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Is it absurd to consider that the administrative cost is part of the cost of treating the patients?
Perhaps you can explain where the two are different...
Remember when they were saying that the NHS couldn't be improved?
If you ever get the chance, read the NHS Plan and tell us which part of that isn't being implemeted... for example:
No one will wait more that 21 weeks for their first outpatient appointment.
No one waits more than 12 months for their operation.
80% of people are treated or admitted within 4 hours of attending A&E
By this time next year those figures will have changed to 19 weeks, 9 months and 90% respectively.
How much of that has been reported in the media? Even the report which highlighted these was headlined in the press as "NHS Still Has Much To Do"...
Of course it's part of the overall cost. That's why I said there must be a balance met.
You then said "is it right for administration costs to exceed the cost of treating patients?"
So where is the separation? When is the work of one NHS employee not part of the cost of treating patients? Which administrative costs were you talking about?
Well you say there is a link (you're in the NHS, you tell me what the 'link' is).
I say that spending money to DIRECTLY aid patients is better than financing bureaucrats.
My brother is a doctor and I feel it would be prudent to spend greater funds in training people like him instead of those who simply determine how NHS funds are spent.
How can there not be a link?
Do you think that there are people in the NHS, employed in the NHS, whose job it is to prevent patients from being treated?
Which is the narrow minded thinking that has got the NHS into the problems it has now. It doesn't matter what the money is spent on, so long as people are treated properly and with the minimum delay possible. That is what the NHS is there to do. By putting restrictions in place on where the moeny is spent - which is what most politicians do - you actually prevent the NHS from working to its capacity.
You said earlier that the NHS should be treated - or act - like private business. So tell me, how often does the Govt say where private moeny can be spent?
If the employment of a "bureaucrat" means that a nurse of doctor is free to carry out their clinical duties, then how can you say that the funding hasn't gone directly into patient care?
It would also help if you defined what you mean by bureaucrat?
I agree with you in part. We don't teach junior doctors in the best way possible. We stick then on the front line almost as soon as they get out of Med School, and then we (the public) expect them to get it right, every time, first time. We put unrealistic demands on them and wonder why they crumble under pressure or make mistakes.
What I find even more offensive though is that the BMA defends this practice. Perhaps the Doctors would be better off looking at their own systems too? I've lost count of the number of times I have fallen our with consultants over this...
Out of interest, the number of people who decide how the money is spent has actually reduced since Thatcher's "experiment" with fundholding GPs. You know, when the NHS tried to act more like private business...