Private Practice, cancer of NHS PLC Ltd UK - where Money talks

A thirty eight year old man falls down a council pothole. Three months later, he still cannot put his foot to the ground, he cannot straighten his leg, he is kept awake by pain, he has not seen an orthopaedic surgeon and has not got the results of his MRI.

He will see an NHS orthopaedic physiotherapist in January, for the third time. He or she may, or may not, have the results of his MRI scan. He or she may, or may not, refer him to an orthopaedic surgeon.

This man has a classic meniscal tear and has a loose piece of cartilage jammed in his knee joint. He is on crutches and painkillers and the longer this goes on, the worse his chances of recovery.

This is the biggest heap of DooDoo I have seen yet this month. The patient went to his GP. After a month, his GP using Choose and Book, referred him to the Hospital. He saw an Orthopaedic Physiotherapist (not a doctor) who after another month, ordered an MRI scan. Three months after his injury, he may or may not, get the results of his scan.

THREE MONTHS have gone by and our man is about to lose his job, he may never walk again, he is unlikely ever to play sports again. This is the new NHS and this man may spend the rest of his life on benefits because the NHS has failed him and his family.

Here, the cause is PRIVATE PRACTICE. The orthopaedic surgeon wants lots of private practice. Therefore he makes it difficult to get an NHS appointment. Once upon a time, the orthopaedic surgeon had a long NHS waiting list. Nowadays he has an Orthopaedic Physiotherapist (who is not an orthopaedic surgeon nor any kind of doctor) to police his waiting list and fend off targets and managers, while he continues to keep his long waiting list intact.

If our man wants treatment he must pay.


He must pay for an urgent, (PRIVATE) appointment with an Orthopaedic Surgeon because there are no longer any urgent NHS Orthopaedic appointments, at least not in this area of the country.

Doctors don't complain, because they are fat cats on gross salaries who are scared to say Boo to a mouse in case they are hauled before the General Medical Council, and lose their livelihoods. Belt and Braces, Carrots and Sticks - Rewards for the good boys, and death to the Dissidents and anyone who cares about their patients more than the GMC's guidelines called, laughably, "Good Medical Practice"

Private Practice is a primary cancer in the NHS. Consultant Doctors are encouraged to earn money privately while backed by a State salary, State pension and State security. With this much on offer, doctors are easily corrupted. Teach a child to draw a picture for sweets and they no longer draw for pleasure. Encourage a money based culture in the NHS and the fun goes out of the job. No one works for the love of work any more. Doctors can't wait to retire

This is particularly true in Orthopaedics, Gynaecology and Surgery where long waiting lists, restricted access to surgeons encourage patients to go privately. In short, anywhere the doctors can create a log jam - whether it is surgical procedures only they can do or expertise only they have. Previous governments tried to suppress this greed by directly supporting the NHS, this government has encouraged it while carving up and selling off whatever else they can find of value in the NHS.

We are about to see NHS land and buildings sold off to pay off this country's massive debt. This Labour government has left no political choice. The hospital land will be sold at favourable prices to the friends of Labour and friends of business.

The only solution is staying healthly. Keep fit, keep agile, don't let a soft belly creep up on you. Make sure you look after yourself so you do not need the NHS or other health care. Save for a rainy day so you can go privately (prices are better in Poland)






Copyright (c) Dr. Liz Miller
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Job hopping managers in the NHS

Lions led by Donkeys - the modern NHS healthcare worker



Where the troops died in the trenches of WW1 and Britain stood alone against Europe, patients now die in the beds of the NHS

The NHS was set up to provide medical care for the working people of this country. Its purpose, to help people recover from illness without being concerned about medical bills and get back to work. The NHS has become the largest bureaucracy in Europe and the third largest in the world. Equally, the welfare state was set up to protect people from the worst effects of poverty. The Welfare State has mutated into Social Services (the SS) and has also developed a life of its own.

Worse, as a self serving bureaucracy, the NHS has been infiltrated, if not strangled by management consultants.

The NHS spends at least £350 million a year on Management Consultants or Consultoids (I use the term Consultoids, because in the NHS, the term Consultant has a different meaning.) Of the £350 million, at least £273 million was on projects unrelated in any shape or form to patient services. Management Consultoids damage the NHS in the following way

1 - Money spent on Management Consultoids, is not spent on NHS patients or staff
2 - Real NHS management is dumbed down, because the interesting and challenging jobs go to outsiders
3 - A nasty web of paid for political contacts is built up
4 - Management Consultoid culture infects NHS service ideals
5 - No one is accountable. Once a Management Consultoid has finished the project, he or she is off, clutching their pay check bonus and slip for promotion

Management Consultoids have brought a JP Morgan, DeLoitte or KPMG culture into NHS management, where "drive, ambition and potential" matter more than the ability to do the job.

Now as an NHS manager, it no longer matters how you do your job, or whether you do your job only that you are seen to display "drive, ambition and potential". What was long suspected, was made clear in a recent article in the (Health Service Journal Click here)

Senior NHS managers are laying themselves open to accusations of lack of commitment by “job hopping”, according to Royal College of Nursing chief executive Peter Carter. He went on to say that there are “copious examples of where criticism [of managers] is deserved”. Part of the blame lay in the “huge turnover and lack of commitment” among senior NHS managers.

The comments on this article were as interesting as the article

At best they report "I would have been delighted to stay in one post, but not only are there glass ceilings, I was the subject of re-organisation constantly. In the end, if there is no organisational loyalty to the indivdual, it becomes evident by churn"

At worst "If you don't move every couple of years you are seen as lacking drive and ambition! And you can always say you were responsible for some initiative or another (even if you didn't start or see it through)".

What purpose does Job Hopping serve? What common nebulous self serving framework does is suggest? is it ok to make mistakes as long as you are not bothered by them? does it doesn't matter if you don't know what you are doing? can you lead without authority as long as no one notices? work in a non-job as long as you bring a sufficiently bizarre set of values? including tying your son to an anchor rope on a boat; are overpaid and you get promoted well above your ability. Sounds like the blueprint of a lot of modern NHS Management.








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Flu vaccination - GPs get £5.25 a shot

Help your local GP take her family on their second foreign holiday. Click here for more information Help keep his or her practice profitable and give them a hand, or rather your arm.

Depending on whether you just add a quick vaccination to all your consultations or set up a special clinic, (with a nurse at £15 an hour) it looks like a tidy profit. It is easy, as long as you don't worry about the ethics of vaccinating someone, with an untested vaccine, with unknown side effects, against a safe kind of flu they will likely never catch.

And the government are paying £5.25 a time for unquestioning, mindless obedience. What a way to earn a living!



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NHS, the solution - separate private health care from centrally funded health care

The love of money is the root of all evil. Perhaps not all evil, but of the evil that runs this country. When the NHS was set up, consultants were allowed to boost their NHS income with private practice. 60 years later, that flaw has fatal consequences. Only a lack of imagination and insufficient greed limits an ambitious doctors' income. Click here

We cannot "afford" the health care we need, no country on this planet can. Yet during the late twentieth century, the NHS was as close to being able to afford better health care for less money than anywhere else on the planet.

How did we manage it? How did the NHS achieve the impossible? How did a quart come out of a pint pot?

Working for love not money

Workers in the NHS, from the senior consultants to the porters and all between were paid less than they were worth and worked harder for their money. NHS employees worked because they
loved the job. Instead of money, there was respect, a living wage and job security.

The solution

Take politics out of health care.
Stop NHS consultants doing private practice within the NHS
Stop GPs making extortionate profits from their government funded practices
A living wage and no more, from the top down
Reinstate the ideals of service

Yes, people still work in the NHS and serve this country for less money than they could earn elsewhere. This is no longer true of the doctors. Greed amongst doctors is endemic. From consultants fighting over private practice to GPs who do anything and everything the Department of Health says, as long as they are paid.

The NHS came out of the unique system of voluntary hospitals that existed in the 1930s and 1940s in this country. A tradition where doctors and nurses worked for less than they might otherwise have earned. In return, medicine, nursing and working in a hospital earned respect in the community

The NHS has kept the worst of the charity culture - a system where patients are expected to feel grateful for what they get and combined it with the worst of 21st century greed and hypocrisy. It is a lethal mix.

Money does not solve the problems of poor care, lack of respect and lack of leadership. Money leads to fear and greed. Fear that someone else is getting more than you and greed for more. Both are rife in the NHS.

If you want to earn respect and show true leadership, work for less than you are worth. Give your talents freely to people who need them.

We need independent healthcare - independent of government, its monetary policies and politics and independent of the greed of big business. Other places to go for different perspectives - click here for Dr Grumble and watch his short video

As I said earlier "You can tell what God thinks of money, by the people he gives it to"

Copyright (c) Dr. Liz Miller
http://www.lizmiller.info/




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Today's doctors - Smugness and Greed beyond compare

This post has been voted top post on a private medical forum, - the number of votes it has received has reached almost records levels, with more than 750 voting for it directly. In addition, upwards of 150 doctors added their support directly with similarly expressed sentiments

These are not the exact words but I hope, conveys the spirit and intention of many doctors of today. My own comments as an Editor, are in brackets.

"Why I won't feel bad about my earnings

The media is full of vindictive suggestions against over paid family doctors, originating from the government. People have noticed this and are making offensive remarks, even family members are commenting on what I must be earning and how much I can afford.

I won't be made to feel bad about this:

for several reasons

[Like the bankers - Ed]

1) I gave up my teenage years and early twenties and spent a lot of time studying and taking exams, especially working a 100 hour weeks [not for long because they went out within a couple of years of me qualifying - Ed] when those who are objecting to my large income were having fun

2) Doctors are well paid - more now than in the past. This is one of the reasons I became a doctor. Lots of other could have done the same, if they too had worked hard

3) My job is stressful and responsible and the consequences of making a mistake can be disastrous for patients and my career alike. I expect i would be held accountable for those mistakes so it is nice to get paid when I get it right [In other words I will do anything for money - Ed]

4) I run an efficient business employing local people [paid for by a steady stream of government money which won''t dry up in a recession - Ed] I get paid the difference between what I can squeeze out of the government for a monopoly service and what it costs me to deliver that service [In other words I buy cheap and sell dear - the traditional business model - Ed]

I have never even threatened to go on strike [Because I know which side my bread is buttered - Ed]

........... And so it goes on - probably for close to a 1,000 words.

It finishes with a question as why he (or she) shouldn't demand more money to give out swine flu immunisations.

This post was written and voted on while others are wondering why is the government set on giving the sick and elderly an untested vaccine against a mild if inconvenient illness.

If you pay people enough, they do what you want and make up reasons as to why they are worth it. The doctor in question may have "studied hard" but it seems he (or she) has not learnt much.

It finishes with the phrase "Well as far as I am concerned I deserve to be well paid and I dont care what anyone thinks- not even my mum." This sums up modern medicine and today's doctors. Goodness only knows what tomorrows doctors will be like

The forum considers this posting "Top Quality" because 716 doctors have voted for it.