French and German Companies to run NHS Hospitals

[Gromit]

// Senior officials have discussed handing the management of up to 20 English NHS hospitals to overseas companies, emails released by the government indicate. //

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14778406

They already supply our Gas and Electric. And most Water companies are French and German owned, so what is wrong with them taking over the NHS?

[THECORBYLOON]

That'll explain why the Tories said "The NHS is safe in our Hans"

[DTCwordfan]

In my time over there, I have found the French medical system to be much better than ours, certainly for response times to get into see the Quacks and treatments. There may be some merit in this....... Can't speech for the German system.

[DTCwordfan]

sorry, speak.....not speech

[shaneystar2]

Well..my husband has now been waiting nearly three months for a prostate operation .
He is German .When I tell the rellies about this they think it's shocking .
You would never wait that long in France or Germany .
May be a good thing ,who knows ..... could be Vorsprung durch Technik :)

[daisya]

Doesn't really matter if they run their own health systems efficiently and bang up to date, we'd still be talking of this country and they would do things to suit the UK and we put up with anything here! I wish the damned government of any hue wouldn't mess about with health services where the patients are the ones who suffer at the end of the day. Can't rant on about this as it makes me sooo mad! <snarl>

[Carakeel]

Well, maybe I won't be making myself very popular here, but I think this would be a good thing. I have lived in and been in hospital many times in both Germany and France and there is a lot the NHS could learn from both systems in these countries! We do have excellent doctors and nurses here, but sadly they have a constant demoralising battle with the NHS bureaucrats and pencil pushers, NICE (well not anymore), and subsequent governments which over many years have left the NHS underfunded. We have for so many years lagged behind in what we spend on health and education per capita in this country, compared to Germany, France and many other European countries. Will this ever change? Probably not! It seems it is far more important to the government to be seen as at the top of giving funds for African countries / regimes than it is to properly fund health, education, the elderly etc on their own turf with the hard working tax payers' money. So for me ... I would most certainly welcome input from the German and the French on how the NHS hospitals are run!

[boxtops]

I work in the NHS and at the moment there is a lot of cross-border consultation, people go to Europe and the UK to see how things are done there. IMO, this would be a good thing. OH had nasal surgery a few years back - rather than wait a couple of years on the NHS, he went to Belgium (referred by his GP) and had it done there, excellent service. My friends who live in Spain praise the healthcare there.
The NHS is trying desperately to run economically, our Trusts are still having to cut back wherever feasible to remain in budget - anything which will help to streamline and improve can only be a good thing.

In answer to the original question - nothing, nothing at all.

[Quizmonster]

Nice one, TCL!

[jno]

very good, TCL

[modeller]

4 years ago a top business executive who wasn't paid went to a NHS hospital and by listening to the staff, he was able to reduce waiting times for surgery from 16 weeks to 3. and doubled the number of operations carried out. Nobody lost their jobs .
When the UK car industry collapsed Nissan came in and is now our most efficient and prosperous car company.
Similar things happened with our TV companies. Now we buy japanese.

We can learn a lot from our own people , if management have the guts to implement their ideas, against internal opposition , both from management and the unions. .
If not then by all means use foreign know how.

[DTCwordfan]

and the commensurate cost savings/patient treated acruing. I am not surprised, modeller, there is a reluctance in this country to taking on "best practice" and for any of us who have worked in this field, the staff at the "operational level" are a rich seam to extract the ideas for improvement.

Guess it comes down to a national fault not to listen......

[rov1100]

We could take it a step further and get the Germans to stand in our parliament. They never fiddle their system!

[jno]

just to answer the question... I have no problems with being operated on by Germans, who seem to know which end of the scalpel to hold, or with them having German bosses. But political accountability for the health service needs to stay right here in Britain, so if something goes wrong you can protest to your MP rather than having to write to a CEO in Warsaw whose main responsibility is to Russian shareholders, not to you.

[Philtaz]

I too work in the NHS. They don't need to get anybody else in from elsewhere to run it. They need to get rid of the amount of faceless managers with very obscure job titles and *J.A.F.A.'s that are currently employed.

We now have over 100 managers where I work and it has got to the point where the doctors are starting to ask who these managers are and what exactly it is that they do.

The other problem is employing people as managers who have absolutely no idea about how a hospital runs or operates. They treat it as if it were an exact science, what with targets etc. It is akin to asking me to take over the day to day running of a supermarket. I wouldn't know where to start, nor the logistics involved. It's the same in the NHS.
I believe I read somewhere that the problems at North Staffs hospital arose as a direct result of target-setting. Those who set them are doing so with an ever decreasing number of staff yet they expect increased turnover. We were indirectly told that some of our jobs may be under threat if we didn't give up our free time to do waiting lists to get the target list reduced, yet none of the managers ever appear to lose their jobs, they are just moved sideways to another post with an obscure name! What they fail to realise is that we have to be willing and prepared to give up our free time to reduce the lists, so veiled threats will only alienate staff and impact on any good will they have.

Rant over.

*JAFA = Just Another F$%^&*g Administrator.

[Philtaz]

Case in point:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...d-merseyside-14127404

[rich47]

I have no problem with people taking over and doing the job if they are the best people for it.
No doubt time will tell when it is demonstrated that they are.

[modeller]

In the case I mentioned they had 2/3 op-theatres but only one was used at a time and the consultant surgeons only needed to work for a short period at a time
.e.g. In a 3 hr operation their special skills were only needed for a fraction of that of that time and then they handed over to the others.
It was the theatre sister who showed how they could then go into the second theatre and use their skills there . They could then go back to the first one when/if required. There were spurious objections from them and the unions but they really didn't have a case, and the new regime was implemented with great results as I mentioned. At one stage two of the team said they would have to rearrange their golf schedule and one said it interfered with his private work.

[anotheoldgit]

/// French and German Companies to run NHS Hospitals ///

Fancy you using sensationalistic headlines such as this, isn't this the type of thing you constantly accuse the Daily Mail of doing?

They are not going to run NHS Hospitals Gromit, it is only in the discussion stage.

[LeMarchand]

What's wrong is that apparently they have been dropping prices in their own countries whilst putting ours up. If that's true, do we really want that sort of mentality running our health service?