Over 100 hospital jobs to be axed (From Daily Echo)
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Over 100 jobs to be axed at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust
9:59am Friday 29th July 2011 in News
Southampton General Hospital
MORE than 400 Southampton hospital workers have been told their jobs are at risk in a shock meeting with bosses, the Daily Echo can reveal.
One in four of the posts will be axed by December this year and others could be made to reapply for new-positions elsewhere within the Trust, they were told by hospital chiefs yesterday.
The devastating blow came yesterday afternoon when more than 400 staff working in booking and administration services at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust were called to a meeting with chief executive Mark Hackett.
They were told that all 433 employees are at risk of redundancy as the trust tries to simplify its appointment booking service as part of its £100m cost-cutting drive over the next five years.
As revealed in the Daily Echo last year, hospital chiefs will be forced to cut up to 1,400 jobs as they battle to save cash and this will be the first wave of job cuts to hit staff.
Health chiefs say the action is vital in the face of rising costs and a freeze in its £500m annual funding The posts will go after a three-month consultation with staff, launched yesterday, in which the trust is proposing a set of changes to the booking process for all hospital appointments.
The aim is to provide patients with a simple, centralised and more cost-effective system, to replace the current “unreliable” and “inconsistent” process which bosses say has been causing unnecessary frustration for patients.
As a result of the changes a little over 100 jobs, a quarter of the admin workforce, are expected to go but Mr Hackett told staff that he hopes compulsory redundancies will be kept to a minimum, through voluntary redundancies and redeployment.
Mr Hackett said: “Over the last ten years our clinical services have gone through some big changes so that patients can get treated more quickly than ever before, but the customer service patients get when they need to book an appointment is not good enough at the moment.
“We are currently employing more admin, clerical and management staff to deal with a complicated appointment system when a better system would need less staff to run it – and would improve the experience of our patients.
“Our consultation with staff will last for three months and we need to work closely with them to develop our proposals in order to make this project a success.
“We anticipate that we would reduce the workforce by just over 100 posts as part of the changes. However, we have a strong track record of keeping compulsory redundancies to an absolute minimum by redeploying staff and carefully managing the filling of vacancies.”
The announcement has been met with shock and worry by Unison members, at a time when employment opportunities in the city are severely limited.
Steve Brazier, regional head of health for Unison, said: “Unison will be working with its members to support them at this difficult time and seeking urgent discussions with the Trust to fully understand their justification for the cuts and restructure.
“While efficiencies are always sought the scale of the proposals are of concern and the union and staff need to be convinced that they are necessary and not just to meet the Government’s imposed cuts to NHS funding, which are taking £28 million from the Southampton University Hospitals Trust budget alone this year.”
Comments(84)
AndyAndrews
says...
10:13am Fri 29 Jul 11
My View From Here
says...
11:02am Fri 29 Jul 11
" We are currently employing more admin, clerical and management staff to deal with a complicated appointment system when a better system would need less staff to run it – and would improve the experience of our patients"
So Mr Hackett you knew appointment booking system was cr@p, but it wasn't until you had your funding froze that you decided to do something about it.
Be honest Mr Hackett, Government spending cuts to NHS has forced your hand.
Again the people of Southampton will suffer at the hand of this crazy Tory led coalition.
George4th
says...
11:09am Fri 29 Jul 11
It is a known fact that the Public sector is overblown and that includes the NHS.
In the last year of the Labour government, a 1/4 million new jobs were given out by the Public Sector!!!!
>
Where have all the typists gone? Where have all the switchboard operators gone? Life moves on. What jobs will no longer be here in 50 years time?
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
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11:18am Fri 29 Jul 11
What a joke. It is necessary to cut costs across the board in the public sector.
I dont know how many of these jobs are actually just for making and administering bookings, but seriously, if it is anything like 400, then there must be scope to make massive efficiency savings
That is its own justification
The public sector just seems to be seen by the unions as a massive make work scheme for its members.
The unions must quickly get up to speed and realise that if we can do the jobs of ten people with five, we need to cut those jobs asap
And when I say cut, I mean cut. Real cuts, not just redeployments, unless there is a real justification for redeploying the staff.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
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11:28am Fri 29 Jul 11
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
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11:29am Fri 29 Jul 11
My View From Here
says...
11:30am Fri 29 Jul 11
together
Your idiotic's ideas and childish comments really know no boundaries you would rather see people on the dole than redeployed?
I suggest you move out of mummy & daddies house and join the real world, you are obviously very young and live with your parents, as your comments seem to be that of someone who has just broken up for the school summer holidays.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
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11:38am Fri 29 Jul 11
Expanding my point, while it is better to save on recruitment costs by redeploying where possible to retain skills, and also its good to save on redundancy packages, this should not be carried to ridiculous extremes
Its obviously no good if cuts just result in people sitting with nothing to do in redeployment pools getting paid for doing jack all
Too often any job cuts under the last government when closely examined resulted in no job cuts at all, but a net INCREASE in the number of public sector jobs.
This is obviously unsustainable.
That's what I mean by needing REAL cuts
We cant afford to pay people to do nothing.
...and yet, we do
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
11:41am Fri 29 Jul 11
I would also of course massively cut benefits, housing benefits, state top ups to those on low incomes, and require people to do a 40 hour working week on work of the government's choice in order to earn the benefits they do get.
I would also require all prisoners that the government direct, and all of those on community sentences not in employment to also do work that the government directs.
That would encourage people to find paid work in the private sector pretty quickly
Knickas
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11:49am Fri 29 Jul 11
OSPREYSAINT
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11:50am Fri 29 Jul 11
Linesman
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11:50am Fri 29 Jul 11
Since he became Prime Minister, heading a coalition government, we have seen hospital waiting lists lengthen, hospital staff cut and the prospect of the Southampton Heart Unit being closed down.
If that is an example of the NHS being safe in Cameron's hands, heaven forbid that he should develop a bad bout of 'butter fingers'!
For a change, this cannot be blamed on Royston Smith and his lack of man-management skills.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
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11:55am Fri 29 Jul 11
I want a happy life, a secure job, and full employment for all.
However we cannot not afford to pay people who are simply surplus to requirements, and therefore by definition a drain on the public purse.
These people need to find work in the pirvate sector.
We need to make sure the safety net is a sufficiently uncomfortable place to sit in that people strive to get out of it.
At present, too many people give up perfectly good jobs because they can earn almost as much for doing absolutely nothing!
That is a recipe for the disintegration of society.
Laziness must not be rewarded, what should be rewarded is honest labour.
Now, there is an idea a labour party could get behind, eh?
Or is the left there purely to protect the rights of people to get spoon fed to sit on their backsides, and to save unnecessary jobs that should be cut?
Paramjit Bahia
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12:01pm Fri 29 Jul 11
.
Real problem is the funds provided to these organisations by the central government
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They should be asking why our government can find more than enough for bombing places like Libya on behalf of others, and billions for EU and Euro Zone nations, and foreign aid to countries, which themselves can afford to give same amount to other nations, but at the same time it can’t find enough resources for our own vital services?
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Why workers must pay the price with their jobs and people with badly needed services just because people who run our country have got their priorities wrong?
boatman1
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12:01pm Fri 29 Jul 11
It is about time the union put its weight behind its members for a change instead of placating the management.
Yesterdays meeting was the first one where the secretaries actually heckled the chief excecutive and walked out.
Joe public does not realise it but if the few remaining admin staff were to go on strike for a week the SGH would grind to a halt. There would be no bookings, no clinics, no referals, there would be no one to arrange for patients records to be available,there would be no ordering of equipment.
Oh, and of course Mr Hatchett would have to make his own appointments, travel arrangementsand his own coffee.
Moral is low but the staff are getting more militant, they can only be pushed so far and they are about their.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
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12:01pm Fri 29 Jul 11
How can you say £3.5 MILLION hardly makes a dent?
If this sort of action is replicated across the country, you make much bigger savings, which will be needed to protect patient care while staying within the financial constraints which the government has committed to.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
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12:10pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Simple, the medical teams can look after themselves, and do all of this
We need to get back to a clinincally led health service, rather than one led by administrators
The NHS should also be exempted from civil claims. If you want to get free healthcare, then part of the price should be you accept the risk of the procedures.
Medical staff should be kept on their toes by tougher professional and criminal sanctions for negligence.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
12:14pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Its always easy to point to apparent issues withj one thing being prioritised over another.
The key point is that the government are not saying we want to cut patient care, just that we want to make it more efficient.
NHS services have always been, and will always been rationed to some degree. The budget is not infinite. Around the amrgins of what is approved and what is not at any time, there will always be animated debate.
But there are health objectives and there are foreign poilicy objectives, and it serves no purpose to try and equate the two
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
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12:28pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Why not cut the jobs of anyone doing this sort of stuff right now.
We dont need to employ people to make coffees for other NHS staff, they can go to a machine or the cafe themselves in their breaks
And how hard can it be for him to manage his own diary? This is the public sector, even the top bosses should not be waited on hand and foot
With the advances in mobile technology, unless someone is holiday, they can access their diary at any time, from almost anywhere
Why not more web based and email based systems for interacting directly with medical staff
For one thing, we pay doctors and consultants enough, and they should be made to work for their money!
There is probably scope for cutting Doctors and consultants fees for NHS work, and for putting in place much more responsive ways of communicating.
This should not be an excuse for massively expensive new systems or reviews.
We need enhancements to be delivered on a value for money basis
chrisdemeanour
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12:36pm Fri 29 Jul 11
St.DaveH
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12:39pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Knickas
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12:47pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Knickas
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12:47pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Linesman
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12:48pm Fri 29 Jul 11
How does it increase efficiency to close wards and sack, not just admin staff, but medical staff including nurses and doctors?
These cuts in staff and ward closures are not just happening in Southampton, but also in Portsmouth, Bournemouth and virtually every other health area.
How would it improve efficiency to even consider closing the most efficient heart unit outside of London, and move it elsewhere?
It is privatising of the NHS by stealth. That was the aim under Thatcher, and now Cameron is following the same agenda. His words say, 'The NHS is safe in our hands' but his actions tell an entirely different story.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
1:57pm Fri 29 Jul 11
If there was actually £250k wasted on new car park barriers, I agree, we need to slash procurement costs
There needs to be reformation of procurement and oversight to ensure that big projects are not allowed to overrun.
The NHS should decide what it can afford for these projects, and the companies should bid to do it within these budgets
If middle management are overpaid, we need to look at cutting middle management jobs and pay.
We need efficiency to run through the whoole of the public sector.
The cancer of overspend needs to be cut out, wherever it is found.
The public demand and deserve value for money.
Noone in a hospital should be paid more than say, £80k to £100k a year pay for their full time equivalent work, and that means lower skilled jobs should get less too.
That goes for management, administrators, doctors, consultants, surgeons
The public sector should not be allowed to soak up all the taxpayers money and be a weight around the neck of the country.
If these professionals want to work outside the NHS let them try. There will not be enough jobs to absorb them.
We MUST NOT feed this ever expanding gravy train of salaries and perks.
Rich people will always pay for private health cover, let them fund overpaid consultants and doctors if they wish.
Anyone working for the NHS needs to take a substantial pay cut, with the fat cats at the top taking the biggest cut.
We dont want privatisation. We dont need privatisation, I dont think the government want to give us privatisation (and if they try, we shouldnt accept it)
What we want and deserve is public servants who take a fair, reasonable, and value for money wage for providing services to the public.
Noone should be able to fund a massively luxurious lifestyle from their work in the public sector.
They work for us. We must cap their pay.
Raxx
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2:21pm Fri 29 Jul 11
SpittingMoreFire
says...
3:18pm Fri 29 Jul 11
http://tinyurl.com/p
rophets-in-sickness
.
Lone Ranger.
says...
3:22pm Fri 29 Jul 11
together.
....................
...............
Your 1:57pm post is utter garbage.
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Your interpretation of the NHS is absolutely ridiculous.
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How you can say doctors, consultants, surgeons are overpaid is beyond me and most sensible thinking people.
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Your problem is that your beloved party can say or do nothing wrong ... yet they have back tracked about 5 times on their NHS reforms which in part includes the rubbish that you post.
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The Tories WILL DESTROY the NHS over the next few years.
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Already waiting lists are going out of control and as reported this morning some Trust are making the patient wait excessive times, go private or die.
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Thats what your Tory party has instigated already in a few months with cut after cut after cut.
SpittingMoreFire
says...
3:23pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Sotonians says: “We dont want privatisation. We dont need privatisation, I dont think the government want to give us privatisation (and if they try, we shouldnt accept it)”
Hats off to you there - quite a contrast from your many other devout convictions, Sotonians.
Perhaps you'd like to take a moment to read and respond to this:
http://www.guardian.
co.uk/society/2011/j
ul/19/nhs-services-o
pen-to-competition
.
I'm sure it's not a paper you read, but still!
The Rising Phoenix
says...
3:53pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
4:13pm Fri 29 Jul 11
In response to your question:
I was against Lansley's original plans. And while I do often read the Guardian, hadn’t read this article, so wasn’t up to speed on it, so thank you.
It says "The government will open up more than £1bn of NHS services to competition from private companies and charities, the health secretary announced on Tuesday, raising fears it will lead to the privatisation of the health service."
OK, so lets see what that means.
"In the first wave, beginning in April, eight NHS areas – including musculoskeletal services for back pain, adult hearing services in the community, wheelchair services for children, and primary care psychological therapies for adults – will be open for "competition on quality not price". If successful, the "any qualified provider" policy would from 2013 see non-NHS bodies allowed to deliver more complicated clinical services in maternity and "home chemotherapy"."
OK, it says competition on quality and not price. Well, I don’t see any problems with competition necessarily, provided that the NHS services are still supported. Do I mean that NHS services should be allowed to remain over-expensive and bloated and inefficient? No. I do have an issue if private companies are able to steal all the business away from the NHS leaving service by service unsustainable, and I would hope the NHS departments respond by becoming more efficient, and retaining the business.
I would be concerned if outside companies were able to low ball on fees and steal the business for a year or two, knowing that in time, the nhs service would crumble, and they would be able to put those fees back up once there was no nhs alternative. This may not be explicit, but based on some sort of ratcheted capacity based pricing structure.
So knowing that competition will be on quality not price: which maybe makes me a little happier, that low-balling will not be permitted.
Or will it? Will price not be a component of quality? Surely value for money must be a component of quality, and price is a component of value for money.
Also, in the same way that outside companies could low ball on price to steal business, they could high ball on quality, taking business away because the service offered for the price is so good, the commissioners of the services would be foolish not to accept
This again could severely undermine the capacity in the NHS, and leave the affected service with the majority of capacity outside of the NHS. Provided the competition has deep enough pockets to splash the value for a few years, unless there is a mechanism for protecting a degree of the capacity in the NHS, it may easily end up effectively privatised by piecemeal
And even if you preserve 50% of the capacity, efficiency may fall, as costs are spread over a smaller service base, leading to more and more decisions going in favour of outsourcing
It’s very hard to put the safeguards in effectively, and the devil will be in the detail. There may be safeguards in the proposals that will protect against these issues that I am not aware of
But I am not convinced, that is why I favour the unions and the workers working with the government to cut jobs, cut pay, and to keep it all the services in the public sector hands.
Surely this must be the best of all worlds, efficiency savings, and with no need to pay a corporate profit margin
If the unions and workers will not work with the government and local authorities and management structures, then privatisation may be the only workable result, but I think the country would be worse off.
Sadly I think the greed and shortsightedness of the unions and workers will stop them doing anything other that protecting their own interests.
If the unions are to have any relevance in the future they will need to genuinely protect the public interest.
But that entails become a party of government....or better, working with the government of the day
...which leads me to think that the unions need to work more collaboratively with whatever the government of the day is, and trust that the government, elected by the people is working in the national interest.
So far I see good things from Cameron. He seems able to admit he is wrong on key issues, and listen to the public. The unions have an opportunity to work with the government to reform public services.
I think it is vitally important that they do so. If they do, I am sure while pay will be cut and jobs will be lost, the public sector will be renewed, invigorated, and effective, and fit for the next fifty years.
It is good news that Andrew Lansley's initial plans for competition in the NHS have been challenged, and good news that the plans have been criticised by Steve Field, the senior doctor called in by David Cameron to review the reforms, who said that the proposals were "unworkable"
I hope much of what Lansley proposed will be kicked into the long grass to be quietly euthanased at some point in the future when the focus is elsewhere.
I agree, for the reasons I have outlined above, with the spokesman for the British Medical Association who questioned "the assumption that increasing competition will always mean improving choice.
He came to the same conclusions as I that "the ultimate consequence of market failure in the NHS is the closure of services, restricting the choice of patients who would have wished to use them."
While the Department of Health tries to dismiss these charges, arguing that the policy will benefit patients by bringing many services out of hospitals, which will make it easier to access healthcare, I am not convinced
Taking the example in the article, that the policy could lead to patients being able to walk into a retailer on the high street or a local GP's surgery for a blood test rather than being forced to go to hospital. This example doesn’t frighten me, because whether a service is free or not, we pay for it. If we go to the hospital we have top pay transport and parking costs, we pay taxes for the building and the staff in the hospital to be paid, if we go to a doctor to get a subscription the same is true, we pay for the doctors expensive time, we pay for the prescription, for the prescription process, we pay for the cost of visiting the doctor.
If we can cut out all of that cost, and pay less than a prescription charge for a private service at the pharmacist, then its hard to justify keeping the whole gravy train in employment just to cost more....
...maybe it is the hospitals that should be the decentralised for profit provider, rather than giving this service to the private sector.... maybe we need the equivalent of the BBC's BBC world arm, able to deliver pay at the point of delivery healthcare services for some areas, and then any profits could be ploughed back into the NHS...
It’s a tricky subject
But at the heart of it I believe everyone is best served by the unions and workers working with the government to deliver real efficiency savings, real pay cuts and real job cuts, rather than allowing for profit corporations to slice and dice those services which can bring in the easiest profits.
With one of the new policy's aims being to promote innovation, the health service can be innovative without being privatised.
I agree there are major savings that can be made. The article cites the example of chronic leg wounds, where the NHS pays out £18,000 per patient over four years, often without curing them, versus the not-for-profit company – Wound Healing Centre in Sussex – that treats patients successfully for £720.
Great, bring these not for profit companies in, I don’t have any problem with not for profit companies providing services efficiently, provided these are not a license for other ways of money being siphoned out via excessive remuneration
If the NHS must save £20bn over the next four years in efficiencies, the only way for this to be achieved is by the unions and the workers working with the government to achieve them.
That doesn’t mean union stitch ups to preserve pay and perks while cutting services. Jobs and pay must be cut to allow services to be maintained, and services to remain affordable to the taxpayer
How Labour can saving the efficiency savings are unnecessary is beyond me.
As the article suggests, the services in question under the proposals represent about £1bn of the NHS's £110bn a year activity, so, lets keep the process under review, lets hold the government to account, but lets also hold the workers and the unions to account. We should expect them to be collaborative, and recognise that there is no solution that will avoid pay cuts and job losses and cuts to perks such as final salary pensions
Roger Khan
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4:32pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Shoong
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4:38pm Fri 29 Jul 11
The Tories are hacking everything, soon we wont have enough military personal to protect our island, or nurses to patch up the wounded, no teachers to pass on knowledge, Roads filled of rubbish, the middle class will become working class, and the working class will become vagrants, but at least the super rich will stay super rich!'
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Typical scaremongering from a militant with no grasp of Economics or reality.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
4:49pm Fri 29 Jul 11
(1) No it isnt
(2) You would have to have read it to know one way or other
(3) it was in response to SPM who asked a question
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
4:52pm Fri 29 Jul 11
but its only a chat forum in the local paper, and spelling and grammatical accuracy are hardly a feature of these comment sections
I have even seen spelling errors in the headlines of the echo articles on here, so no need to be precious, lol
Roger Khan
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4:57pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
5:01pm Fri 29 Jul 11
"Did you see that?" one fish said, as the clams moved on up the road.
"They didn't empty OUR bins!"
"What do you expect?" asked the other fish. "They're two shellfish."
Knickas
says...
6:22pm Fri 29 Jul 11
together
"Noone in a hospital should be paid more than say, £80k to £100k a year pay for their full time equivalent work, and that means lower skilled jobs should get less too." And there goes any possible respect I may have had for your opinion. Do you have any idea at all how little many of these people are on? Many of them part time workers as well. Believe me, some of the wages are so low that the Goevernment would HAVE to top them up to enable people to have a roof over their head and eat. Some people really ahve no idea of the realities of life for others.
As for paying people to be on benefits - if there is work for them to do to earn these benefits why not make them proper jobs, with proper wages? And which benefits are you talking about - job seekers, disability, income support? Only a VERY small percentage of people on benefits are there by choice.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
6:30pm Fri 29 Jul 11
That would be some big cuts compared to a 5% cut for a lower paid worker
Of course anyone is aware that lower are paid workers are paid lower wages.
The majority of public sector workers are paid more than they would get in the private sector, and there is some fat that could be trimmed
If the state were not handing out so many top ups, the landlords would have to drop the rents to fill their properties
Properties prices are holding up in this country, but with little visible means of support
They are still excessively high
The government should not be feeding this housing bubble by topping up incomes.
Prices need to fall.
Linesman
says...
7:50pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Is the Military being cut?
Is the NHS budget being cut, which has led to ward closures and nurses losing their jobs?
With tuition costs rising, despite election promises that said they would not, there are many who would have chosen a career in teaching that can now no longer afford a University education.
Roads filled with rubbish? Maybe they are not in Winchester, but take a day trip to Southampton. What is happening here today could well happen in True Blue Winchester tomorrow.
freemantlegirl2
says...
8:41pm Fri 29 Jul 11
I'm tired of reading it...... it's a political manifesto of the blue kind.. give it a rest...
If you think for one minute that cutting these staff will provide efficiencies that you think it will you should go and work in the hospital and see the 'reality'..... the reality being that previous efficiencies in this area caused a MASSIVE problem - they had to backtrack pretty quickly -seems that lesson hasn't been learned, meanwhile the hospital shells out on agency staff...... And yes, I have worked there and I do know what I'm talking about.
ItscalledspinIcallitlying
says...
8:48pm Fri 29 Jul 11
"Here we go again, step forward the militant Unions, step forward the "Talabin" Management, Gladiators ready, seconds out, Round One. "Ding""
Anyone that thinks Unison is a militant union is an ill informed opinionated idiot.
Unison are actually responsible at a local level for preventing many incidents from blowing up into bigger things thus
saving the employers ergo the taxpayers a fortune.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
9:00pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Simple, ban using agency staff from outside agencies
Set up an NHS agency for people to work additional hours if they wish
At a shot, you wont have people taking sickies to work elsewhere
You will have a pool of people who will need the work and will take full time positions.
There would be some short term inconvenience, but it would pay in the long term
By paying more for agency, you create the demand, and the supply.
Outlaw the demand, and the personnel gaps will be filled in other ways, those on the supply find will be forced to find other options.
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
9:01pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Rob444
says...
9:24pm Fri 29 Jul 11
More patients = more demands upon our hospitals and other resources.
Many couples (and singles) seem to think that it is alright to have three, four or even more offspring. Just plain selfishness, without considering the impact on the planet.
OSPREYSAINT
says...
11:34pm Fri 29 Jul 11
OSPREYSAINT
says...
11:44pm Fri 29 Jul 11
lying, You do appreciate I was not dissing the Unions, just parodying the Right Wing clique, just in case you are misguided, I am not a fool, I am well aware of the good that a decent Union can do, without them, slavery would be rife in this Country of ours.
SPLT and your Agency idea, what happens there then, the people running the agency cream of every single bit of money they can while paying there workforce peanuts, yet another Capitalist ploy to screw the workforce. You really are brain washed, did I say brain? hmm!
OSPREYSAINT
says...
11:46pm Fri 29 Jul 11
Raxx
says...
11:57pm Fri 29 Jul 11
The current staff should be at the forefront of these reforms, as they're the ones that know their jobs best. The union's role in this should be ensuring their voice is heard, rather than any reactionary petulance against the idea of change itself.
ItscalledspinIcallitlying
says...
12:10am Sat 30 Jul 11
t
lying, You do appreciate I was not dissing the Unions, just parodying the Right Wing clique, just in case you are misguided, I am not a fool, I am well aware of the good that a decent Union can do, without them, slavery would be rife in this Country of ours."
Sometimes it's a hard to see the light in such a dark tunnel. Please accept my profound apologies. Keep up the good work.
p.s. I was a little inebriated!
Scrutinizer
says...
1:16am Sat 30 Jul 11
pull_together etc.'! Ok, well I know someone who works in administration at the hospital and whose job is threatened to go - and before any of you suggest it's really my job that's threatened - no, it's not. I don't work there nor anywhere else in the health servicel. Ok, so this is what this person has told me about the situation.
Now, firstly, this is a typical and classic case of management not knowing what the jobs of their junior staff members at this level really entail. And why is this exactly? Well not least because actually visiting their staff and ascertaining what the consequent issues concerning their jobs are about, the problems faced on a day-to day regular basis, in detail, would apear to be beneath these managers 'dignity', not to say level of intelligence. And so all the usuall nonsense which is uttered by these management teams, about working as a team, is well, just the usual total b.s. that is commonly encountered in the workplace these days! It very rarely e-v-e-r happens! Even the supervisors hardly ever visit the frontline staff and talk to their staff, never mind the **** managers!
And then there's the utterly useless and space-wasting bunch of losers called; the union, UNISON in particular. They've done absolutely zilch to help these staff members. Secret, non-member consutative deal-striking between management and unions up there is strongly suspected and many are considering leaving UNISON. Some, as in the case of my friend, already have done so, and long ago at that. This is through extreme lack of trust and the next to non-existent consultation with union members over many issues and over a long period of time prior to this current crisis. I will add that I have my own exprience of UNISON, so I know exactly where this person is coming from there alright, especially concerning the union's gross inadequacies and incompetance in 'representing' their members!
Ok, now to specifics...The new system/s, as conceived by Hackett and his cronies, can not work because there are simply not - and never will be - enough Consultants and Registrars to handle the patients in the appoinment available time slots! And remember this, these people only deal with consultations for approximately h-a-l-f a day, the rest of the day's time is spent in theatre or at other hospitals even! This will not change! And where is the money going to come from to fund more doctors of this level of skill and experience to increase effcientcy of the new system in the totaly inadequate appointment slots which currently exist? Exactly, there isn't any being made available! Nor is there likely to be any substatial amounts of dosh to fund the badly needed construction of new hospitals, with the necessary facilities to deal with the demand in appoinments and increase th emuch needed appointment time slots to suit the needs of the population as we live longer! No, redirecting money from laying off more of the hard-pressed staff at the junior admin. level, will never get anywhere near to adequately provide funding towards new doctors and facilities! It w-o-n-t happen!
Now, the overload pressure on the admin. staff to deal with the poor patients needing these consultations and resulting treatment is really critical. One of the main pressure points is that urgent referals take first priority, as we quite rightly and properly should expect to be the case. But if these urgent referals require further treatment, then they also need to be brought forward in the queue, putting back other not-so urgent cases. As the situation stands at present, many patients have to wait many months for an appointment due to this. And what about the input of senior medical staff, the Concultants and Registrars, who have to treat these cases? Don't worry, I'll come back to them shortly. But what do we think will happen with less staff to deal with the appointment situation as it stands, never mind in the future? Will this mean that we will all have to book our own appointments on-line - you bet that that is the intention alright! And if you think this will run smoothly, think again! It will not! What about all the people who can't use computers. They might not even have know how to switch one on! And who will deal with and sort out all the mistakes and misunderstandings through the use of this system? Confidentiality is another important issue. And how is that maintained if a patient is foreced to use a third party to type on a computer for them? For all it's faults, human to human contact, and yes, with the assistance of technology, is still the best way to deal with patients appointments. And that needs real human beings at, so to speak, the 'coal face'. Patients are real people with serious needs, not faceless, robotic entities, who should be forced to communicate their health requirements in such a manner. But this is exactly where we are headed if the proposed cuts in staff and funds carried through and the new 'system' is implemented.
On top of this, the management, aka ol' 'Hachet' Hacket, wants the admin' dept's to be paper-free by 2012, yes, that's right in less than one year! Laughable, when you consider that many doctors refuse (or are so painfully inadequate in their computer skills) to comply with computer data inputting. Many of the older doctors can't even (or refuse to try to) use them. Some can barely switch the things on, anyway!
So whatever the answer is regarding the desire to save money, rest assured of this much, the latest whizz-kid ideas, as conceived by Hacket and co, will only end in further misery for the poor patients and the junior, severely overworked admin. staff (whatever's left of them anyway! ) who are expected to do the impossible and are obliged to pick up the pieces and try and implement an unworkable 'system'! Unworkable changes, which will only result in a worsening of the situation, not an improvement.
Poppy22
says...
2:01am Sat 30 Jul 11
In the private sector, most managers lost secretaries many years ago and have had to manage their own diaries/travel, send their own correspondence and get their own coffees. In the time it takes to ask someone else to do a task you can usually do the task yourself.
freemantlegirl2
says...
8:56am Sat 30 Jul 11
Read the comment above too, there it is from the horse's mouth how these things work......
Your Party Political Broadcasts are ill-informed, preachy and boring.....
Raxx, not saying that the 'systems' can't be improved.....but mass shedding of staff is only going to make the problem even worse.... as you say they are the people that should be involved in any improvements. Involving staff and service users in any planned overhaul of services is always the best way to go, I've said it about SCC and it does actually save money. The last 'efficiencies' they tried ended up being completely ineffectual because they by-passed staff who actually use it. I remember (as a user) walking into a clinic and the admin person said "we've had no training on this sorry for the delay"... I rest my case ;)
southy
says...
9:58am Sat 30 Jul 11
When will the right wing learn that there system no longer works in a modern world, The population is to high and technology moving to fast.
Too many people Unemployed and it will trigger one of two things, one is the next world war, the other is revolution.
OSPREYSAINT
says...
10:58am Sat 30 Jul 11
OSPREYSAINT
says...
11:15am Sat 30 Jul 11
southy
says...
12:20pm Sat 30 Jul 11
What we are doing in Libya now could be a trigger point, and it will only take some one to pull that tigger to push us into full scale war, But wars have got to be popular with its people to stop a People's Revolution, and what is going on in Libya is not popular, there could be a big bacl lash over it.
Push people in to Unemployment and poverity and you get to the point where to many say enough is enough and they start fighting back.
You can not keep blaming the Unemployed for being Unemployed it was not them that made them Unemployed in the first place, Its the Economical and Political System, and the Greed of the 2%, that makes people Unemployed.
OSPREYSAINT
says...
12:32pm Sat 30 Jul 11
OSPREYSAINT
says...
12:41pm Sat 30 Jul 11
lying = no worries, it has always amazed me how I can post on here and someone manages to get the wrong end of the stick to turn what I say compeletely around into something I very obviosuly did not say. All down to interpretation and down to how narrow minded you are, some people just cannot see the wood for the trees, or just don't want to. What I post is either my honest opinion or just a wind up, I leave you to work out which is which, I do not suffer fools gladly, but I am happy as long as they keep supplying the ammunition. I have ofen said "My sense of humour carries a Government Health Warning", you have been warned.
OSPREYSAINT
says...
12:45pm Sat 30 Jul 11
. "Tin hats everyone".
OSPREYSAINT
says...
5:53pm Sat 30 Jul 11
andysaints007
says...
3:41am Sun 31 Jul 11
Some people need to realise that we are still in a recession and there is not an endless supply of funds for everything we all want in this world!!!!
Linesman
says...
8:46am Sun 31 Jul 11
I am 75 years old which means I can remember times before the NHS came into being, despite Tory opposition every step of the way. Where improvements have been made under Labour governments, the same cannot be said of the periods when the Torys have been in charge. Their aim has always been to privatise the NHS by stealth. That is why, during Thatcher's administration, tax breaks were given to those who paid into private health care. This resulted in the boom in private hospitals, who then creamed off NHS-trained nurses and doctors. Those with the cash could jump queues, regardless of need, and the NHS waiting lists lengthened accordingly.
A similar thing is happening now. Cut-backs in NHS funding, which has seen nurses and doctors losing their jobs and NHS waiting lists increasing and private medicine is, once more, on the increase.
Yes, we are in a recession, but we still find the money to drop bombs and fire rockets into Tripoli.
I assume you think that the money spent on that does more to improve our standard of living than if it were spent on the NHS.
OSPREYSAINT
says...
10:24am Sun 31 Jul 11
Torchie1
says...
10:28am Sun 31 Jul 11
A private individual cannot claim tax relief for medical insurance and if it is provided as part of your salary package it attracts taxation as a 'benefit in kind' in the same way as a company car. Direct me to the part of the HMRC website that contradicts this if I am wrong.
As for 'creaming off' staff to work in the private sector are you suggesting that people be forever chained to their original employer because that's where they were trained? In an extreme case this could arguably be against the Human Rights act which guaruntees the right to liberty.
OSPREYSAINT
says...
12:20pm Sun 31 Jul 11
southy
says...
12:48pm Sun 31 Jul 11
We can do some thing about it and that is to talk to people on the streets and show them what is going on.
The big Corporations want power and control of the world for its wealth and they are slowly getting it.
southy
says...
12:51pm Sun 31 Jul 11
Linesman
says...
5:45pm Sun 31 Jul 11
Check out to see what has happened to shares in the past week. They have lost £millions.
Why?
Not because of anything that the individual firms have done wrong, but because the US Government has not reached agreement on its budget.
If it does not get signed off, their military in Afghanistan are asking whether or not they will be paid!
When a couple of US banks went bust, it did not just have an affect there, but world-wide, which is why Brown had to bail out our banks, and also bail out local and city councils that had deposited money in Icelanding banks that had also gone bust.
If the worst were to happen and the US budget were not signed off, and America lost its AAA rating, and the solids hit the world-wide fan, are you going to blame your beloved Dodgy Dave Cameron? Of course you won't! As usual, you will view things through your Blue-tinted glasses and, quite correctly, blame the Yanks.
Linesman
says...
5:50pm Sun 31 Jul 11
OSPREYSAINT
says...
9:10pm Sun 31 Jul 11
OSPREYSAINT
says...
10:20pm Sun 31 Jul 11
Linesman
says...
10:52pm Sun 31 Jul 11
I assumed you to be a Dodgy Dave fanatic, because you were trotting out the Tory line about Brown, blaming him for the country's current financial troubles.
It is thanks to Brown and the measures he took, that we are weathering the financial storms considerably better than Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and many other countries.
If we were in the big financial hole that Dodgy Dave claims that he was left, don't you consider it strange that we could make such a massive loan to prop up the Irish? Do you think that the rash action being taken in Libya is being funded on Cameron's credit card?
If Cameron had followed the Brown plan of how to deal with the crisis, less jobs would have been lost meaning less people on benefit and more people paying tax.
OSPREYSAINT
says...
9:22am Mon 1 Aug 11
Linesman
says...
9:01pm Mon 1 Aug 11
Do you think that he should have let the banks and building societies go bankrupt?
If you do, how many people do you think would have had their homes repossessed because the banks held their title deeds?
How many people do you think would have lost their life savings?
How many businesses would have gone to the wall and factories closed, because the banks had frozen their assets?
What do you think would have happened to the councils who had invested in the Icelandic banks that had gone bankrupt?
How many council staff would have found they had no pay.
How many schools would have closed.
How many elderly and infirm in Council Care would have found themselves in a precarious position?
The action that Brown took met with no criticism, at the time, from any member of the opposition, nor did they come up with an alternative plan then, or at any time since.
Brown's Premiership started off with foot and mouth, and there appeared to be disaster following disaster for him to cope with, and none of his making.
Linesman
says...
8:51am Tue 2 Aug 11
With that in mind, when Saints played Pompey, I bet that The Echo's report was different from that in The News - except for the result. Which report would you have accepted as being an 'unbiased' one?
OSPREYSAINT
says...
9:44am Tue 2 Aug 11
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
6:05pm Tue 2 Aug 11
Plus, recycling wasnt being emptied after x weeks because it was decided it was contaminated....?
who knows! who cares! The contractors seem to be doing an OK job
OSPREYSAINT
says...
7:17pm Tue 2 Aug 11
Sotonians_lets_pull_together
says...
7:50pm Tue 2 Aug 11
I'm not
go ahead punk make my day
says...
11:06pm Tue 2 Aug 11
SpittingMoreFire
says...
12:58am Wed 3 Aug 11
go ahead punk make my day wrote:hear, hear!
Ospreysaint your recycling bin will not be emptied because no agency staff are used during strike periods thus with holiday entitlement these crews are needed to cover residual crews this is seen as the priority at the moment, as for slpt saying they are doing ok than surely you would have had both of your bins emptied by contract workers, after all it has been 11 weeks. Also it goes to show the job we provide when things are running smoothly for you to be commenting on this matter on an article on something totally different.
OSPREYSAINT
says...
9:52am Wed 3 Aug 11
OSPREYSAINT says...
10:08am Fri 29 Jul 11