The question is why would anyone entrust a £12bn industry to a failed comedian? And the answer is they wouldn't. Except in government of course, where it's perfectly normal. How do we get rid of them again? POSTED BY WAT TYLER AT 10:10 AM COMMENT (0) | TRACKBACK (0) Before Labour came to power - 12 WHOLE YEARS AGO - supporters of the NHS used to argue its third world healthcare resulted from underfunding. They pointed out that the UK spent much less of its GDP on health, so of course the results were worse. But under Labour, NHS funding has gone through the roof. This year we'll be spending around £110bn, up from £40bn in 1996-97, an increase of 170%. Over the same period, the CPI - the government's preferred measure of inflation - increased by a mere 25%. Tyler's fag packet says that our total healthcare spending (public and private) is now running at around 8.7% of GDP, which is roughly in line with the OECD average. Unfortunately - as we've blogged many times - much of this extra money was wasted on grandiose top-down masterplans like the supercomputer and the so-called Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF - see the Doc's latest blast here). Costs escalated wildly, including PFI costs that will hang round our necks for decades to come. And our hospital standards still seem to fall way below those in comparable first world countries. For example, here's a chart from the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (EARSS), showing MRSA infection rates: Surely it's time for Cam to recognise that more of the same - only somehow better managed - is never ever going to deliver the improvements we need. We need a radical change of direction. And he's the man - the only man - who can deliver it. Labels: nhsTHURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2009
Latest Skills Industry Fiasco
Tumbledown FE provision
BOM readers will be familiar with the abysmal nationalised skills industry (see previous posts here - including video - here, and here).
The industry is "controlled" by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), a sprawling dysfunctional quango that presides over a quagmire of 500 separate organisations and bureaucracies. It costs us over £12bn pa, yet fails almost entirely to deliver the skills employers actually value.
This morning we have news of their latest fiasco - their grandiose college rebuilding programme has imploded because the money's run out:"Colleges in England have indicated they face losing more than £100m because of delays in getting funding they say was promised for refurbishment. Some 144 building projects are on hold while funding is being reviewed by the Learning and Skills Council."
This is a serious problem because in many cases the colleges have already startedthe projects, incurring big costs. There's now a real chance some might go bust:"Barnsley College (pic above) is half demolished with rebuilding work due to begin in May. Its principal said it looked as though the contractors would have to make people redundant.
He said the situation "could end up bankrupting the college" because he had taken out bank loans on the basis that the work would be done and students - with associated funding - would be taking up places in the new buildings. Without the buildings, he has no student income and no way of repaying the loans."
Further Education Minister Sion Simon was thrust before Humphrys on BBC R4 Today to explain.
Only he couldn't.
In a stammering embarrassing performance he just kept repeating the classic robotic lines we've heard so often:
"We've made it quite clear this is unacceptable."
But you're responsible!
"No. Ministers make policy and the LSC is responsible for administering the policy."
But the LSC reports to YOU!
"Which is precisely why we've ordered an enquiry."
Well, that's just buck passing - who's taking the rap?
"That's what we're enquiring into"
Gah! Are you going to let these colleges go bust?
"Well... er... umm... unacceptable... LSC's fault... enquiry... rrrrrrr... click..."
Are you going to let them go bust?
"We've made it quite clear.... rrrrrrrrrrrrr... click click click..."
Some might say you bailed out the banks, but not these colleges!
"We will expect the LSC to deal urgently with their situations. We are absolutely not willing to see colleges go bust."
Absolutely not willing to see colleges go bust. WTF kind of tortured doublespeak pants is that?
Sion Simon is of course a notorious twok, whose only previous claim to public attention was his hilarious video spoof of Cam:
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 2009
Third World Hospitals
Nearly three times more money, and it comes to this
We've all seen the shocking reports of disgusting conditions at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust: lack of trained staff, lack of equipment, filth, unreported superbugs, patients left in pain, targets given priority over patient care, etc.
Commissar Johnson was on telly last night claiming it's an isolated case -another one (cf the Kent and Snuff It etc etc). But as the Doc points out:"Every single one of the problems listed above has been covered time, after time, after time, after time by NHS BLOG DOCTOR...
Be under no illusion. What went on in Staffordshire is probably going on in a hospital near you. It may not be as bad. Yet. Or, it may be just as bad, but even now is being hushed up. Maybe you do not believe it. But one day soon, you (or more likely your elderly mother or father) will be admitted to hospital. Then you will know."
Judging from our own experience, almost everyone already knows. They're both angry and worried sick.
So one more time:
Why should we have to put up with this?
Thursday, 19 March 2009
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