Ridiculous NHS

[Jimjams]

Written about this elsewhere but I am in an ongoing battle with our local NHS trust as they are not covering maternity leave when the specialist autism speech therapist goes on maternity leave. This means that autistic school age children will be left without a speech and language therapist for up to a year (assuming she comes back of course).

Anyway receieved a letter from the acting head of SALT today including this line

"We are unfortunately not funded to enable us to recruit staff cover for maternity leave, and this limitation applies to all services provided by XXX Primary Care Trust"

What??? My Mum who is a nurse had told me that their dept was never allowed to employ maternity cover, but I am staggered. No post in the trust has maternity cover? What happens when a GP or consultant goes on maternity leave.

Really this is no way to run a business. Anyway this will be going further, but I was just so staggered had to share. The NHS gets crapper and crapper and crapper the more I have the misfortune to deal with it.

There is a sure-start- but they concentrate on a particular part of the city (which is one of the poorest regions in the EU) They haven't got the funds to cover SN as well unfortunately.

Tissy - you haven't met the Orthopaedic surgeons at my Trust who deliberately massage NHS waiting lists. They conspire to thwart theatre lists etc so that they can 'grow' the number of patients approaching 12 months in the knowledge that they will then be able to operate on them down the road at the Golden Nugget for 4 times the NHS rate. I know this first hand as I had the misfortune to work with the unscrupulous bastards as General Manager for Surgery before I had my first dd! They very clever and astute in their machiavellian methods so it is hard to prove what they are doing ...but we know.....

(Goodness - do I sound like I feel strongly about this!!)

oooh hmc you sound like my neighbours! (NHS managers)

Jimjams,

You won't be surprised to hear that I will be quitting work soon then (disillusionment)!

Anyway - all the best with your campaign to sort this issue out. It really is vital that there is continuity in this sort of critical service. Keep us posted on developments

I have no idea how anyone sticks working in the NHS hmc- good luck for whatever you do afterwards.

hmc, what do you mean " 4 times the NHS rate"? NHS Consultants get paid a certain salary over a year, not on a case by case basis. Do you mean 4 times what the NHS trust would pay them to do waiting list initiatives? WLI are done in the Consultants' free time, just like private practice, so should be paid at the going rate....
Can't comment on the malicious and cynical massaging of waiting list figures, except to say that it doesn't happen here. Here we have managers phoning up patients and asking if they want their operations done 22 miles away. When they say "no" they are removed from the waiting list figures. Because they have been offered a date and refused, they no longer count as waiting. That's what I call massaging, and it isn't done by the Consultants, who continue to get paid whether or not the targets are met. The managers on the other hand, won't get their bonuses....

I eant "200 miles away", not 22!

dh is a GP, when one partner moved away they were not able to get someone else for 5 months.
A friend worked as a long term consultant but did not get paid anymore than the usual consultant's rate; only when he did some short term locums (weekends/1 or 2 weeks) did he get paid the higher locum rate (but has to move away from family, no pension paid etc; so he only does it out of necessity).
The consultants I know are usually busy with finding beds for their patients and leave the waitinglist manipulations to the managers

Lailag,

Perhaps you are talking about Physicians...or Paediatricians etc who are a different breed (more committed to patient care etc) than surgeons.

You don't work with them directly do you...

I could tell you stories that would make your hair curl...but suit yourself if you want to blame managers

Tissy - are you a manager yourself? If you were you would know that managers don't get bonuses, just sacked and scapegoated if waiting list targes aren't met (although the ability to influence these is usually beyond their control)...

Anyway that's my last comment on the subject as I don't want to hijack jimjams thread and detract too much from the SALT issue

yes, I do work with surgeons but must admit not very involved with managers as such; have worked with physicians and paediatricians as well. Who do you think turn up at weekends-not-on-call to look at their patients to see they are ok, the surgeons ..
won't deny they may be b...s in other ways...

hmc, you're tarring all surgeons with the same brush, I'm doing the same to managers, we're pretty much equal, I think

No, as you guessed, I'm not a manager.

Although the thrust of the thread has deviated somewhat from jimjams' original point, the title still rings true!

Tissy,

I did say I wouldn't comment on this again, but like all NHS managers (soon not be anymore thank God) I am a pathological liar

Agree with you on both counts! - dangers in generalisations, and the NHS is totally ridiculous as we've amply demonstrated

John Reid is being a pratt on Radio 2 at the moment. I could quite happily lump him. I can't believe the tone he is using with a mother of a child with cancer.