Saw this comment over at Tim Worstall’s place underneath a piece about the ‘Stalinist’ levels of paperwork that swills around and gums up the National Health Service. One particular BTL comment caught my eye as it sums up really well just how badly the NHS is managed.
Daniel
I work for the NHS, front line, allied health professional.
The main local hospital is falling down due to RAAC. I tried to use one of the hot desks they have set up to make best use of space. The computer wasn’t working. Easy to diagnose, a missing cable. I asked IT for a replacement, they wouldn’t provide it without a non standard equipment requisition form from my manager. My manager won’t do this because other departments use the computers.
About a third of the hot desk computers are not working because of faulty or missing equipment and short of buying the replacement parts myself, which I have been expressly forbidden to do there doesn’t appear to be any way to get them working.
Can’t be privatised soon enough.
I know that there may be objections from some about privatising the NHS but maybe a privatised or even mutually run NHS or NHS type healthcare entity might not be as badly managed as the NHS currently is. This from Daniel is an example of horrifically sclerotic management of the sort that all too often is a characteristic of state run institutions.
‘Might’ is the operative word here? We need real comparisons between a state run company and a private one before both modes can be objectively appraised.
We need to look at some of the mixed systems used elsewhere rather than merely compare two less than perfect systems that of the UK and the USA. What we cannot deny is that the NHS is clearly not serving patients to the best of its ability.
Try France, we have state and private. I know which one that I choose when I need attention.
Is private more affordable than it is in the UK? I know the French state system has its issues but I get the impression that it is better than the NHS