I caught an interview on Today this morning at 7.34am with Jo Webber, deputy director of the NHS Confederation. The issue for the BBC was why the % increase of pay awards for NHS bosses was so much higher than for nurses. Ms Webber kept repeating how “complex” a job it is to run an NHS Trust, she must have used the word at least a dozen times! At no point did the BBC interviewer ask her should we not therefore simplify this complexity so reducing costs. The impression left was that only the most highly skilled management can run an NHS trust (Equivalent to a FTSE 250 company and less well paid, she claimed)) and that they do so from a vocational yearning!!Just so much nonsense and, as ever, the BBC shies away from challenging NHS orthodoxy.
SO COMPLEX….
Bookmark the permalink.
Even if her argument is true, which it probably isn’t, that’s an argument for paying them more money overall, not giving them a bigger pay rise.
Running NHS dentistry in my area is so complex it takes many more staff than it did years ago. A relative of mine has worked in the admin of NHS dentistry for decades and her department has nearly doubled in size since 1997. Only one thing has changed. Now it is impossible to get an NHS dentist anywhere near my home when it used to be easy.
If there are no NHS dentists in my area I’d have thought that that no staff would be needed to administer the service, not a lot more. How many private companies have huge admin departments with nothing to administer?
The BBC shies away from challenging any sort of orthodoxy, it props up the establishment and status quo, it doesn’t do dissent, and only embraces diversity of opinion when it suits their liberal leftist agenda. The beeb will seek to prop up statist medicare at all costs crying it is doing the nation a favour – the nhs is a failed entity but don’t expect the beeb to see that.
I wouldn’t want the BBC to see that, or ‘see’ anything else about the NHS for that matter. I just want to see issues related covered impartially and leave us to make our own minds up on how to view the issue.
DV
That’s a very good point concerning “complexity”.
The NHS is big alright but it isn’t “complex”. It is no more complex than the old Gas Board or Electricity Board. Any “complexity” relates to the services actually offered (ie the medical bit). Getting staff in place to deliver the services, getting and maintaining the hardware (buildings, beds and so on) etc is not rocket science – it’s the small change of corporate life. Not only that, but the NHS has no need to market its services – the punters are lining up to use them so (at least) half of the worry attached to running a company in the private sector is removed.
Of course, the same goes for council services. Paying grossly inflated salaries to nonentities who call themselves “chief executives” instaed of “town clerks” is also ridiculous. But don’t expect the BBC to ruffle any feathers – after all those in charge at the BBC are in exactly this position: inflated salaries, inflated titles and flagrant statist bias sums it up.
One of my duaghters is s senior mental health nurse – working at the sharp end dealing with addicts. She has worked in about 5 different Trusts in London. IN every case, management has been bloody awful – and too many qualified medical staff in supervisory positions have to spend most of their time dealing with “politics” inside the Trust, stopping them dealing directly with support of the other medics and therefore the patients. My impression is that very few of the “managers” have any damn clue about managing. But they frequently pull in better wages than the medical staff. I keep telling my daughter – “If you can’t beat them, why not joing them?”, but she retains the odd idea that work on the clinical side is more important !
Another daughter is a cardiology consultant at a London teaching hospital. I hear horrendous stories about the senior management there, the failures to control budgets leading to sudden cutbacks, the endless politicking, the nepotism/favouritism/backbiting, the general sense that the medics are working against the “system”. The medics have to do the REAL managing of the service. And her income after 20 years of hospital experience is topped by many of the managers she has to deal with. The Chief Exec gets 3 times what she earns saving lives.
“I hear horrendous stories about the senior management there, the failures to control budgets leading to sudden cutbacks, the endless politicking, the nepotism/favouritism/backbiting, the general sense that the medics are working against the “system”.”
Sounds just like the BBC.
Where’s the BBC discussion about how banks are really, really complex and so bank CEOs deserve to get paid a lot of money? Oh, that’s right, they don’t because they’re capitalists and some of them did wrong and stupid things that harmed the economy. Never mind that applying this logic to the NHS would mean cutting pay for trust managers who did wrong and stupid things that screwed up the health system.