In Health Care, death is irreversible.
That good will from doctors and nurses were as important as regulation in providing good health care has now been ignored. Years of micro-management, protocols and silly performance related pay has just about removed the last thread of good will from doctors and nurses. A friend’s daughter just graduated in nursing and in her class of 26 only 2 were offered vaguely nursing relevant jobs. She left nursing.
The word out there is the newly de-regulated free market NHS will be safe. As there is: Monitor.
Really!
Roy
I'm wondering how much
longer Monitor, NHS's very own Off-Sick regulator can hang on
for? They cost us £43m. If you had £43m to spend would you blow it
on a superfluous, bureaucratic, unwanted, poorly performing quango?
In a really interesting interview with Sarah Calkin of the HSJ, David Bennett,
Off-Sick's CEO, went off on one, trying to explain that Monitor was going to be
a 'translator' between the NHS and the competition authorities.
Bennett palavered on; "NHS organisations have
a legal duty to consult on service change and this was a 'significant issue'
that needed more work and 'something the competition authorities' haven't had
to deal with before".
No, I don't understand a word of it. Bennett
the great 'translator'? Not for me he's not.
Here's a question; in the middle of austerity NHS,
if you had forty three million quid would you invest it in an arcane
organisation, steeped in competition law, 'translating' the bleedin' obvious or
would you use it to buy some nurses, a few operations, some mental health
services or end of life care?
If you were going to spend +£40m would you spend it
on care or contracts, outcomes or outputs, the front-line or fiddling about
with a market that has delivered nothing, no one wants and no one voted for?
Well brace yerself! It looks like +£40m ain't
gonna be enough. A reader tipped me off; this from their internal Exec Committee minutes:
"As
part of ongoing organisational design work, directorates have identified a
number of additional posts (up to 86) required in addition to the currently
signed off organisational structure."
Eighty six more people! To do what?
Translate?
We had DEFRA and we had the “organic” egg scandal.
Keith Owen, who ran Heart of England Eggs Unlimited, admitted providing false information for accounting purposes to firms in the egg supply sector between June 2004 and May 2006.
Officials estimate that as many as 100 million eggs were falsely labelled.
The court heard he sold battery and "industrial" eggs imported from France and Ireland to suppliers.
They were told the eggs were British, free range, organic or that they met the RSPCA's Freedom Food welfare standards.
Judge Hooper said Owen's business had made very substantial profits at the expense of consumers who believed they were buying free-range eggs.
DEFRA only need someone (not even a scientist) to read this scientific article and they would know. How many scientists do they have and indeed how many doctors do they have at Monitor or do they all have to have MBAs
Instead we had 100 million fake eggs.
They are not even changing the name of DEFRA this time. They are the FSA and the report on RBS may not even appear! So much for regulation!
There is much talk of the role of the regulator Monitor in safeguarding our health care.
Perhaps we should look at our most famous regulator: FSA. (Financial Services Authority).
The FSA was dragged into the news recently as its first head Sir Howard Davies, resigned as director of London School of Economics for eight years over "a mistake". The "mistake" was to advise the LSE's council to accept £1.5m research funding from a foundation controlled by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif. More>>>>>>>>>
So, were there any other "mistakes" when he was head of FSA?
Independent:
17 July 2008
The Financial Services Authority will be dealt yet another hefty blow to its credibility today, as the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, reverses her decision of five years ago and accuses it of maladministration for its role in the collapse of Equitable Life eight years ago.
"The case of Equitable Life, which echoes earlier cases such as Vehicle & General in the 1970s and shares some similarities with the current example of Northern Rock, illustrates the need for absolute clarity as to what can and cannot be expected from financial regulation and the development of shared understandings as to the limits to the protection that such regulation offers to investors both before and after problems arise, as they inevitably will," said Ms Abraham.
"Key, however, is that those responsible for undertaking financial regulation should act in a way that is compatible with the duties and powers which Parliament has conferred on them. Those responsible for the prudential regulation of Equitable Life failed to do so throughout the period covered in my report."
Sir Howard Davies was previously employed by McKinsey and Company and was Special Advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mar 9, 2009 9:42am EDT
"LONDON, - The founder of British buy-out company Resolution Ltd, insurance entrepreneur Clive Cowdery, is being investigated by Britain's financial watchdog (FSA), as is company chairman Mike Biggs and three others.
"Resolution Ltd said the probe into their actions as directors of Cowdery's previous investment vehicle, also called Resolution (Plc), would undermine its core business acquiring financial services firms because such deals needed Financial Services Authority approval.
"‘The company would not expect to ... complete any acquisition until this matter has been resolved,’ Resolution Ltd said in a statement on Monday.
"The FSA is also investigating three other former Resolution Plc executives who along with Cowdery are involved in running the new venture under the stewardship of John Tiner, a former chief executive of the FSA."
From the FSA Web site:“John Tiner joined the FSA in April 2001 after a 25-year career at Arthur Andersen, the accountancy and management consultancy firm. He was an Andersen partner for 13 years and was appointed head of the global financial services practice in 1997.”
He left Andersen just nine months before it collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal.
The IndependentFSA chief Tiner to quit for top job in private sector
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
“The chief executive of Britain's City watchdog yesterday said he planned to quit his £572,000 post in July to seek work in the private sector.
"John Tiner, 49, will have been with the Financial Services Authority for six years when he departs, becoming chief executive in 2003. He will remain on the FSA payroll until 2008 and will not be able to work for any financial services business or listed company during that time.
"Mr Tiner has picked a good time to leave the FSA, with tributes from the City ringing in his ears and no major crises on the horizon.
"It follows the decisions of both Richard Harvey, the Aviva chief executive, and James Crosby, who held the top job at HBOS, to depart at times of their own choosing.”
He left the FSA in good time indeed. I wonder if they pay our Chief Medical Officer £572,000.
Then I found this in the Financial Times Website High Net Worth.From gamekeeper to poacher – mandarins easily shed their skins
Pádraig Floyd
Published: 01 September, 2008
"Until I got on the train this morning, I knew exactly what I was going to write about in this column. It was then, as I sat thumbing through the press releases on my BlackBerry, that I saw something that changed my mind.
"That something wasn’t that Resolution boss Clive Cowdery is going to float his business, although that was of course very interesting. No, what caught my attention was that he had managed to land the transfer of the season, by securing Jon Tiner, former chief executive of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), as the new CEO.
"Maybe I am the only person who has a problem with this, because as I write this some hours later, there has been no commentary from any quarter outlining concerns about such an appointment."But can it really be right that a man who held the shape and direction of the financial services industry under his control between 2001 and 2007 should then be allowed to work for a company that operates within that regulatory regime?"
You can read the full article here.
Monitor: Recent exchanges in Parliament, Public Bill Committee
There is much talk about Private Health provider may have to be subsidised for their disadvantage over pension.
There is much talk about Private Health provider may have to be subsidised for their disadvantage over pension.
Q 199 Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab): A question for Mr Bennett. The impact assessment for the Bill refers to “fair playing field distortions” and says:
“The majority of the quantifiable distortions work in favour of NHS organisations; tax, capital and pensions distortions result in a private sector acute provider facing costs about £14 higher for every £100 of cost relative to an NHS acute provider.”
My understanding is that you would be responsible for addressing that system. What is your view of those fair playing field distortions?
David Bennett: In due course, I think one of the things that the economic regulator will need to look at is the issue of the level playing field. The analysis that you are quoting, of course, was done by the Department of Health, not Monitor.
I think I can say that when the appropriate time comes for the economic regulator to look at those issues, we will need to look very carefully at that analysis. There are level playing field issues on both sides. There are additional costs incurred by the public sector, as well as advantages, the obvious ones being—
Q 200 Mr Barron: This says that it is the other way around, actually. The public sector costs are higher than private. Do you agree with that?
David Bennett: What I am saying is that we would seek to do a more extensive piece of research before reaching conclusions.
Q 202 Mr Barron: My first point is that our starting point must be to do the analysis more extensively, looking at a broader set of issues. I cannot say that those figures are the ones that we would come up with.
Sonia Brown: I think we can identify areas where we can see that the Department’s analysis has not gone to the point of being able to quantify the numbers. A really good example of that is that the NHS tends to treat much more complex cases. At the moment, the NHS is rewarded at the same rate for doing that as the private sector is for treating less complex cases.
David Bennett is the current head of Monitor (a sort of health FSA!) He is NOT a medical doctor.
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