Reform of the NHS is a difficult nettle to grasp as a general election approaches. The public may easily but inaccurately assume that much needed reform is a threat to the NHS principle of a decent standard of medical care being available to all, independent of means and status. They easily forget that such medical care has not been available to all for a decade or more. For those of us who work within the NHS, and experience the catalogue of waste that surrounds us, it is deeply depressing to see that there is a bi-partisan policy that can best be summed up as “leave the NHS alone”. Last April I described how easily the next general can be lost by the Conservatives.
The country may be tired of Gordon Brown, but the battle is not yet over. The election is not a foregone conclusion. The situation now more resembles 1992 than 1997. It is not enough to want to dismiss Gordon Brown. There must be an attractive alternative and, just as in 1992, certainly as far as health care policy is concerned, there is as yet no such alternative. I have long since stopped being doctrinaire about the NHS. We need to take the best of the private sector systems and the best of the public sector systems. We do neither. Look at the growth of Stalinist bureaucracy or the outrage of PFI and external IT contracts. Take your pick. The NHS currently encapsulates the worst of both public and private systems. We are in the middle of an economic crisis. Every day, vast sums of money are wasted on healthcare and still both parties are pledging not to cut expenditure on the NHS. Crazy. We looked before at the egregious waste of money on the NHS Centre for Involvement. Thankfully (watch the video) it has now been closed, but how many millions did it cost the taxpayer?
Over the next few weeks, I want to look at a few more of the many areas of waste about which the general public are unware. Let us start with the Director of Patient Experience…
…There is not just one such director. Soon they will be everywhere. Several posts are currently advertised at NHS Jobs. (Put "patient experience" in the text search box). Let’s look at one.
Patient experience manager at West Hertfordshire Hospital NHS Trust. Salary £29,789 - £39,273.
Full details here
That's nearly forty grand a year, and don't forget the indexed linked pension. What qualifications do you need? Nothing specific. Passion seems to be the main quality.
"Are you passionate about improving the experience of all our patients and carers?
The Trust must put the patient and their carers at the centre of all we do and ensure that respect and dignity and consideration is given to those who use our services at every stage of care."
Putting patients at the centre of all we do? Heavens! What next. If only someone had suggested that to me at medical school. And what, exactly, will the new appointee have to do?
"Work with the Head of Patient Services to embed patient experience metrics as an integral part of performance management across the Trust "
Embed patient experience metrics? What does this mean? The Patient Experience Manager works along side the Equality & Diversity Manager and the Spiritual & Pastoral Care manager and, in case the appointee does not understand what “working along side” means, the diagram shown above is included in the job description.
An Equality & Diversity Manager, a Patient Experience Manager and a Spiritual & Pastoral Care Manager, all earning higher salaries than, for example, junior hospital doctors and experienced ward nurses. Unless they are stupid (and don't rule that out) it will not be long before the patient experience managers notice that one of the main complaints that patients have relates to the lack of hands-on nursing care. How long will it be, I wonder, before these managers realise that if they were all to fall on their swords and disappear, millions of pounds could be reallocated to employ more nurses? I will not hold my breath.
How long will it be before a political party is brave enough to pledge to put a stop to this nonsense?
