Today’s post seems to have generated interest among our readers.
The topic is complicated, as you can see from the wiring diagrams. We had a long discussion on how to investigate and how to report what we find. As usual, if there is something we do not understand or we find that 1+1=3, we will report it. It may be that our maths is wrong or we make mistakes, but if we do, we will own up to them.
Our first foray suggests no one has a clue, mainly because we have seen different statements about how much everything costs, and they often don’t match up.
Carl proposed to de-structure or breakdown the intricate wiring for each body along the lines of:
Body name
Place in the wiring
Body stated function
Its budget
Patient/societal benefit from the function
Grey areas
Recommendations or comments
This will be a sizeable job, so we ask for your support and comment on whether you think it is useful and would like any tweaks to the format.
Two old geezer taxpayers wrote this post.
I like the suggested structure. Would also like to know if it goes to front line services or not . This may well be covered in Patient/societal benefit from the function, but a separate heading would help do a quick eyeball of which are the biggest areas of spend where the money does not go to front line staff. (I don't think front line staff should have all the money, but it will allow a comparison with other sectors and other nation's healthcare.) Good luck and thank you!
It may work if the bodies have really distinct remits. If these dabble at different levels of the wiring, it may be difficult to disentangle, and causing all sorts of knots.
An alternative would be to work from the bottom up.
What is needed for an efficient and effective health care system?
And then look at the bodies and see if these fit or have a partial fit? There are likely some areas that you can immediately put in the category 'not essential'.
It could be that the ultimate outcome is that the NHS simply cannot do everything for everyone.
But I would be surprised if it cannot be run more efficiently.