicians, Politics, Public Services Reform, Reform, UK, Unemployment Tags: , , , , , , , 11 Comments

This is an important, MUST-READ article from the Mail Online. Check it out! 

via Bill for sacking troops to hit £500m: MoD discloses huge cost of the controversial cuts for the first time | Mail Online.

When I read this article, I was immediately angered. Then I tried to focus my anger, and started to thing about the latest news in response to a Freedom of Information request from a a Labour MP.

Firstly, I felt sadness for the soldiers consigned to the economic scrap-heap. They have served their country honorably and then are treated disgracefully by the Ministry of Defense (MOD) and the Coalition Government.

Secondly, the article justifies the cuts as necessary because of the huge black hole in the MOD’s finances. Here I have a problem with the Mail’s analysis and conclusions. What’s happened to the editorial policy of the Mail? If there has been serious mis-management by the MOD, this must surely be independently investigated and those responsible held fully accountable? This is just like the 2008 banking crisis, and the MOD’s executives should should be challenged in the courts. If found guilty, they should face jail, and forfeit there gold-plated pensions and severance packages.

Thirdly, my anger focused on the Coalition Government that only announced the size of the severance package when challenged under a Freedom of Information  request. This is the same government that has publicly been congratulating itself on its openness. So what might David Cameron’s government be trying to hide? Firstly, I think that defense strategy and related policy has been an omni-shambles, without adequate independent risk analysis and bottom-up costing. How can the same government justify billions on a high-speed train when the defense of the UK is probably at its lowest level for centuries? Secondly, there is the huge question about David Cameron’s government’s economic management, with excessive austerity and huge cuts to public services, with billions going in pay-offs to Civil Servants to keep them quiet. Am I missing something here? Every self-respecting economist, including the IMF has questioned the UK’s excessive levels of austerity; to be clear, these cuts have been ideologically based, rather than evidence-based policy. Surely, pure ideological policy, without independent evidence is evil? For an extreme example of pure ideological policy look at the the Nazi Party in Germany.

Sadly, the Labour Party do not have a reputation for good economic management, otherwise a robust leadership could promise to hold Cameron’s government to account in the law, if they won the next election. Personally, I think that the Labour Government’s actions in response to the economic crisis of 2008 were like virgin snow in comparison to the economic incompetence of the last three years under Cameron. Where are the Labour Party’s big beasts?

To return to the sacked troops, I worry about their problematic transition to civilian life.

Let me turn this to an open question:

If the UK has an effective independent media, plus an effective Opposition Government, how should they both be responding to the increasing questions about the UK’s economic management and collapse in public services?

Any thoughts?

English: David Cameron Deutsch: David Cameron

English: David Cameron Deutsch: David Cameron (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta