Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

A good starting point would be to change how government contracts work. It's a long time since I worked for a company that was executing a government contract,so things might have changed, but when I was there, the contract terms certainly did not promote value for money. Quite the opposite. The more the private company could spend, the more they could bill the government at many times cost. Basically the government used to just burn cash. Then they'd burn more on expensive auditors who's job it was to annoy us all and make things take longer than they needed to, all in the name of ensuring the taxpayer was getting value for money.

If that could be sorted and contracts were more aligned with how the private sector works, ie where a provider gets laughed at if they propose terms similar to what the government likes, then you have a good starting point. This is where you hire private experts to do a full analysis of the operation, and identify wastage and inefficiencies in the procedures. Not in the actual medical stuff, that's for the doctors and such. More in the bureaucracy, policy and procedure side.

Trouble is, if the government were to do that today, it would be a massive waste of money because they wouldn't get the first part right. A reasonably private sector approach to such a contract would be to hire a firm on a fixed term basis to do a short feasibility study, to report if they think they could save money without compromising quality of service. If the answer is yes, then there would usually be a clearly defined objective, with payment being contingent on achieving that objective.

 

111 persuaded me to go to A&E today. I didn't want to, and didn't think I needed to. But I'm not the medical expert, so I did as I was told.

It was like a zoo. Everyone in there, except the staff and the police officer, could be similarly described as chavvy male aged between around 18 and 30.

I shouldn't judge. I'm sure they were all very unwell in their own ways. It just seemed a bit odd that almost everyone fitted the same profile.

I didn't stay. As at the time of writing, I am still not dead.

 

In my opinion, people abuse A&E.

 

The problem is that the GPs cover themselves by telling you to call 111, 111 cover themselves by telling you to go to A&E.

I've occasionally tried to get minor stuff sorted by a Pharmacist and they tell you to go to your GP or A&E.

Everyone is covering themselves and dont really want to take responsibility in case they have missed something.
The buck stops at A&E.

 

People do abuse A&E - drug and alcohol problems, minor ailments and accidents that an aspirin or plaster would fix - but they've not been brought up to think for themselves, clean a small wound, take a paracetamol and so on. In France and Belgium if you have a cold, flu, other fairly simple problems, you go to the pharmacy and discuss immediate relief before you go to a GP or A&E.

Not having that habit means you need triage to sort out the urgent and the non urgent as well as security staff to control those suffering with self-inflicted substance abuse and thus no self-control when made to wait to be seen.

 

Same here.

 

I dont think you would get past the receptionist with a cold or flu, in fact they would tell you to stay away at my doctors surgery.
They always now ask why you want an appointment.

 

Put the old people to sleep would reduce the "tax burden". The latter being what some here seem to think being the only thing that matters. Sad, sad people we are.

 

You have a heart condition?

 

Just wonder how many are on such?