The Communist Party and political image

[Tangled Metal]

It's this simple,if a company can make profit for work,any type of work.A organisation run properly with the need to make profit can be run cheaper with less outlay.

Highlighted the part I totally agree with. NHS hospitals are not run properly. If you think they are then you probably.believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.

Free lunch I don't believe in but I can believe that private hospital is run properly and efficiently compared to the NHS hospital for the services it offered. Having been through their hands, both NHS and private hospital through the NHS, in all the simple referrals the private one was in a different league. Tests needed by the consultant was done straight away in the private provider. Results were delivered in minutes. Waiting in minutes not hours. I've never waited less than 1 hour in an NHS hospital but the whole private session was completed within 1 hour. Plus it had free parking and coffee!

I don't really care if you believe me or not. Whether you ridicule me with more free lunch comments like I know nothing or naive. Keep your blinkered ideological view or your "truth" if it makes you happy. Gives you something else to complain about the Tories for I guess. However do note that I'm not advocating universal privatisation or the application of privatisation universally. I'm only making the perfectly valid point that private sector is capable of giving the public sector a service that's better than the public sector used to provide despite the need to make profit.

[Tangled Metal]

I'm not ideologically blind and supporting privatisation universally. I just feel that there's good and bad in both public sector and private sector health provision within the NHS. I got dealt with one good example of private provisions.

I would also like to point out that my local hospital trust was the first case in the history of the NHS to be put under the health service equivalent of special measures. That was only a few years after the time of my private appointment. The only case in 65 years of the NHS at the time it happened. From friends I can also say that one trust hospital had nursing procedures that were new and modern in the 50s/60s according to the nurse friends I know worked within the trust. That's what they said. That hospital also had a very high death rate in at least one department which was closed down for a period of time.

In light of that I think you can see why that private service provider made good sense. It it might not have been as much of a good deal in your local trust but here it was.

[pwa]

It's this simple,if a company can make profit for work,any type of work.A organisation run properly with the need to make profit can be run cheaper with less outlay.

Highlighted the part I totally agree with. NHS hospitals are not run properly. If you think they are then you probably.believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.

Free lunch I don't believe in but I can believe that private hospital is run properly and efficiently compared to the NHS hospital for the services it offered. Having been through their hands, both NHS and private hospital through the NHS, in all the simple referrals the private one was in a different league. Tests needed by the consultant was done straight away in the private provider. Results were delivered in minutes. Waiting in minutes not hours. I've never waited less than 1 hour in an NHS hospital but the whole private session was completed within 1 hour. Plus it had free parking and coffee!

I don't really care if you believe me or not. Whether you ridicule me with more free lunch comments like I know nothing or naive. Keep your blinkered ideological view or your "truth" if it makes you happy. Gives you something else to complain about the Tories for I guess. However do note that I'm not advocating universal privatisation or the application of privatisation universally. I'm only making the perfectly valid point that private sector is capable of giving the public sector a service that's better than the public sector used to provide despite the need to make profit.

Assuming that is all correct (I have no reason to contradict you) it begs the question of why the NHS cannot be run as well. Why can the NHS not employ the same management teams to run things just the same but within the NHS? Why does this better service have to be bought in? You'd imagine that the NHS would benefit from economies of scale, making it able to do more with the same money.

[landsurfer]

I don't really care if you believe me or not. Whether you ridicule me with more free lunch comments like I know nothing or naive. Keep your blinkered ideological view or your "truth" if it makes you happy. Gives you something else to complain about the Tories for I guess. However do note that I'm not advocating universal privatisation or the application of privatisation universally. I'm only making the perfectly valid point that private sector is capable of giving the public sector a service that's better than the public sector used to provide despite the need to make profit.

My experience is similar ... referred to a private provider in Doncaster by Chesterfield NHS i had tests and results in real time.
I have spinal and heart issues ( non fatal ) as a result of my military service...
The local NHS decided it would be easier in the long tern, and no doubt cheaper, to refer me to a specialist private provider...
In a 5 hour session at the private specialist i had, by my experience, 12 months of treatment at Rotherham General.
Not see a consultant, wait 3 months for the appointment, have a test, wait 3 months for a consultant appointment ...etc .....
And also free parking ...lol

[reohn2]

It's this simple,if a company can make profit for work,any type of work.A organisation run properly with the need to make profit can be run cheaper with less outlay.

Highlighted the part I totally agree with. NHS hospitals are not run properly. If you think they are then you probably.believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.

Glad we agree on something.

Free lunch I don't believe in but I can believe that private hospital is run properly and efficiently compared to the NHS hospital for the services it offered. Having been through their hands, both NHS and private hospital through the NHS, in all the simple referrals the private one was in a different league. Tests needed by the consultant was done straight away in the private provider. Results were delivered in minutes. Waiting in minutes not hours. I've never waited less than 1 hour in an NHS hospital but the whole private session was completed within 1 hour. Plus it had free parking and coffee!

I don't really care if you believe me or not. Whether you ridicule me with more free lunch comments like I know nothing or naive. Keep your blinkered ideological view or your "truth" if it makes you happy. Gives you something else to complain about the Tories for I guess. However do note that I'm not advocating universal privatisation or the application of privatisation universally. I'm only making the perfectly valid point that private sector is capable of giving the public sector a service that's better than the public sector used to provide despite the need to make profit.

Mrs R2 and I have recently had more contact with the NHS than either of us would like.
We've both been treated very well indeed and neither of us had to wait excessively,neither of us have been to a private health care provider.
The Tories want more private health care because it fits their ideology,namely everything must make profit,healthcare won't if all the people young and old are to be treated.Simple work is simple,simply.Complicated work such as cancer treatment,mental health,treatment for Parkinson's,heart surgery,etc,etc is complicated.
They're not interested because it isn't profitable.
You go along believing the private sector is capable of doing it all and I'll keep telling they're only interested in the quick fix profitable work,it's why old people can't afford BUPA even if they've paid for it all their life,once they get old the premiums rocket,they become a bad risk.

[reohn2]

Assuming that is all correct (I have no reason to contradict you) it begs the question of why the NHS cannot be run as well. Why can the NHS not employ the same management teams to run things just the same but within the NHS? Why does this better service have to be bought in? You'd imagine that the NHS would benefit from economies of scale, making it able to do more with the same money.

Because there's someone stacking the deck!
At risk of repeating myself.If work can be done and profit made,it certainly can be done without the need to make profit,the key word is the organisation,which can be done with the will to do it.

[landsurfer]

Surely if the private sector adds cost effective support to the NHS it's a win / win for all parties ...... And its the NHS that decide if its cost effective ... not the private companies ..... unless you believe the NHS managers are corrupt, in the pay of the private health providers ........

[Vorpal]

Many public institutions suffer from a combination of bureaucracy and politicians trying to organise things that they know very little about.

That said, some NHS trusts provide very good service. I only ever had relatively minor complaints, even after a relatively difficult birth and several days int he hospital with my first child. And a large part of my complaints were due to facility issues in a building which has since been replaced with a new building.

I have used a wide range of medical services in 3 countries, and I can assure you that without question the worst service I have ever received, and the most consistently bad service were all in corporate health care organisations in the USA.

The best service I have recieved was in Norway, but I don't think that there is a big difference in the general level of service I have received in Norway and the UK (mid Essex NHS trust and Norfolk Suffolk NHS trust). I do think that my GP here is more likely to refer us to specialists, but I don't know if that is a difference in philosophy, or person. I have heard similar complaints from people here about their GPs as I have from people in the UK.

All in all, I think that the NHS in the UK provides a good service, and until you've lived someplace where service for most people is far worse, it can be hard to understand how bad is can really be.

I have to tell people in the UK and Norway, both, please improve on what you have. Don't privatise it. My experience has led me to believe that profit absolutely has no place in medical care. I don't mean paying people decent salaries (thought not silly amounts to executives), but making profit for shareholders or owners. Profit encourages penny-pinching and gaming the system. There is far too great a risk of greed getting in the way of care.

[pwa]

Surely if the private sector adds cost effective support to the NHS it's a win / win for all parties ...... And its the NHS that decide if its cost effective ... not the private companies ..... unless you believe the NHS managers are corrupt, in the pay of the private health providers ........

But that still begs the question: if BUPA or whoever can provide a service to the NHS better than the NHS can do it itself, why is that? What is it about the NHS that prevents it running certain services as well as the private sector can?

[landsurfer]

But the NHS is riddled with profit making and taking staff. £200k / year consultants ... 3 days a week for the NHS 3 days a week for the private sector. Latest techniques learned in the NHS and applied to the private sector ....
I also have had superb treatment within the NHS ... and the private sector .....

[landsurfer]

But that still begs the question: if BUPA or whoever can provide a service to the NHS better than the NHS can do it itself, why is that? What is it about the NHS that prevents it running certain services as well as the private sector can?

+1 ....

[Tangled Metal]

You go along believing the private sector is capable of doing it all...

I have never said anything like that at all. Not in any of my posts and I don't believe in privatisation at all in an ideal world. That sounds like a contradiction but if you bear with me I will try to explain my POV.

Basically I oppose privatisation because like you I can't see how a private sector company can operate with profits cheaper than a larger organisation that does not require money going out as profits / dividends, in an ideal world. We are far from that world.

I however have limited experience of healthcare provision being mostly healthy most of my life. Mostly minor GP treatments. The limited hospital dealings have been mostly vicariously through family members receiving treatment. The rare hospital visit for my own treatment has been a real chore because of really bad service. Two examples out of maybe 10 visits in the last 15 years or so were good. One was an xray appointment where I got there with 1 minute spare and got taken straight in. In and out in 5 minutes! The second was the private.hospital visit I've described above.

Basically most of my dealings with NHS secondary/tertiary care (local hospital/regional specialist hospital) has suffered from poor management and systems. The local trust is poor as I have said. In light of this I can see how there is scope for private sector if run sufficiently efficiently to save money. It worked very well in my visit to an EN&T consultant.

To summarise I believe public sector should always be cheaper and better than private sector within the healthcare. However the NHS is so badly run in cases that it's unable to compete with private sector provision. That is not universal. Indeed private sector could not do everything better than public. However if anything at all is done cheaper and better in the private sector than public sector then why on earth would you want to increase service cost just to keep it in the public sector? IMHO I believe that's ideology taking over from pragmatism.

I cannot emphasise how bad my local trust is. Management is the cause of their problems. Their problems create more problems. Not least it robs medical staff of humanity IMHO/IME. Examples? Sorry too close and personal. Trust me if it wasn't too much I'd have put in a formal complaint and considered seeking advice. There's medical staff there who I believe are cruel and shouldn't be allowed to practise.

Add to that management of major investments that caused loss of life. Seriously I've been told from colleagues of those involved in one case who were friends at the time about that case. It was like a long, slow car crash. Totally preventable.

So perhaps I'm jaded by the poor local NHS trust or perhaps I've just been lucky with a cost effective example of privatisation. The one thing I don't do is rule anything out for ideological reasons or believe in one side of this matter completely. My fear is something as big as the NHS is impossible if being efficiently run for everything. If that's the case then why not review or consider private sector taking work over that's cost effective to the state for them to do? The only matter that's important is getting the best result we can with what's available. Finite resources means compromise. Perhaps compromise means die-hard socialists might be best advised to accept private sector involvement in areas that the NHS is not as efficient in order to get a better outcome.

[landsurfer]

Labour Party MP's rage about how wonderful our schools are ... then send their children to private schools ....
I do wonder if Ms. Abbot has a private health care policy .........

[Tangled Metal]

But that still begs the question: if BUPA or whoever can provide a service to the NHS better than the NHS can do it itself, why is that? What is it about the NHS that prevents it running certain services as well as the private sector can?

+1 ....

+2 ....

Seriously I don't know why NHS performs the way it does but until it all rises to the highest standards across , the board we're stuck with trying to get the best outcomes out of what is available. Learn from successful, cost effective, private provisions where they exist (and they do exist) and apply to the NHS. That way you won't need privatisation....perhaps!

BTW postcode lottery. It sounds like vorpal did well out of that game. We have lost out I reckon. BTW our child was nearly going to be born without me present at the other side of the country just so we got out of our trust area. We got as far as searching through hospital rankings and patient review sites looking for better options.

We in the end decided to give our local trust benefit of the doubt, to a point. We refused to go to one hospital and camped at the better hospital in the trust until they could give us a room. Well would you go to a delivery department of a hospital that was being investigated for malpractice in that very department? It still had issues relating to incompetence. From medical staff not really checking the medical notes to cock ups relating to test samples.

Sorry if I sound so jaded about the NHS it's just that I'm seeing how bad it can be. My eyes have been opened and I now believe completely in the patient looking out for themselves by taking as much.control over their healthcare as possible. Ask questions. Don't take sh1t. Complain when it warrants it. Hold staff to account. Above all do whatever it takes to get the treatment you need and don't just accept how they choose to treat you without understanding the options. You can insist in the right treatment but only if you ask the questions to actually find out what that is. Above all don't be afraid to put consultant on the spot. It doesn't matter if the medical staff think you're a difficult customer. Learn the rules that govern them. Such as if your surgery gets bumped when you've just wasted half your day in.hospital, know that the clock has been started. Once bumped from surgery they then have a certain number of days to get you through that surgery or treatment. Penalties apply I.believe. There's other things like that too.

[Tangled Metal]

Labour Party MP's rage about how wonderful our schools are ... then send their children to private schools ....
I do wonder if Ms. Abbot has a private health care policy .........

Don't MPs have private medical as part of their contract? It's kind of offered to them but they could always turn it down if their ideology opposes it just like they do with private education!