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Originally Posted by lettie
The NHS will never have enough money allocated for staff whilst people remain silent. The government would rather plough millions into reorganisations which do not work than put money into actual hands on care of patients. If the reorganisations worked then why have they had to reorganise so often?????
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Totally and utterly correct, Lettie, as Margaret and anyone else who works or has worked recently in the NHS will agree.
The fact is that Gordon Brown has actually doubled spending on the NHS since 1997, yet NHS trusts face a deficit of £1 billion this year. That's a crisis and no amount of patronising speeches by Patricia Hewitt can alter this fact.
We've reached this turn of events because this government is obsessed with gimmickry and spin. Instead of using the money wisely to achieve long-term benefits, they are desperate for headline-catching initiatives that, as Lettie says, involve ill-thought out reorganisations.
A prime example is the plan to digitise all patient bookings, records and prescriptions - the largest civilian IT programme in the world. This grandiose programme is years behind schedule and the cost has trebled from its initial estimate to a jaw-dropping £20 billion. Meanwhile, those at the sharp end, be they patients or staff suffer. What a farce!