That is shameful

Tories init. Everyone grifting 

Basically Russia 

my BIL managed to get an appointment for elective surgery in 2 weeks (normal waiting list 2 years) by charming the receptionist on the phone and then taking her flowers

he's a nice guy but bloody hell it's a worry

The people I've known who had cancer were too fooking poorly to speak at most points, let alone think about how best to blackmail the administrator into giving them an oncology appointment.

I haven't read the article but I'm surprised receptionists have this sort of authority?

The NHS is completely fooked.

I think we should increase one of its single largest costs by 35% and see if that helps maintain the system 👍🏻 

Yes, reducing the rate at which doctors quit, at a total cost of around 1bn per annum, would be an excellent investment in maintaining the system actually.

Vertigo, nhs receptionists are notorious Nazis often backed by the doctors. Think battle-axe PAs.  

Just for reference, the budget of the department for health and social care is approx £180bn.

The fact that people can say "haha yes maybe we should pay the staff better and see if that helps!?!?!?" and believe they're making a good point... Sorry but you guys deserve the health system you get. I just wish I didn't get it too.

NHS receptionists are not "Nazis" FAOD

What so we can spend an extra 1bn, on top of 136bn, and get a better system?

Seems a no brainer to me

But then I have a big IQ (massive even) and am not a Tory cuck

We could just continue fooking over the frontline staff and see how that works out 👍 

Tories be Tory

Put them in the GAOL

NHS receptionists?

Presumably hospital ones rather than the receptionists at privately owned GP practices?

The one at our GP is unaffectionately known to us as "Cerberus" although rather than keeping the dead in, her objective is to keep the ill out.

The fact that increasing junior doctor pay by 35% would only cost 1bn is laughable really

It would cost that (and more) every year. I think the entire system has to change tbh - it's all kinds of unethical now. 

The easiest thing in the world is to say “we have to reform the NHS”. Specifics often rather light though 

It would cost 1.06bn pa, or a bit over 0.5% of the current budget.

But who can I bribe so I can speak to a receptionist?

Hasn't this always been the case in everything to some extent?  Be nice to the people you meet along the way and they'll go that little bit further to help you.  It's like my neighbour who only speaks to tradesmen to tell them how they're doing it wrong or to tell them he's not paying them in full and then wonders why they walk off and leave the job unfinished.

Instinctively I like the idea of a European-style social insurance system Chimp, although my comparative knowledge of health systems is probably a little out of date. I am happy to pay more personally, but tbh I would not be happy to pay more tax for the current utter shitshow. (Sore point possibly as 6yo Monty junior has just been refused an appointment with a neurologist despite having regular seizures and being autistic).

I have no idea whether doctors should be paid more, but I often encounter the “oh it’ll only cost £x” line at work.  The problem is that if I multiply the £x by the number of issues for which I hear the argument, I get a number that would bankrupt us pretty quickly.  It’s a poor line of attack.

The problem is that if I multiply the £x by the number of issues for which I hear the argument, I get a number that would bankrupt us pretty quickly.  It’s a poor line of attack.
 

What would be a better line of attack with regards to a complaint about expense than pointing out a relatively low expense?

I am happy to pay more personally, but tbh I would not be happy to pay more tax for the current utter shitshow.
 

Yes that’s the problem - it won’t get better without paying more. Pay out of pocket, pay via tax, pay via insurance premiums. Don’t really care how we do it. But paying more will have to happen.

Of course people hate the idea of paying more because most people don’t have much money to spare.

We want EU levels of services and US levels of tax. Yet we have the reverse already. relax, this may smart a little. 

I'm happy to pay a bit more but what we need to try and work out is why the service differs so much.  Where I am things are pretty good and you can get an ambulance and there's no long wait to be admitted, etc. but go a few miles east or west and you're into other trusts which are complete disasters.  Why can't what's happening locally be replicated by the neighbouring trusts who have relatively similar demographics to deal with?

I suspect part of it is related to the fact that both of our local A&E departments are quite new hospitals.  One is from 1988 and one is from 2010 so much better set up than say Brighton which is in a 19th century listed building.

Again, instinctively, I think the hospital/clinic/whatever has to be financially motivated to provide the service or do the procedure, which is the polar opposite of the present NHS. If the money doesn't follow the patient, then we'll just be back to the early noughties when Brown hosed money at the NHS and productivity didn't change. Including the bit where the doctors snaffle all the extra cash because their pay hasn't kept up with inflation. ;) 

I had a genuinely fascinating conversation about this at dinner on Saturday - a prof who is also a BMA activist, Mr Monty who is a dyed-in-the-wool Tory and me somewhere in the middle - interestingly most of the consultants there did not intend to strike, largely because wage erosion impacts all sectors and the optics are bad (especially at the moment with the COL). No idea if that is representative or not. All present agreed that Karol Sikora is a shyster though. 

largely because wage erosion impacts all sectors
 

It doesn’t though. 

Lots of consultants won’t want to strike because

a) they are in specialties which are less reliant on NHS income

b) they are older and bought houses for a relative pittance

c) they’re worried about the impact on patients and know that unlike JDs there is nobody to back-stop them

d) some combination

If the rationale is “everyone has suffered against inflation” though then that is just wrong, not everyone has, or at least not to anything like the same degree.

There is a deliberate prolonged strategy to cut the size of the state pay bill via repeated below-inflation pay settlements. That works until it doesn’t 

The NHS is failing.

It used to be that the NHS was a reason given for people in NI to remain part of the UK rather than vote for Irish (re)unification.  However, in the past couple of years I've seen people say the opposite - that unification would be a good thing because they would prefer to have the healthcare system of the RoI - particularly for primary care where GPs are incentivised to work because they get paid per patient visit rather than based on how many patients are on the books of the pratice.

It’s failing because nobody is incentivised enough in appropriate ways to make it work. Wtf is it with public services in this country? If tax is paying for it then run it properly. Don’t fvcking allow business in to cream our money out. 

RoI pay is certainly significantly better than NI/rUK pay.

It’s failing because nobody is incentivised enough in appropriate ways to make it work.

Don’t fvcking allow business in to cream our money out. 

The above two statements are a good illustration of the challenge here.  It's challenging to have incentivisation at the level of the individuals but no opportunity for business to make profits.   

My three point plan to save the NHS:

1. Give junior doctors and nurses a 50% pay rise 

2. Legislate to make venal greed a specific criminal offence punishable with gaol time

3. Gaol any tory with even tangential culpability (see (2))

That’s the point Rob. Any properly functioning democracy would at least try.