General News Discussion

[eFestivals]

About staff sitting around with literally nothing to do (why cant they be deployed elsewhere, for example).

do you think they should be out on the streets rounding up more customers then?

Meanwhile, if they're redeployed to the dole queue, what happens when 50 of your missus go into labour simultaneously? Would your complaint be the same then, or would you be screaming about how it's disgusting that it's understaffed?

Ask for the unreasonable and impossible and you'll only end up with unreasonable and impossible to accept outcomes - which is not your complaint right now.

My examples are about poor communication leading to things being done 4 or 5 times rather than once.

yep, i've seen this myself. And I've also seen the demands that so very many very stupid people make in regard to their own treatment that they need stuff like this from cheap clerical staff so that the medical staff can get on with doing medical things.

In my recent experience, limited to two hospitals, the room for more efficient use of resources remains huge.

what you mean is that your casual view made at times of low demand suggest this to you.

• housing associations - which have taken on most social housing previously provided by local authorities - and generally provide a better service for less public money

except they don't. It's easy to show a great profit when you don't have to pay for your assets.

This is an accounting fiddle, where councils and others have picked-up the costs of the HA's 'profits'.

• prisoner escorts - where escape rates have reduced hugely since the prison service and police did them, for less money

and where those escort staff are now selling the food & drink from the vans to make up their wages to something liveable!

• private prisons - which generally provide more secure prisons, better standards and better outcomes for less money.

PMSL. You really should stop believing what you read in the G4S staff magazine.

(PS: I'm not talking from ignorance here btw. I get daily reports from the inside of prisons).

Edited February 6, 2013 by eFestivals

[pink_triangle]

I disagree that only marginal improvements are possible. My examples are not about staff having a tea break. My examples are about poor communication leading to things being done 4 or 5 times rather than once.

...

[abdoujaparov]

Your experience of finding NHS services overstaffed is from my experience the exception rather than the norm. I have only worked in one place which was overstaffed and that was because the manager was very good at finding pots of money and people were silly enough to give them her. However the vast majority of places I (or colleagues) have worked, have struggled with staffing levels compromising patients health.

People are quick to talk about savings that could be made, but forget that one huge saving the NHS makes is by workers working extra hours free of charge because they are caring professionals. Im all for making savings but if you cut staffing you will just increase the amount of unpaid hours these staff are working, with possible consequences on the staffs health, stress levels and ability to act competently.

As I said any organisation can run more efficently and you will always have isolated examples of inefficency but solving these in general will not impact hugely on the organisation as a whole. If demand was to remain constant then it would be reasonable to achieve better results for the same money, however with demand constantly increasing, we need to spend money to keep up. Efficiency savings will make a small dent but the stress of an aging population isnt going to go away anytime soon.

[abdoujaparov]

do you think they should be out on the streets rounding up more customers then?

[pink_triangle]

The second point is whether it is possible to deliver the same, or an increased, volume of service more efficiently. My sample of two large general hospitals showed real and very obvious inefficiencies as a result of poor communication and coordination (not necessarily overstaffing per se). If those examples are the only two large general hospitals in the UK with thoe problems then great, but i doubt that they are

[abdoujaparov]

I dont think anybody has argued that a system cant be run more efficiently. I have never worked anywhere which hasnt been trying to make changes to work more efficently due to spending cuts from up above. However inefficnecy faults in the NHS are in my mind no different to what you see throughout the public/private sector. Also at times efficiency savings would mean private industries eg pharmaceutical, constructions taking less and we all know the current govenrment are loathed to do anything that will hurt their mates in these industries.

[eFestivals]

No, I think they should be where they are needed to do some actual work. Staff should be where the work is, not sat around where it isnt because there are always 10 staff on the childrens ward

We're not talking about shelf stacking in Tesco's here.

The work is erratic, by its very nature. What you saw in a quiet time is not a fair analysis.

It's of course the case tho that some hospitals are much better resourced than others tho - which is why the likes of Stafford gets to happen. The localism you champion has increased the discrepancies and not lessened them tho.

sorry, dont understand your point at all

the customer is not always right, the customer is often stupid.

And the stupid make the most noise, which they make if someone hasn't fussed around them at least once an hour. At the end of the day it's more efficient to give those stupid customers the fuss they crave than it is to try and get on only with medical necessities, because those stupid customers get in the way of the medical necessities.

Most housing associations are charitable and so dont, by definition, make profits. the fact remains that HAs, generally, provide a better service to tenants, for less public money, than LAs did

Yes, but they don't (as a generalisation) carry the costs of the housing stock they're operating - they were given it for free.

So their costs of operating are far lower than the councils they replaced (because the councils had and still have the costs of those houses). Meanwhile they charge their tenants more than the councils did - so it's hardly surprising that they can give a better service with far more money to play with.

The real costs show them as grossly inefficient, far and away much more than what they replaced. Start with the wages of the chief execs - not charity wages, that's for sure - and work downwards.

Really? You've seen that, have you? You mean the same staff who are paid comparable wages to a newly recruited public sector prison officer?

I've not personally seen it, nope. But I know that it happens.

But I have several independent and academic studies of the evidence. Have you? And I have been to dozens of public sector prisons and most of the private sector prisons in England and Wales. Have you?

Nope. But it's not a like for like comparison, because they don't operate on the same criteria.

The savings to the taxpayer or more than lost via loses elsewhere to the taxpayer. You're working from the Thatcher version of economics, where you know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

"Staffordshire hospital put corporate self interest and cost control ahead of patients and their safety"- Francis report.

So an infinite amount of pressure is being put on hospitals to run themselves like the private sector and make savings and cut costs, this is therefore translatining into lack of care

I can't think of any better evidence that you shouldn't run universal healthcare as s profit making exercise following private sector rules.

Edited February 6, 2013 by thesecretingredientiscrime

[eFestivals]

My sample of two large general hospitals.../

at a quiet time, and while knowing as-good-as nothing about how hospitals operate.

The last 30 years has been govt after govt banging on about how inefficient the NHS is, and how they'll sort it out.

And yet almost nothing has changed - which gets to prove that all the 'experts' anyone is able to find (and they're certainly more expert than you and me, beyond all doubt) can't find the wastage and inefficiencies that you believe to exist.

Yes, there might be times when staff are sat on their arse doing nothing, but that does not mean that those staff are not needed.

PS: I notice that you're not too worried about your own job inefficiency, as proven by your posts here and now. Do what you say and not what you do, eh?

Edited February 6, 2013 by eFestivals

[pink_triangle]

I'm not suggesting the problems the NHS has in this regard are unique. Far from it. But they are complicated by the sheer size and bureaucratic nature of the NHS

[eFestivals]

"Staffordshire hospital put corporate self interest and cost control ahead of patients and their safety"- Francis report.

So an infinite amount of pressure is being put on hospitals to run themselves like the private sector and make savings and cut costs, this is therefore translatining into lack of care

I can't think of any better evidence that you shouldn't run universal healthcare as s profit making exercise following private sector rules.

This ^^^^

[abdoujaparov]

We're not talking about shelf stacking in Tesco's here.

The work is erratic, by its very nature. What you saw in a quiet time is not a fair analysis.

It's of course the case tho that some hospitals are much better resourced than others tho - which is why the likes of Stafford gets to happen. The localism you champion has increased the discrepancies and not lessened them tho.

[abdoujaparov]

PS: I notice that you're not too worried about your own job inefficiency, as proven by your posts here and now. Do what you say and not what you do, eh?

[eFestivals]

It raises the question of whether it would be possible to use those staff more flexibly.

which also raises the extra costs and bureaucracy of that flexibility - because you cannot retain staff that are not given the hours they need for the earnings to live.

The most flexible in the NHS are the agency workers - who are also the biggest cost proportionally.

I agree, but that want what I saw

correct. What you saw was what I explained being pre-empted. You saw efficiency and not the inefficiency you want to view it as.

Not necessarily true. Most HAs invest significantly in their own stock

Only after acquiring a huge stock for free.

Once the costs of their own stock have worked thru, they'll have more problems than the council service they replaced, I guarantee. How can't they? They'll have massively greater costs than the costs the councils had (higher cost borrowing, and far higher exec wages .... any offset against that is by fucking others over: their own staff, and their tenants)

There costs of operating are generally lower, because they have to worry about their financial viability much more than a local authority ever did and, as a result, their back office costs are far lower.

complete bullshit (tho their backend costs might be lower in some cases).

The meaningful reason for their lower costs is because they do not carry the debts of the housing stock they acquired.

Your source for this is what? HAs use less public money.

they 'personally' use less public money, yes.

The costs of 'social housing' have a greater cost on the taxpayer now than they ever did tho - because the councils are still paying the debts of their housing stock but without having any income from that housing stock they gave away for free.

Why did this accounting scam pass you by? You can't have looked at anything about HA's very closely.

and pay their chief executives less than local authority chief executives.

PMSL - you need to do some research on this.

If you really think that social housing was more efficiently provided through local authorities then you really arent letting facts get in the way of your opinion

says the man ignoring the fact that the councils still carry the debts of the HA housing stock!!!

How

because you're not the only person who knows what goes on in and around prisons.

Dont they? What's different?

there's looking at only outgoings or there's looking at full effect.

How are the savings lost elsewhere to the taxpayer? Please explain

Take your pick from:-

- loss of income tax revenue, etc, thru lower wages.

- higher infrastucture costs

- bailouts

- easy 'customers'.

The average prisoner cost is currently £46k pa ... lots of prisons massively smash that average tho - because they're not the costly prisoners in those prisons. The private sector only takes the cheapies, and the govt picks up the rest.

Edited February 6, 2013 by eFestivals

[Guest]

The costs of 'social housing' have a greater cost on the taxpayer now than they ever did tho - because the councils are still paying the debts of their housing stock but without having any income from that housing stock they gave away for free.

Edited February 6, 2013 by tonyblair

[abdoujaparov]

which also raises the extra costs and bureaucracy of that flexibility - because you cannot retain staff that are not given the hours they need for the earnings to live.

Edited February 6, 2013 by abdoujaparov

[eFestivals]

But I'm not talking about reducing the hours of staff - I'm talking about ensuring that the staff are where the work is. Basic flexible operational staff deployment. Easy to do.

it's easy to do in Tescos. It is NOT easy to do in a hospital, when no one - not even you - knows where and when it gets busy.

It has to have the staff at all times to cover 'busy' for every ward and every dept. If it doesn't then it might as well knock down the depts it doesn't have the staff for because they're no use to anyone - and that of course means that real people will die when they ask for the healthcare that used to be there but has been cut because of your poorly thought thru idea.

So, the staff that didnt need to be there - because there were no patients - were there in case the one patient who was there (a 3 day old child) might have wanted them to do something that they didnt need to do? Really?

that's none of what I was saying but ... in answer to what you've posted here, see my words just above.

Only if you think that the transfer of assets with a book value massively outweighed by their maintenance requirements is free. In the real world, it's far from it

yeah, because all housing except council housing is free of maintenance.

In the real world, there's the costs of the stock AND the costs of maintaining that stock. HA's only have one of those for the stock they acquired.

Once they have the full costs of everything they control, get back to me and try saying again how much cheaper they are. I guarantee they won't be cheaper, cos if nothing else their extra borrowing costs above what councils paid will more than account for any 'efficiency' savings (which are not actually efficiency saving anyway, they're staff being paid less for doing the same thing and tenants having to pay more for the same thing).

You're wrong. There's plenty of published evidence to say that you're wrong. HA costs per unit of accommodation are generally lower.

How many times do I have to say it?

The costs are cheaper because the assets were free.

Customer satisfaction is generally higher. And housing stock of better quality.

and rents are substantially higher too.

Of course, most HAs didnt acquire any housing stock from LAs, but they still manage to operate more efficiently...

nearly every large-scale HA acquired their housing stocks from LAs.

What have you been reading?

the fact remains that HAs (generally speaking) provide a better service for less public money...

and more private money, private money which is then not available to the rest of the economy.

It looks like you've abandoned your recent principle (snigger) that nothing can be changed because of the costs it might put onto private individuals.

I have. You're wrong.

what, none? PMSL.

There's quite a number of HA chief execs that outwage LS chief execs (which is what you posted and I replied to, before I realised you were referring to LA chief execs).

But actually, what I was referring to was LA Housing chiefs - which nearly every HA chief exec outwages despite being responsible for far fewer assets (compared to when those LA housing execs actually had housing stock).

I didnt say that I was, but well dodged

It ain't me that's dodgy here. You don't have the first idea, as below proves.

That's nonsense. The private sector runs some of the most difficult and, per head, expensive to manage prisons in the system. Large local prisons and high security (category long term prisons....

high security is cat a.

(for those who are missing it, that smiley in the last sentence quoted is a 'B').

This interested amateur bows to your expertise. PMSL

Still, it explains an awful lot of what you've said.

Edited February 6, 2013 by eFestivals

[marky3]

aw give it a rest eh?

[eFestivals]

aw give it a rest eh?

always good to have some critical interaction, eh?

[abdoujaparov]

it's easy to do in Tescos. It is NOT easy to do in a hospital, when no one - not even you - knows where and when it gets busy.

It has to have the staff at all times to cover 'busy' for every ward and every dept. If it doesn't then it might as well knock down the depts it doesn't have the staff for because they're no use to anyone - and that of course means that real people will die when they ask for the healthcare that used to be there but has been cut because of your poorly thought thru idea.

Edited February 6, 2013 by abdoujaparov

[eFestivals]

I disagree. There are much more intelligent ways of deploying staff flexibly.

but no method of gainfully employing everyone at every moment, unless that also means not having all the staff you need at the busier times.

That's a fact that cannot be got away from.

If you say so. Forgive me if I ignore what you think and believe experts.

Fact: most large HA's got their housing stock for free, inherited from the council. The councils were forced to give it away.

If you're reading stuff that says different you're not believing experts.

No they arent, compared to the stock still managed by LAs

yes, they are, as compared to the rent that was paid when they were LA owned.

And before you bring in 'rent inflation' (which I know has grown in recent years at a much higher rate than general inflation), 'rent inflation' wasn't happening at anywhere near that rate at the time of transfer and yet the rents still rose (on average) significantly, and much of today's 'rent inflation' is being caused by those same HA's now.

No they didnt.

yeah, cos they all sprang into existence as HAs with no houses, eh? PMSL.

what principle is that then? Please enlighten me....

I was taking the piss.

You're now happily advocating living-cost rises for private individuals for which they get zero back, but just a few weeks ago you couldn't countenance similar for any idea that might correct the fucked up economy we have.

where's your source for this?

a large number of newspapers reports over a long period of time, with the addition my own ad-hoc googlings and the like.

you avoided answering my question

If I was happy to be dropping people into the shit I'd have answered it at the first time of asking.

You'll just have to accept my word for it, unless you know every moment of every person who has any involvement with prisons and prisoners - in which case you'll have the evidence yourself already.

You are, of course, quite right that cat A is the highest security category. But cat b is also considered to be high security. My point was that you are wrong - demonstrably obviously wrong - to say that private sector prisons only hold the easiest prisoners. They do not. That was my point...

I did not say "they only hold the easiest prisoners", I said "easier prisoners" - which is 100% accurate.

They do not deal with the costliest prisoners, and as a generalisation the private firms run the easiest prisons with the easiest prisoners, and therefore were always going to incur lower costs than the prison average.

[abdoujaparov]

but no method of gainfully employing everyone at every moment, unless that also means not having all the staff you need at the busier times.

That's a fact that cannot be got away from.

[marky3]

always good to have some critical interaction, eh?

[eFestivals]

you spunked for 3 days straight when the multiquote feature was introduced.

and you've talked only empty nothings for all of your existence, what of it?

[eFestivals]

Everyone is wrong and Neil is right.... Again lol

hey, this is a great convo - abdoujaparov is now saying I was right for when he said I was wrong about 3 weeks ago.

At least i'm consistent.