I’m forwarding an email I received today from Lindsay Cooke who was the coordinator of Mums 4 Medics:

>> Hi Aphra

>> I hope all is very well with you.

>> Take a look at Remedy’s home page and you’ll find an interesting story … I’m on the Remedy committee now and have told
>> Chris that I’ll alert all the medical bloggers to this one - but have no idea how to find their email addresses. So you’re the first
>> - and can you help?

>> Ta ever so

>> Lindsay

You may well know this already of course, but I thought I’d help Lindsay out with reaching the medical blogosphere. It would be kind if you could pass this on to anyone who might be able to blog or otherwise help.

Kind regards

Aphra Behn
http://aphrabehn.wordpress.com

I have heard similar grumbling from Third Sector organisations & the claims of the DoH / CD that there is no bias in the procurement process start to sound a little hollow.

GPC chair Dr Laurence Buckman as quoted in Pulse:

‘You don’t negotiate while threatening the person you’re negotiating with. You’ve got to have an end in view. If your end in view is just to give the enemy a bloody nose, that’s not winning. When you’ve moved into the imagery of war, with winning and losing, that’s negotiation over with.’

I wonder what name he has for being outplayed on both the PR & policy fronts while increasing ceasing to represent his base?

I meant “efficiency” in the healthcare context, both in the case of a specific treatment episode & in terms of the wider picture. There is no agreement on its attributes, depending as it does on the viewers priorities. Do you measure it economically or on patient satisfaction or on outcomes?

1) The NHS has signed a long term bulk supply contract with the GP, hence the low rates. There are disadvantages with each model but this semi-monopoly (there is quite often an overlap in practice boundaries allowing for alternative suppliers) is one of the cheaper ways of providing such service. Ask for recommendations from locals.

2) My solicitor charges me in excess of £200 an hour & I suspect that most consultants are cheaper. I fail to see why GP’s should charge less just on principle. In practice rates can vary.

“There are two sides to welfare economics: economic efficiency and income distribution. Economic efficiency is largely positive and deals with ‘the size of the pie’ Income distribution is much more normative and deals with ‘dividing up the pie.’” see Wikipedia for more - it’s generally good on economics.

Both relevant concepts for NHS priorities?

NB 1/ Not too impressed with electicity as a model for medical services.
2/ I have been quoted 100BP for a visit to a private consultant.
Surely GPs don’t charge more than this?

The parallel with management taking responsibility for its mistakes is clear too. In industry, almighty cock ups tend to result in responsibility per force - failure leaves a manager out of work! Indeed even success is rewarded in this way on occasion!

The failures of MTAS/MMC have yet to yield such results. Why? There is a feeling that if you are employed in the public sector that you cannot be made responsible for your actions. Senior managers take the advantages that come with their position but not the responsibility for the failures of their decisions. A good example ids the blessed Sir Liam. Knighthood, expensive cockup, and still there! Who pays? Joe Public of course!

Surely the workforce can have little confidence that the actions of the clowns responsible will not be repeated in some form if they are not removed.

Let us hope that in the run up to an election that even the PM will recognise, as he did with the precious Patsy, that incompetent DH buffoons could easily lose him the election.

And roughly £52 per year for an adult is what the government pays your GP to see you as many times as needed. Private consultation fees are around thrice that for one appointment. Somehow I don’t think that qualifies as generous or bloated.

In the “Land of the Free ™”, current reports are that administration charges swallow up a third of healthcare costs. The NHS used to spend less than 10% on admin, now up to 12% or more & climbing with all the new “reforms” which leaves a smaller sum of money to actually treat you.

Efficiency is rather misleading as a concept. Just how do you define it?

obviously people will question the vaidity of the survey /statistics. can you give a link to the original article please and comments on the validity of that survey / statistics.

Thank you for bringing this to everyones notice

To date nothing!

Arzi, smoking, drugs and policy reviews can have minimal impact on patient care and safety in comparison to getting the junior doctors in place and with morale improved. Everyone knows this can only be done by a widespread increase in the training place provision.

What is stopping him doing the obvious? The silence is deafening!

Should it continue, he’ll be tarred with the same brush as the incompetent previously in his position. The idiots surrounding her need immediate removal to get the show on the road!

I am not too hopeful about Brown either but am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt though fellow travellers like Ara Darzi make it difficult to do so. After all there is a wide spectrum of thought within the profession & Simon Stevens’ poking fun in the HSJ at the recent BMA annual conference does nothing to help matters.