"Health inequality gap widening"

Nulab are so obsessed with the fact that better-off people's life expectancy is improving faster than that of people in 'deprived areas', that they forgot to give themselves a pat on the back for improving life expectancy by an average of 2 years over the last decade (at enormous cost to the taxpayer, of course).

Oh ... which is a piss-poor result really, seeing as life expectancy increased by an average of 2.7 years every decade over the course of the twentieth century.

Public sector employment & public spending in the UK

In the context of nothing in particular, here's an overview of how things have changed between 1997 and 2007.

Total public spending, is up from 41.2% of GDP to 44.6% of GDP, per the OECD's Economic Outlook, Table 25 (having dipped as low as 37.1% in 2000). GDP seems to be about £1,400 billion, so if spending had remained a constant % of GDP, it would now be £48 bn less. Had it remained at 2000 levels, it would be £105 bn less.

According to this, employment in the public sector (in the narrowest sense) is up from 6.1 million to 7.0 million (column D); but if you chuck in all the para-statals - quangoes, state-funded charities and so on - employment in 'Public administration, health and education' (Column M) it has increased from 6.5 million to 8.3 million.

So what are all these people doing?

The number of nurses and doctors in the NHS has increased by 120,000 (from 400,000 to 520,000). Spending on the NHS in nominal terms has trebled.

The number of teachers in English schools has increased by 36,000, from just under 500,000 to about 530,000, call it 600,000 for the whole of the UK. Nominal spending on education has doubled.

The number of police officers has increased from 126,000 to 140,000.

That means that out of those 8.3 million, there are 1.26 million nurses, teachers, doctors and police officers. To be fair, they need back up staff (cleaners, receptionists, classroom assistants etc) let's be generous and double that to 2.5 million, stick on another 500,000 for DVLA, court system, armed forces, a few people to run dramatically reduced and simplified tax/welfare system, issuing passports and so on, so 3 million seems a reasonable upper figure for public sector (about 10% of all employees). Not that the State should employ teachers and medical staff of course, but AFAIAC the taxpayer should still bear the cost of basic level health and education vouchers to be used in private sector, so the cost would be much the same.

So what on earth do the other 5.3 million other people in 'Public administration, health and education' do all day long? Presumably bugger all. So let's sack the lot

Total government spending is currently about £625 billion. If you knock off £165 bn for child benefit, welfare and pensions, that's £460 bn on salaries and overheads. As a check - 8.3 million employees x average salary £25,000= £210 bn, plus 50% for public sector pension accruals plus 50% for overheads (buildings rent and maintenance and other jollies) = £420 bn, plus £40 bn wasted on PFI, EU membership and so on, seems about right.

So if you sack 5.3 million of them, that would cut public spending by 5.3/8.3 x £460 bn = £290 bn. Giving them all a flat rate Citizen's income of £60 per week would reduce the saving to £275 bn. About £50 bn of current spending is being funded by borrowing, so to balance the books we could still cut taxes by £225 bn.

So in theory you scrap VAT (£77 bn), National Insurance (£87 bn) and reduce income tax and corporation tax (£144 bn + £45 bn) to a flat 20% or so (see Table C4) without even having to worry about Laffer effects.

That's what I call a libertarian budget!

"Average NHS wait up under Labour"

Lots of fun-with-numbers on the statistics that show average waiting times in NHS are up marginally over the last ten years, from 41 days to 49.

What I like best is where Ben Bradshaw MP (Lab, Exeter) abandons all hope of doing the mental arithmetic to somehow prove that average waiting times are shorter and goes for a couple of bare-faced lies instead:

"Under the Tories is was not uncommon to wait 18 months or more for an operation. Tackling long waits leads to a short-term increase in the average wait as the backlog is cleared - this can be seen in the data."

Er ... so ten years later is a 'short-term increase', is it? Is he admitting that they haven't cleared the backlog after ten years? Are there people who have been on a waiting list since 1997?

Let's not forget that the nominal cost of the NHS has nearly trebled from £34.7 bn in 1997-98 to £94.3 bn in 2007-08 (planned - see page 7)

Ann Cryer MP (Lab, Keighley)

Prompted by Verity over at DK's, I have uncovered some fascinating statistics.

Another Labour MP making evidence-based-policy! Whatever next?

She doesn't always get it right though - she called for immigrants to be forced to learn English a few years ago, which is bollocks of course. Once people are here they are here, you can't deport them for failing a language test. The cheaper and better solution would be to grant residence permits only to people who can already speak reasonably good English when they apply.

* Update - a subsequent post at Vindico's has set me thinking - would such a ban be in the slightest enforceable? Hmmm...

Dave don't got no clue (3)

Apparently, Dave The Chameleon wants 'the Tories to become the party of the NHS'; has 'axed his party's previous proposal to subsidise patients to go private'; as well as calling for fines on hospitals who allow patients to become infected.

Pop quiz, which bits of this rhetoric did Blulab nick off Nulab and which ones did Nulab nick off Blulab? I don't know any more. And I don't care any more either.

FFS, there is no point fining a publicly funded body, yet another reason for having non-state owned competing providers (combined with taxpayer funded vouchers AFAIAC); only then would fines have any effect whatsoever. To the extent that fines are necessary - competing providers would not only lose business if they were to infect their patients, but would also face legal actions and higher insurance bills.

''Doctors fear GP privatisation''

Of course the BMA are against anything that might disturb the cosy relationship they have whereby GP's get handsome pay rises every year* in exchange for not doing much more work.

The gimmick is that GP's surgeries are privately-owned businesses anyway!

* If the figures are to be believed, average GP income has risen from £56,000 in 2001 to £110,000 in 2007.

NHS Fuckwittery (7)

From the BBC website today.

"NHS on course for large surplus" and "Bed crisis sparks hospitals alert".

Dude, WTF?

NHS Fuckwittery (6) - Broken collarbone

Read about The Daily Brute's recent experience here.

NHS Fuckwittery (5): Deep Clean

The Goblin King decided this week that he was going to rehash Michael Howard's motto "Cleaner hospitals" in a desperate attempt to lose* the next election**, suggesting that hospitals all have a 'Deep Clean'. The professionals have rubbished this idea with a vengeance.

I like the bit about "regular use of hydrogen peroxide vapour generators" does this make people gradually go blonde?

*Which appears quite possible after all, according to pollsters who extrapolated yesterday's by-election results, although Vindico thinks that extrapolating like this is bollocks.

** The wheels are rapidly coming off the economy, the credit crunch and house price crash have started. Whoever is in power over the next few years will earn a reputation for economic incompetence that will see them out of power for decades. So you're better off losing the next election. The Tories seem to have twigged this ages ago - what appears to be bad management and incompetence is in fact a super-slick operation. Sir John Major has said that he sometimes wishes he hadn't won in 1992 for precisely this reason.

NHS Fuckwittery (4)

When I hear people talking about "... markets, competition and choice ... improving our health service", my ears always prick up. Altho' the terms are fairly meaningless in themselves, I do believe that the aim must be a largely taxpayer-funded NHS with competing providers*, as in so many other countries.

The logical conclusion is that people could claim vouchers (for no more than full cost of NHS equivalent treatment) and go completely private, paying the top-up out of their own pockets or out of voluntary private insurance.

So why does trade union f***wit Dave Prentis come out with this in today's FT "We were really pleased that Alan [Johnson, current UK Health Secretary] made no mention of markets, competition and choice in improving our health service"?

Also in this article - a quango realises it is pointless and dissolves itself! Now there's a first!

* Who should own such hospitals and clinics is an interesting debate. I see no reason why they should not be owned by charities, churches, trade unions, the local authority as well as insurance companies and private operators. As long as they are competing!

NHS Fuckwittery (3)

Neil Record, pensions guru, calculated that the true cost of unfunded pensions promises in the NHS* was about 35% of salary. In other words, if it were a funded scheme in the private sector, employer/employee contributions would have to be around 35% of headline salary.

The purely notional contributions are currently employer 14% and employee 6%.

Well, whoo-pee-do, the NHS has realised that this is a tad on the low side, so they have increased employee contributions by ... (wait for it) ... a whacking 0.5%.

And these are still notional contributions. So all it means is that for a headline salary of £20,000 the true gross will be £18,700. The figure £1,300 gets jotted down on the employee's contributions history, but it doesn't get paid into any sort of physical fund.

*under the old retire-at-sixty final-salary scheme, that is closed to new entrants but still applies to those already in the scheme.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

One of the six bullet points* under the Conservatives' hugely expensive "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" ad-campaign at the 2005 general election was 'Cleaner hospitals'.

They lost very badly.

The Goblin King now has decided to adopt exactly this pledge as the main plank of his next general election campaign.

Jesus H Christ, what goes around comes around, doesn't it?

*Those six bullet points look pretty good to me.

"Charge drunks for treatment, say Lib Dems"

Says the Grauniad headline (via Tim W).

Besides the serious point that drinkers pay for these externalities via VAT, alcohol duties and so on, I know that the leadership hates Charles Kennedy, but talk about kicking a man when he's down.

NHS Fuckwittery (2)

Not posted much recently as I managed to slice off quarter of a fingernail with a Stanley knife a couple of days ago, which makes typing rather painful.

Highlights so far:
1. Local GP receptionist ignores you for five minutes while filling in a twatty form and then say "Sorry, the nurse is busy, go to A&E instead"
2. To get seen at A&E (at 11 in the morning) you have to go through security (who sends you to reception), a receptionist (who sends you to yet another receptionist), who in turn asks "where did the accident happen?". I was still in shock and couldn't think of anything witty so I answered honestly.
3. After one hour, a nurse takes off my plaster and says "Ooh, that looks nasty, go and take a seat in reception, we can see you in one hour"
4. After about an hour, a doctor has another look and says "Ooh, that looks nasty, we'd better stick a bandage on". The same nurse comes back in and puts a bandage on and gives me a tenanus shot, which didn't hurt at all but started throbbing like crazy a few hours later.
5. Went back to local GP today to have bandage changed. As cute as a button that nurse!
6. On way out of GP's surgery, notice pile of 6-page glossy "England goes smoke free" leaflets translated into 22 different languages (I counted). Jesus H F***. Is this really necessary?
7. Oh yes, my local hospital consists of half a dozen buildings set in a few dozen acres of prime East London (plenty of grassy areas &c). The whole damn' site is a giant 'no smoking' zone. Off the top of my head, even if only 100 of the thousands of people who work there smoke five fags per shift, that wastes about 100,000 man hours per year* (because they have to walk all the way to the exit at either end of said site). Times say 1,000 such hospitals in UK makes 100 million wasted man-hours per year, wages £20 per hour, total cost £2 billion per annum, or 2% of the total NHS budget.

Thanks to Lawrence, waiting for a bandage to be changed because his GP's nurse was on holiday and the GP couldn't be arsed to hire a locum, for helping me while away the time.

100 people x five walks x 12 minutes = 100 hours x 3 shifts per day = 300 x 365 days per year.

NHS Fuckwittery

After yesterday's dental treatment, I returned to reception and proferred my debit card as usual.

"Sign here" said the receptionist, brandishing an A5 pale blue/dark blue form bearing the 'NHS' logo.

"Why?" asked I. "I'm paying for my treatment, not asking for a freebie"

"It's a form to say that you are paying the charges and are not entitled to free treatment"

"Yes, but that is blindingly obvious, that's why I'm giving you my debit card. What is the point?"

"We have no idea what the point is" summarised the receptionist "but sign and date on the front and again on the back, please. It's for their computer"

Over 2,000 'die from NHS errors

More than 2,000 people died in English hospitals last year (2005) due to lapses in patient safety, a watchdog says.

About 980,000 patient safety incidents and near misses were reported in the NHS, the National Audit Office found.