o/t First teachers, next NHS, then who ?

Ooh, nurse...!!

 

Whist the doctors and nurses are the frontline of hospitals there are lots of those "ten a penny clericals" who actually keep the hospital running. I am a medical secretary and believe it or not it is an important job. How do you think results get to the medical staff, how do you think letters get to GPs. We take calls from anxious patients. That is just a small part of the job. It can be stressful because it is real people we are dealing with when they are often stressed and anxious themselves. If I make a mistake in my job and forget to send a referral to another speciality or just ignore an important test result there could be serious consequences for the patient, myself and the hospital. Please don't think we are simply penpushers who are ten a penny.

 

Well said karen.

 

^^^^^^
This

 

The salaries that some consultants and specialists get are obscene. Specifically overtime rates and salary when suspended due to falsifying their language skills and experience.

Source?

My mate who is a management accountant at the NHS who has to try and manage a budget when these conmen and conwomen are trying to milk the NHS.

 

The NHS like so many big organisations is infected by layers of parasitic middle-management.

These people have an initial value to set up efficient work plans, but once their methods are up and running they are effectively obsolete.

The problem is they then feed off the workers by demanding more and more superfluous documentation to justify their own existence.
Workers become too bogged down in paperwork, admin and related stress to do their jobs properly, and because employing more staff spoils a middle-manager's spread-sheet (putting his/her job under threat) it is the service that has to suffer,

 

If people are fraudulently claiming monies to which they are not entitled then they must be dealt with. I'm not sure what your point has to do with hardworking honest hospital support staff though.

 

I'm talking about specialists and consultants getting paid £700 - £800 for working on a Saturday. on top of their already very generous salary, and the same body of people trying to keep certain work as a closed shop, thus guaranteeing the gravy train continuing and their own indispensability.

This was only a few years ago and related to colonoscopy.

Happy to have cleared this up for you.

 

I once did some work at Guy's Hospital in London and the woman who was showing us around was complaining about waiting for ages to get a bit of decorating/painting done. I said I could organise it if she wanted and gave her a ballpark figure. She just laughed and told me the astronomical amount agreed with their designated decorating company. I can't remember the actual figure, but it was farcical and she said they were obliged to take that route.

For me this is typical of lazy, incompetent managerial staff who just don't want the hassle of finding competitive quotes / tenders, but they are willing to see NHS funding wasted.

 

Not quite, all those who tender for NHS contracts must be on an approved list of contractors, requiring specialist training & staff vetting to allow them to work in such high risk (patient confidentiality/police CRB checks etc) area. Most companies cannot be bothered with all the hassle involved in becoming an approved contractor, but I can guarantee that competitive tendering (however hamstrung by limited contractor lists) does take place

 

The NHS is at breaking point with regard to front line staff (let's disregard consultants at the moment)

Junior doctors are often working 60 hours a week on top of their ongoing training.

Nursing staff are below specified levels in almost every ward & when there is any illness or holidays this can fall to dangerously low levels. Nursing staff have seen an end to virtually all overtime & enhanced rates for weekend/evening working with bank nurses (who are supposed to be emergency cover only) being needed on many wards all the time.

In High Dependency & Intensive Care wards the staff require specialist training & are needed on either a 1 to 1 or 1 to 4 nursing to patient ratio depending on the care level needed. Most of these wards are now mixed HDU/ICU but are only really staffed to HDU (1 to 4) levels & this often results in ICU patients being sent 50,60,70 miles or more away to other hospitals who can meet the requirements of ICU !! This is often not a one off & patients can be moved 2,3 or even more times. Some 30+ bedded regular wards can often be left with only 3 or 4 trained nursing staff to look after them

 

By the time any contractor has navigated a course through all that bullshit there's no way their quotes are going to be competitive.

I work for a company that does a lot of work for Care Homes. We don't need "specialist training & staff vetting to allow us to work in such high risk (patient confidentiality/police CRB checks etc) area".

The whole thing isn't about protecting patients / staff, it's about middle management protecting their arses. They need every box ticked so if anything happens the finger of blame can't be pointed at them.

 

Just like every other clerical worker in every other organisation you mean. I say again, if the job is so bad, then there must be many better jobs in the private sector. Strangely they don't leave that often!

 

perhaps some clerical workers like working in the NHS (or education system) Mussies because they feel they are making a difference with their job rather than working at say Starbucks/Amazon etc where those workers are helping in a company with questionable tax ethics. People in work are allowed to have social principles, and I would go as far as saying that unemployed people should not be forced to worked at companies which exploit workers in the third world/destroy the environment/avoid paying minimum wage and avoid paying the proper tax amount.

Hopefully have avoided politics in my response

 

yaaaaaa-aawn.......yeah right........

 

Those rules are set down by central government, it is their framework not the individual hospitals or even trusts, the trusts would love to be able to bypass them & save money

 

No not like any other clerical worker. I have worked in other offices and done a fair days work then gone home at 5 and not given it another thought until the next day. The NHS is different. As I said before we are dealing with peoples lives. If the phone rings just before I am going home and it is a problem that I need to sort I cannot/would not say "sorry I am going now". I work much harder in this job than any other because over the years the staff levels have been reduced. I have woken in the night sometimes worrying that I had forgotten to do something or thinking about what I have to do the next day. Maybe there are better jobs in the private sector but I would not want them. I actually love my job and I am happy with the amount I am paid. I am not moaning about it or the pay. If I did not get a pay rise I would not be too bothered but as for the nurses then yes they should get one.

 

I had a very insightful post into a way I know government departments all the way from the NHS to local youth services blast taxpayer money away every single year because of their ridiculous budgeting system.

I accidentally hit back on my phone and lost everything I'd written, but if anyone who knows how the government budget system works would like to enlighten everyone how they piss away our tax money every year on stuff that gets shoved in a cupboard never to be used or seen again, I'd be honoured.

It really is scandalous.

 

The biggest scandal in many government departments is the philosophy which actually puts departments off making savings. It is certainly the case in the NHS that if a department makes a saving (for whatever reason) then that amount is automatically cut from it's budget the following financial year, even if that saving was through some exceptional circumstance which could not be repeated the next year.

If making a sacrifice one year results in hardship the next year why do it ?

 

Exactly what I was posting about. It's beyond belief. You would be shocked to find out how much cash gets splashed on utter **** in March, stuff that's not needed and will never be used, just because this ridiculous system says if they don't use their budget they lose out next year.

I know a woman who helps run a younth groups, she ended up running trips to places like Alton Towers on an almost daily basis paying for coaches and entrance fee for everyone who went. Their spending fell very short this year so they had to find a way to spend it or suffer the consequences forever more, which in a normal year they couldn't afford.

Likewise at work, we sell an inane amount of crap to government departments (one of which is facing major personnel cuts), which in some circumstances I know for fact just gets locked away in a cupboard and forgotten about, never to be used, just to spend the budget, because if they don't its them who lose out.

You'll also notice roadworks pop up all of a sudden around that time of year, in a lot of cases on roads that really don't need it.

It truly is ridiculous. I know it's there to prevent over budgeting, but surely there's a far more sensible and cheaper way to do it. You'd have thought, for a government determined to slash unnecessary spending and save money, this must be at the very top of their list. There must be millions of taxpayer money pissed away for the sake of spending it every year.