Why when the NHS is in crisis does the 'solution' seem to be increased private healthcare, but when the railways hit crisis point, it was finally the state that had to step in...
The solution to constrained funding is not to introduce more suppliers who by their very market character need to make a surplus out of any available funding....
And yes, in Wes' terms... if saying that makes me a middle-class Leftie - then so be it!
@ChrisMayLA6 when will politicians finally realise that a) the staff working in private providers were trained by the NHS and can only do more for private providers if they reduce their NHS work
& b) the policy of reducing beds since 1990, has steadily increased the chance of overload and hence long waits.
c) Speeding up discharge will make next to no difference as the main bottleneck is getting most patients in not getting them out.
@epistatacadam@ChrisMayLA6 From an ambulance perspective, I would say that discharge is a huge bottleneck. Our crews spend far too much time at hospital, with patient handover delayed, because of discharges not happening in timely fashion.
The problem is, however, that discharging to private hospitals is not addressing those delays (and as you say, having staff with greater capacity at private hospitals simply means those staff aren't at NHS hospitals). It's the inability to discharge to a care setting that's jamming up the system, not the small minority of patients who would benefit from moving to a different hospital.
Labour have gone troublingly quiet about care in the past year or so. This needs to be addressed urgently but it seems to me that, even though both Labour (because of the NHS impact) and Conservatives (because it predominantly affects older people) would benefit politically from focusing on the care service, they shy away because it's too difficult and not headline-friendly.
@RolloTreadway@ChrisMayLA6 I understand your perspective, however I've been at all sides of this issue, as a Hospital doc, GP, Patient, and Public Health Doc (who worked with but not for the ambulance service as I did as a GP).
The problem at the discharge end is almost always either a hospital organisation issue, or a local capacity issue; Often both!
However, the total number of trouble free discharges swamps the troublesome ones, and though.... 1/2