Should thousands of NHS beds be axed?

Yet more evidence that 'think tanks' are a waste of time and money.
These people are not front line health care workers, they have probably never spent a day on a hospital ward.
Lets axe think tanks and quangos and save that money instead.

The threat of a conservative government and the "thinktanks" are out to kick the NHS. Closing beds = lots of people out of work - just what the economy needs at the tail end of a recession. Remember the '80s. Besides the beds in the NHS are swamped as it is the last thing we need is fewer beds.

Is this supposed to be taken seriously? It seems that all think tanks do this days is to generate completely ridiculous ideas. I suppose the idea is to stimulate debate and not to come up with ideas that will really get implemented, but they should at least make an effort to stay within the realms of credibility.

Only a moron could think that axing 30,000 beds will lead to improvements in health care.

Of course they're cutting beds. They need to pay for all the commercial directorates they've set up. Look at NHS South East Cost and their shiny new commercial support unit. It's already cost the Department of Health over £1.7million (which would pay for about 80 nurses) even though it delivers no patient care whatsoever. Meanwhile NHS London is trying to roll out massively unpopular 'polyclinics' to deal with 60% of A&E cases, while trying to justify this cost cutting exercise as beneficial top patient care! They're also refusing to release any information about the way these decisions were made.

By trying to shake up and streamline the administration of the NHS, the government has wasted a massive amount of money. Add that to the budget cuts Brown is handing out like an overenthusiastic gardener with a power strimmer and something has to go. As usual it's patient care.

Cut the numbers of managers and other superfluous admin staff - their jobs have only been created by the latest "report for everything" culture.

Employ more nurses - cut their enormous admin load too so they can be out on the wards where they are needed. Employ more cleaning staff - directly employed by the NHS, not these contract cleaners who don't give a toss. This will cut hospital aquired infections thus saving NHS time and beds.

Bring back the old fashioned "convalescent homes" where those not well enough to go home, but not needing medical treatment, can be cared for.

Sort out the care home system for the elderly so that they stop "bed blocking". Bring in a new law that says those unable to care for themselves properly at home are automatically admitted to a care home regardless of their wishes.

I realise this will be a controversial comment, but presently someone unable to care for themselves can go home and then be readmitted to hospital with exactly the same neglect a few days/weeks later thus blocking beds. Many are even incapable of taking their medication correctly, yet they only have to say "I want to go home" and they are discharged home. This has to be stopped to enable the NHS to function in the capacity it is meant to.

Wow! What an amazing solution! Axe beds so then less people can go to hospital and this could make their problem(s) get worse.

Yet another plan typical of this government

Before taking notice of any 'Think-Tank' you must know its bckground. Reform is setup to increase private and for profit provision instead of true NHS provision. Of course it wants to reduce NHS facilities so that its for profit workers increase their income. Private care costs a lot more than NHS care and we cannot afford to waste NHS money on it.
It would be absolute madness to axe thousands more beds as a policy. The bed numbers will go up and down according to need and with an ageing population and higher expectations more provision may be needed.
Reform is a lovely optimistic word but think what is behind this group!

The money that has been spent on think tanks recently would probably have covered the cost of the beds that they suggest can be disposed of.

Unless it's the think tank occupants who would like to forego the option of a hospital bed - but they can probably afford to go privately.

Does anyone actually know a think tank member, or are they in a closed community?

Make cuts! Improve care! Strange how cutting back on things that cost the government money they could be using on their expense claims improves things.

Can I cut the hours I work to improve my wage

Can I cut the taxes I pay to improve public services?

My answer is to cut the many layers of management out, and go back to employing Doctors, nurses and cleaners instead. A PC never cured anyone.

Anyone who wants to make a career out of think tanking quangos just suggetst axing services. Always pleases the bankers and their politicians. So we cut the hospital beds then run another think tanky outfit which advocates euthanasia as a dignified response to lack of hospital treatment. Meanwhile, there are surgeons in Finland for the wealthy, and the luxury path to heaven in Switzerland. Cuts mean higher salaries for overpaid bureaucrats and managers. When are we going to learn to get rid of these think tanks and those who wallow in them.

OMG - Only NuLabour are brazen enough to claim publicly that less beds will improve care!

Strange how they fail to mention the millions of pounds wasted on politicising the NHS: Diversity & Equality managers (band 8A straight from university), Community projects, Waiting List Initiative payments (incredibly excessive payments for staff to work out of hours just to meet targets that cannot be met by core work), an UNDISCLOSED sum spent on translation services (undisclosed means that it's so high that people would be appalled if they knew how much), operations to foreigners who (bizarrely) then leave the country without paying their bill and are never caught, HUGE payouts to chief executives that have failed in their job... the list goes on and on...

I work in an NHS payroll office, so I get to see a lot of this wastage first-hand.

"This is what we pay tax ? no service of any kind in the future? unless you are waiting for years for treatment, is this the first step to total privatise the N.H.S.? Plenty of beds spare in private hospitals,or if you have the money go abroad, The petty government Nu-Labour only likes big business or the bankers. They are a melange of reprehensible, second -rate has beens'

Getting the right number of beds is a balancing act. It may be true that "on average" the NHS has too many beds, but there are times every year when there aren't enough beds to deal with the numbers of acutely ill patients who need treating in hospital. Fortunately, last year's swine-flu epidemic turned out to be a bit of a damp squib but, sooner or later........

Keep the beds. Most conditions are better and more quickly treated in hospital.

GPs etc do not do home visits so there is no means of treating those people at home who cannot get to the GPs surgery.

Better to fund the NHS properly. It's what we pay our taxes for.

Our local DGH regularly has to cancel operations because there is no bed waiting for the patient. Casualty is regularly full because there are no beds available. Little Dicators, sorry, "Bed Managers" regularly prowl the wards questioning why the latest "RIP" and their family have not been turfed out yet. It's not less beds we need, it is more.

Why the cuts? To pay for the bloated management and their unneccessary culture of paperwork. Everyone knows the problem and no-one can do anything about it.

The problem is the wrong people are in power in the NHS. Let doctors run the show, cut manager numbers and put the them in their proper place as secondary support. Let the NHS get back to something that Aneurin Bevan would recognise and not the cash cow that management types have their suckers into.

Surely when you have people on hospital waiting lists, cutting beds would only make the lists longer. I am not a health care professional so I may be wrong.

Then again if the tories get in, NHS will probably be privatised anyway.

Reducing the number of beds will doubtless save money, but it surely won't save lives. We need MORE beds, more nurses and doctors, and less score keepers and bean counters - THAT would save far more

Obviousely this is the old lunatic political "Less Is More" thinking to be able to say - "Look at me, I'm saving you lots of money. Aren't I great!?"

Well, actually, no you are not

Think tank members probably all have access to private health care, so are they the best people to give an unbiased opinion? There should be one health care provider, paid by all and available to all. If things continue on the way they are then we will soon be back in Victorian times where the rich receive treatment and the rest of us make do with whatever is available or not! Here we are in the 21st century and despite advances in techniques/technologies we have people performing do-it-yourself dentistry, etc. What does this say about our civilised western society and how many retrograde steps are we going to allow governments to make?

I wonder how many in this think tank actually work on the NHS frontlines? There are people left in corridors due to a lack of bed & they propose to cut more. There are too many layers of management & beaurocracy in the NHS, if the government want to cut anything how about starting with highly paid managers.

I have a phobia about hospitals and really hate going near them, I was recently booked in for a minor operation and was told it had to be done under a local as the NHS had to release the bed asap so I could not have a general antiseptic as this would result in staying is hospital overnight. I never went into hospital as my phobia got the better side of me.

I am having to save up now to have the operation privately under a general antiseptic as the NHS is far to concerned and statistic and cost cutting and we the people suffer.

The public and politicians are obsessed with numbers of beds in the NHS it is not important in providing a good service. In the early 1970’s I worked in a large teaching authority in the North of England and we were building an 800 bed hospital at a time when on average we had 800 beds empty. I was ridiculed by the consultants as I counted every bed we had and suddenly the 4,000 beds recorded became 3,400 the reason for this was the Managers were paid a grade based on the number of beds they managed. The Senior Consultant Radiotherapist had a blazing row with me because he said the unit had 90 beds and he was going to get the local newspaper to observe me when I counted them. I counted them and recorded 84 as on the 3 wards building work had taken place to turn side rooms into offices.
The NHS has changed dramatically in the way patients are cared for such as when I started in the NHS a hernia operation would need 7 days in hospital, this procedure is now carried out as a day case. The biggest obstacle facing hospitals is bed blocking by elderly people as we no longer have convalescence beds to look after say a hip fracture that has been taken care of as an acute situation. The NHS is not a social service and if we concentrated our efforts on service provision instead of all this rubbish which Trade Unions spout about shortage of beds.

Just now we have 1.4 administrators to every NHS hospital bed and we find the answer is to have 2 administrator to every bed.

HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN STAND BY AND WATCH SPIN MACHINES AND ADMINISTRATORS TURN OUR TAX CONTRIBUTIONS INTO MAGIC BEANS AND EXCUSES, BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT TO WORK FOR A HONEST WAGE WITH A HONEST SHIFT.

The public sector in this country is like a cancer, councils are forced to cut back services but can still retire at 55 on a full wage can still pay themselfs twice as much as the private sector. Now the NHS Wasters want to join the great public sector gravy train.


When is it going to stop, could you imagine if the private went down the same road.

BA go on strike so they add £10 to your ticket that you can use to cover their loss.

You big mac meal now comes without a burger cause the profits are down

The bus driver tells you to get off the bus 2 stop early because of the price of oil.

It appears that the main purpose of "Think Tanks" is to do anything but think. Perhaps if they took a pay cut of similar proportions then they too would become more efficient and beneficial

Viola - All our problems solved, and money saved too. Bargain

There aren't enough beds at the moment - if you don't want to put in more beds then at least try to reduce the number of people needing a bed before getting rid of the beds.

What sort of moronic individuals are on these 'think-tanks'? Aging and growing population, people already being treated in corridors and cupboards, then these idiots think it would be a good idea to reduce the number of beds by 30,000?! It beggars belief. I'm sure I could put together a 'think-tank' and come up with better suggestions for the NHS than this bunch. I could probably do it for half the cost currently charged and still more than double my salary! Any offers Gordon?

Mad, bad and dangerous!

Another story about cuts. Lots of headlines earlier about the unemployment figures coming out today. Then it turns out there has been a fall in the unemployed, suddenly because it's good news it's dropped from the headlines. No point in making us all a bit more cheerful our media is only interected in doom and gloom and trying to get us all annoyed and worried. If there is a good news story it will be way down in any bulletin

Firstly, I'm a nurse, and I work in a hospital. There aren't enought beds right now, never mind in the future when these mythical 'extra' beds go.
Secondly, lets look at Reform, a market led organisation. Hmmm, haven't we got into a big enough mess already for listening to the market?

No! Clinical trials have proven beyond doubt that rapid turn over of beds is a prime cause of hospital contracted infections. This plan has nothing to do with patient care and is all about saving money at the cost of patients health and lives.

I wonder how many of the Reform members have private health care.

I would have thought better savings could be made by axing 30,000 unnecessary managerial and administrative positions. This sort of nonsense is absolutely typical of people who are incapable of thinking beyond the short term.

There are three types of people needed in the NHS:

1. Clinical staff: doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, dietitians, pharmacists, dentists, paramedics and every other profession that provides direct care to patients;

2. Ancillary staff that directly support the clinical staff. Catering, portering, cleaning, laundering and maintenance;

3. Administrative staff that keep the hospitals running.

Anything else is just overhead. I would suggest that think tanks go back beyond the last election and look at the ratios of admin staff to the other two categories that existed in the 1960s and 1970s, and try to find ways of getting them back to those levels by removing the pen pushers and chair warmers. There have certainly been some changes since then - the widespread use of IT will mean more admin staff - but I would be willing to bet that huge savings could be made by going down that route rather than reducing beds yet again.

But as NHS management would have to implement that, it smacks too much of asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.

So much for the New Labour promise of supporting the NHS. If New Labour didn't try to provide medical aid for the world there would be plenty for the British. Same as the Unis, housing, benefits etc. This is a small Country with limited finance.

Instead of news, the BBC is increasingly leading with think tank or parliamentary committee reports.

This is yet another 'think tank report says....' story.

It does seem that a lot of treatment which used to involve hospital stays now gets dealt with on an outpatient basis anyway, so I wonder what this story is saying which is new.

Hospitals are paid by PCTs based on the number of patients they treat so there is a perverse incentive currently for hospitals to retain the currently high level of treatment carried out in this setting. There are many conditions which could be treated outside of hospital in a preventative way to avoid patients with chronic illness ending up in a hospital bed due to a lack of care at home. Avoidance of these admissions can only be a good thing for the patient and demand for beds will fall naturally as a result. As usual this issue has been presented in an ignorant and provocative way by the media in an attempt to give the impression that they are 'serving the public's right to know the facts'. Except that they are not explaining the facts - they are ratcheting up mass anger to try and justify/entertain themselves.

Let me get this straight - in the face of increasing demand placed on the NHS by our increasing population, and the implications of health care for an increasing number of elderly people, this think tank's response is to propose CUTTING 30,000 beds. Wow, I wish I was that kind of genius. Why don't we just save money on the cost of, oh I know, the think tanks? The members of this "tank" clearly have no clinical or indeed patient experience or they would see how insane their proposal actually is. By the same token, why not cut the number of police and close more police stations as well, so that we can all feel more secure. Someone, somewhere is having a laugh and it really isn't funny any more. When are people in this country going to stand up for themselves and demand that the country and its institutions are run for our benefit not that of politicos and their hangers on?

Even in the case that beds are left empty, an empty bed does not cost much to maintain.

On the other hand the faceless members of think tanks like this are expensive and almost always a waste of money.

If the money that would have been spent on all those hospital beds can create better health outcomes by being spent elsewhere (eg by improving outpatient procedures), then the beds should certainly be axed. If not, then keep the beds where they are.

But please leave decisions like that to qualified health economists who have access to some reliable figures, and don't trust them to politicians.

Where did the idea of think tanks come from. did we have them in the 70s.as a child i cant remeber that word ever being used!.

I want the goverment ministers to make a tv show where they can use their private hospitals and have to go on a waiting list. then i want to watch them have to go to work to provide for their family.
At the same time as having to wait just to see a doctor i want them to be mistreated for a gall bladder stone and get given ulcer treatment for the weeks 3 of them the stone had moved and blocked my kidney/stomach. and still have to go to work..
I want to see Gorden brown or didi david do that! then say shut down more beds.

It's only a short time ago that it was on the news every night that people were left on trolly's in corridors because there were no beds. Ambulances queued up outside hospitals unable to unload because there were no beds. It's about time these useless think tanks were booted in to oblivion, who pays for them to come up with this sort of rubbish. Hospitals are places where the sick are treated, they shouldn't be treated like a supermarket where you buy cheap and shift in bulk. A hospital should be efficient but you don't need endless amounts of managers and games like league tables to do that. Doctors and nurses are the people who know best what is best for their patients not some jumped up manager who spends their time going from meeting to meeting conjuring up new ways of saving money. A patients health is more important than money, it shouldn't matter what it costs to bring a patient back to good health or to relieve their suffering. The country is riddled with cronie jobs, people who get huge salaries for doing everything from useless jobs down, it's about time they were put on the dole and save the nation from the lunatic waste of money.

I think this is a great idea.

I look forward to the same logic being applied elsewhere - I'm sure we can reduce crime by taking officers off the beat, and improve education by closing schools.

Most importantly we can improve the political system by closing the House of Commons.

Who are the idiots who dreamt up this one !

Gordon Brown Out !!!! Gordon Brown ought to name the date of the next election !!

Don't get sick or old in this country, in fact babies in the womb should be given a say in having to join the lottery que when they are born afore they become faced with these stark realities. It won't change even with a new circus in town, it invariably is still run with the same clowns!

Should thousands of NHS beds be axed? NEVER

If money has to be saved in the NHS, how about axing the thousands of pen pushing managers that do nothing to help patients, and the think tanks that come up with such rubbish ideas.

One thing the NHS could fund which would make life a lot easier for millions of people, would be to give free prescriptions to Asthma sufferers. Asthma is a very debilitating disease made all the worse by having to pay for inhalers every month. People with Diabetes get free insulin so why shouldn't people with Asthma get their life saving inhalers for free.

The BMA saying cuts in the NHS for purely financial reasons is immoral, is moronic!

The NHS is funded by scare public finances, along with education, defence, benefits, etc., etc. There isn't, and never will be, unlimited money. Priorities have to be decided, ultimately by the Government elected by the people.

If those decisions are that the NHS should do more in certain areas, without any additional funding, or that overall funding should be reduced (have you seen the size and growth rate of the national debt???), then there is nothing moral or immoral about service managers implementing those decisions. The BMA, the doctors' trade union, is just political grandstanding, and should be ignored.

"Should thousands of NHS beds be axed?"

The country is speeding towards bankruptcy so we don't have much choice. Obviously I would have preferred Labour not to spend hundred's of billions of pounds on 'incapacity' benefits and chansing Weapons of Mass Destruction that they knew didn't exist. However, it's too late for all that as the money has dried up.

This think tank is politically motivated. It is funded no doubt by wealthy backers interested in finding excuses for the Tory government, that they hope will be elected, to reduce the NHS budget and the taxes that they pay.

politicallyincorrect (31) says, "I would have thought better savings could be made by axing 30,000 unnecessary managerial and administrative positions."

If he or she had even the vaguest idea of what all these managers and administrators actually do, he/she would realise that the NHS probably requires more of them. The demand for these posts is largely driven by a requirement to implement a seemingly endless stream of Government initiatives.

Has anyone told these strange folk that come from another planet that we are at war. There are no military hospitals anymore! If casualties increase significantly we will need all the beds we can get as all soldiers are put in NHS hospitals. This think tank is Al Qaida best friend if not firm ally.

I'm not sure what they were thinking when they came up with this idea.

It's a good idea to have people staying in hospital only as long as they need to, but it seems that getting rid of beds first is the wrong way to do it.

I've been into several hospitals recently for various friends/family being ill, and I can't remember seeing lots of empty beds around. If there were, then I'd support the idea.

If they do get more efficient, and find there are empty beds, then surely it CAN'T cost much money to have empty beds, or even empty wards, if they simply aren't needed. But getting rid of them, and then having to get them again when you find you actually do need them is going to be very expensive.

The problem with the NHS finances is too many middle managers, and those middle managers having a public sector work mentality (ie 2 hours of real work a day is too much).

The NHS should sack all their middle managers, and head-hunt some from BMI and Bupa, who know how to do a real day's work. You may have to pay them a bit more, but you could do the same work with 10% of the staff, so it'd be a net saving.

Also, get rid of all the meaningless reports and paperwork.

Think Tanks and quangos are the sickness this country suffers from, and they all should be provided with terminal treatment at the earliest opportunity, on the grounds of mercy to taxpayers.

Typical of the government. They lose the money, and Joe Bloggs has to suffer because of it. Wouldn't it be better if those responsible for this mess were the ones directly affected by by their actions?
I'm sick of governments creating a financial mess which has a direct impact on the most needy citizens, whilst they scuttle off relatively scot-free. They might be voted out of office but lets be realistic, THEY ain't short of a bob or two and can easily afford the the best private health care if the should ever need it.
Getting rid of these quango's and think-tanks would be a start.

At # 12:

While you make an excellent point about the level of waste that goes on the in the NHS and how you have inside knowledge of this as you work in the payroll office, can I make the assumption that you are paid to work 9-5 therefore what are you doing on HYS at 11.30am on a school day?

Think Tanks are a waste of money!
Anybody who thinks that cutting 30,000 hospital beds will improve the NHS is clearly an imbecile.
Next week they will be saying that to reduce waiting times we need more hospital beds.
I want my money back!

I wish the media would name and shame these idiots from the "think tanks".
It does make any sense at all, none whatsoever.
Tomorrow we`ll probably hear a certain Cameron saying that the cuts will not happen in a Conservative world.
Why don`t they start cutting the wastefull management and useless jobsworths who sit behind desks and give out useless memos which are binned before they are read.
Cutting beds is not the answer - cutting the dumb `think-tanks` IS!

I work in the front line of NHS services in an acute hospital and I actually agree that we need to reduce the number of acute in-patient beds. There is a substantial proportion of the patient load at any time that does not require the services of the full acute service they are occupying a bed in (and I would say that 25% is probably an under-estimate). These patients only remain in hospital because there are insufficient support services (either at home or in residential settings) in the community.

The hospital where I work has recently (like many other acute trusts) shut down it's sub-acute services (beds for patients who would normally be able to go home but can't because they cannot look after themselves and are awaiting social services or other care provision to be put in place) as the local PCT's stopped funding them, claiming that the PCT would provide community services for the patients that previously would have occupied these sub-acute beds. As per usual for the NHS, the funding stopped immediately (so the wards closed) but the community services which were to replace them have yet to materialise, leaving sub-acute patients in acute beds at a great cost to the trust (but not the PCT...).

The solution to this is to introduce proper community based support for sub-acute patients and once it is actually established and running, reduce acute capacity to the level needed for those patients who actually require full acute hospital care.

>>
2. At 11:11am on 17 Mar 2010, Nusoulwarrior wrote:
The threat of a conservative government and the "thinktanks" are out to kick the NHS. Closing beds = lots of people out of work


As the report says the number of beds have been reducing over decades as improved practices mean that hundreds of operations can now be performed within a day, rather than requiring several days in hospital.

If bed numbers can be safely reduced then it makes sense to spend the money elsewhere in the NHS.

>> "Closing beds = lots of people out of work"

The NHS is not a job creation scheme.

I looked on Wikipedea about the Think Tank for details. I quote:
“Reform is a British free-market think tank based in London, whose mission is to set out a better way to deliver public services and economic prosperity via private sector involvement and market de-regulation. Reform describes itself as independent and non-partisan. It was founded in 2001 by Nick Herbert (now a Conservative MP) and Andrew Haldenby (former head of the Political Section in the Conservative Research Department).”

Form your own conclusions. Mine - Private Health care advocates at the expense of the NHS and the poor.

Yet anpother asinine statement by a think tank. It is ahrd enought to get into a hospital as it is, without cutting the number of beds.

#5. At 11:19am on 17 Mar 2010, Capella2008 wrote:
..... By trying to shake up and streamline the administration of the NHS, the government has wasted a massive amount of money. Add that to the budget cuts Brown is handing out like an overenthusiastic gardener with a power strimmer and something has to go. As usual it's patient care.
------------------------------------

Fortunately this think tank called Reform is only coming up with the ideas, it is up to the Government to actually put these ideas, however idiotic, into practice.

Like many things these days, we have the Tories to thank for such ideas as spliting the NHS into Primary Care Trusts in the first place with all the many layers of management and administrators that it needed in readiness to privatise the NHS when it was ready.

Yes, I have no doubt that Mr Brown's Government will make cuts in the NHS budget but they will be nowhere near as many as you could look forward to under the Tories. The Tories also want to make their cuts as soon as they possibly can not only on the NHS but in other areas as well.

I wold love to be treated at home for my condition but the thing is if they axed a load of beds then wouldnt it cost more money having to do more home visites from nurses and lugging their equipment around with them. England's population is growing bigger and bigger because of the amount of birth rates and people coming to live to the country so I really don't think getting rid of beds is going to do any good the nhs is pushed to the limit already it's not fair on it's workers to have to put up with any more stress because they do a great job, well they are doing for me

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The very fact that part of the idea is to reduce costs shows what this is really all about. The government is notorious for imposing bureaucracy on simple systems. Bureaucracy costs time and time is money. If the government really wants to cut costs then they need to look at the vast profits made by pharmaceutical companies.

Whether we agree with it or not cutting hospital beds to save money will be inevitable along with thousands of other unpopular measures no matter which party gets in at the election. Whatever your views get used to it, that is the situation we are in.

#49. At 12:57pm on 17 Mar 2010, Paul wrote:
..... If they do get more efficient, and find there are empty beds, then surely it CAN'T cost much money to have empty beds, or even empty wards, if they simply aren't needed. But getting rid of them, and then having to get them again when you find you actually do need them is going to be very expensive.
---------------------------

I quite agree with you Paul, it just seems so crazy to think that by cutting beds you are going to save money and improve care!! It just cannot be done. They must think of other areas where these cuts can be made.

The same thing happened in Schools during the 1980's and 1990's where many school kitchens were closed "to save money" and rubbish food brought in by outside contractors.

I thought the Conservatives were vehemently against wasting money on quangos?

Oh well I suppose if it's a right wing one with vested interests in the private health care sector that's fine.

Didn't Margaret try and introduce all this internal market crap back in the 80'?

I think it's another indication of the Conservatives desire to see the closure of the NHS - I'm put in mind of that awful interview that Tory Mep Hannan gave to Fox News regarding the "60 year mistake".

Cameron has his work cut out trying to control all the chronic malcontents currently residing under his Party's banner.

#47

"If he or she had even the vaguest idea of what all these managers and administrators actually do, he/she would realise that the NHS probably requires more of them."

As someone who has worked as a supplier to the NHS for ten years, and who can count five clinical and one admin NHS person within their immediate family, I have rather more than just a vague idea, thank you very much.

"The demand for these posts is largely driven by a requirement to implement a seemingly endless stream of Government initiatives."

Exactly. That is the whole point - the NHS does NOT need more pen pushers in order to provide healthcare. Remove the constant Government meddling and the requirement for a lot of the management overhead will disappear.

Why don't we axe some of the quangos like this one instead?

I would have thought it would be far better, not to have any 'Hospital' beds at all! That seems to be the current policy of our so called "Medical 'Experts'They certainly seem to want to get rid of their 'patients' as soon as they can! The best thing ,we poor mortals can do, is to pray that we never have to go into the 'Hospital' A Sad reflection on the 'corageous' men and women,who installed the National Health Service .(inspite of ferrocious opposition from the same sections of Society who are hell bent to destroy it now.)
Cyclops

I've read the Reform report and it's mostly hooey with the odd fact thrown in.

I can write guff that like quite easily - does this mean I'll get lots of inappropriate media attention for doing so?

No. Get rid of thousands of administrators and lifestyle treatments.

#57

"to set out a better way to deliver public services and economic prosperity via private sector involvement and market de-regulation."

So they're hardly unbiased, are they? The introduction of the internal market within the NHS brought with it a huge admin overhead. All Reform are doing is recommending tweaks to an already faulty model rather than suggesting real improvements.

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

I thought for a minute there i had read that wrong ... Axing NHS beds? what on earth are the "think tanks" going to suggest next? MPs should have to dress like clowns? I think most people will be in favour of increasing NHS, not axing them. To do this now, when people are finally agreeing Labour has screwed up the NHS is complete rubbish, and shouldn't even be considered, especially for financial reasons. It is indeed "immoral". In my view, NHS bosses should really start to re-think their priorities.

What does 'bed' mean? Beds don't provide treatment.

Do they mean 'close whole wards' including nurses, the junior docs that cover those wards etc or do they mean turn those wards into day case treatment units and try to reduce the number of in-patients but without reducing staffing numbers?

If the latter then I agree. Generally people get better quicker at home and with modern keyhole surgical procedures you can do ops in a hour that a decade ago would have taken half a day and required a week in hospital.

No, Every hospital needs to be able to take a ward completely out of service in order to fully clean it on a regular cycle, having 100% bed occupancy will only make outbreaks of E coli, MRSA, C diff and other nasty bugs more common. Also each hospital needs one ward kept free incase of some large scale diaster.

Our local hospital used to have 1200 beds and very few cases of MRSA or C Diff etc, now they have trimmed it down to 440 beds and its rampant with disaseas and infection outbreaks. Hot bedding is wrong, some units are going years without being cleaned properly.

It might be helpful if all contributers actually read the report before commenting. The truth is that Blind Political rhetoric is the norm for HYS.
That little rant over, the ideas behind the report are worthy of consideration. When I was born it was NHS normal for mothers to spend up to 10 days in hospital after the birth, all at considerable cost. Now 60 years later a normal uncomplicated birth can be 'processed' in half a day.
40 years ago a simple Appendectomy resulted in two weeks bed rest, normally in a Hospital Bed, now it is often treated as a Day Surgery event. In so many illnesses, and diseases, treatment has progressed from days in bed to simple day procedures. Why spend on beds that can be better used another way. When the present location of Hospitals evolved, the majority of people did not have access to cars so local services were a necessity. Every large village had a 'Hospital' often a 'War Memorial' built and designed for 1920's medicine. Additionally, the average home was unsuitable as a convalescent home, no heating poor lighting, no baths, etc. People were retained at Hospital to recover as they would not do so at home.
Nowadays the average home has decent heating and ventilation, with baths and hot water, etc. It is simple fact that small local A&E units lead to more deaths, whilst there is a place for local non urgent walk in medical facilities. Specialist medical units benefits from economies of scale, not only in money terms but also in higher standards.

SO much has changed since the structure of Hospital care was designed, it really is time to step back and see not only what works, but what is necessary and what is cost effective.

There is a lot of talk about "care at home". Very often this is carried out by private care or medical agencies who do not cover rural areas, have almost no availability at weekends and, however sympathetic their frontline staff, these organisations simply exist to make profits, not look after people. If care at home is to be taken seriously it must be provided via the NHS and of excellent quality. If we have to pay more tax to fund this, so be it.

If, as now seems to be the case following disclosures that Polish women are coming here for free abortions for the price of a £70 air ticket, this will escalate into women from other 'eastern Bloc' countries doing the same. They apparently have the right to use our NHS for free, any time, all the time they are in Britain which in reality is any time they want to. We were already heading towards becoming a free medical service for health tourists from Africa so I can only see that if beds are reduced the health service available to the British (who pay for the NHS) will deteriorate even more. Quite how this will 'improve' the NHS is beyond me. If some conditions can be treated at home why cannot the numbers of beds be retained and used to reduce the waiting lists that the government tell us don't exist but which actually do. Didn't Brown tell us not too long ago that the NHS would be exempt from cuts?

Are these the same "experts" who were planning to turn people away from hospitals in the event of a flu pandemic due to the lack of beds?

No, the problem is that "beds" are used as a measure of accounting in hospital. Loads of overhead costs are loaded on to these beds (so to speak). Reducing the number of beds does not reduce those overheads. The proper challenge is to eliminate wasteful senior managers in the various HNS trusts.

Yet another example of putting pounds before people.

Read BBC coverage, then fully researched the 'Reform' website. You must go to 'Reform' website. Look at ALL members of advisory council this and other council that and members etc., etc. Read and fully understand all the 'we are non-political' waffle? Then examine ALL links again, and individuals involved in 'Reform', as a registered charity?

This 'charity' is very political as one of, many and most influential members, was an advisor to last Tory government. Plus there are MPs and Lords involved too. Never mind, though, 'Reform' is totally 'non-political' isn't this an election year???.

I suppose that now the potential risk of swine flu has receded this 'think' (do they ever actually THINK about what they are saying?) tank 'thinks' the hospital beds will never be needed.
We couldn't save money by reducing the admistrators and accountants required by the 'internal' market or by reducing the number of management 'consultants' that never take responsibility for their 'ideas'. We couldn't make things more efficient by having departmental heads who understand what their departments do and understand the impact and potential dangers associated with their 'commercial' based ideas.
No, of course not. We make things more 'efficient' by reducing the number of sick requiring hospital treatment by making sure they cannot be treated as there will be no beds.
The Tories claim the NHS is 'safe in their hands' but when right wing think tanks come up with ideas like this it really makes you worried. With NuLabour's wasteful programmes, Tories 'only the rich are allowed a life' policies, the Raving Monster Looney party is looking more and more like a realistic alternative.

Yes, let's close even more hospital beds then we'll have no more ...

Patients waiting for beds on trolleys in corridors

Patients discharged early 'because we need the beds'

Patients!


We could employ MORE Bed Managers



I have just re-watched the BBC's excellent "Yes, Minister" in which there was a hospital with no patients but in excess of 600 admininistrative staff. If you think it's a load of nonsense, just listen to the think tank brigade!

Should NHS jobs be cut?

Yes.

There is no need for so many people but then again there shouldn't be so many 'management' who are taking the biggest slice of the pie.

The other (better) way to save money would be to take a stand against the big pharmeceuticals and their extortionate prices.

Oh dear, where are all those new fathers going to sleep when they stay in hospital overnight after the birth of their child, to support their wife/partner?
I'd better make sure I don't become ill. Perhaps I should take my pension and move to warmer climes that are kinder to my lungs to avoid the risk of chest infections.

Can't we axe middle managers, non-jobs and translators instead? We'd save much more and the 30,000 beds would still be there and as useful.

As with most of your subscribers, I am totaly agravated by unaware, money grabbing think tank ecconomist's, it was they that lead the banks to a total breakdown and, Who picked up the Tab the man in the street,and now they want to reduce the care given under the NHS, We have never in the reign of human suffering, had so many chiefs more than indian's, The hospital are full of non plus managers who have no grip on reality or competence in finacial administration.make these people responsible for the financial mistakes they make, and leave the Beds alone.
or is it s scheme to make sure more people don't make it and so reduce the poulation. Synical comment YES I believe it is,food for thought thogh don't you think ?

'Should thousands of NHS beds be axed'? is the HYS question in response to think tank 'Reform' report?

Researched ALL areas of the 'Reform' (registered charity) website which insists 'Reform' is totally non-political!

Well, go to the source of this particular report, that created such an emotive headline, which is instigated by 'Reform'.

If you take the time to look at the people running it, and ALL THOSE behind it, YOU may find that 'Reform' is very 'political' indeed???

Just more evidence of the economic turmoil wrought on the UK by Gordon Brown alone and regardless of his ludicrous claims that we are now out of recession, it's clear for all to see that it's just a figment of his fevered imagination and things are going to get a whole lot worse before we see any kind of change for the better.

Next week's budget should 'tell all', but we all know that it will only be more optimistic utterances laced with a liberal sprinkling of bare faced lies, with Darling reading Brown's script.

Oh dear, I don't have any close family so where my support at home is going to come from if I need help at 3am I don't know.
Yes, some things can be done as an outpatient which used to require several days in hospital but I was very pleased that a sympathetic doctor let me stay in another night rather than kick me out at 5pm to an empty house after a week's stay in hospital rather than my having to stagger round the shops to get some milk before I could even enjoy a cup of tea. The day before I had been due to stay in for several more days so obviously I hadn't organised shopping from one of my friends.

My own Think Tank research is to get rid of all "official" think tanks enabling money to be spend as it was always meant to be' This is yet another waste of money to the taxpayer. Instead of cutting beds to save money why not cut managers and out of touch quango`s

How stupid do politicians think we are???

'Reform' is a think tank with it's own website. This is also a 'registered charity', with all tax benefits under UK charity law, and instigated the headline for this HYS question from it's recent 'exposure' to the media?

Take some time to fully search ALL involved on 'Reform' website, a charity that is "totally non-political".???

If you replaced beds with 'Admin staff and Middle Managers' I would totaly agree. But we all know this is too drastic and none PC an option to be considered especialy before an election.

PS. Did I forget to mention that majority of execs, advisory, council members etc., working with, or for, 'Reform', who instigated this report on Axing NHS beds, may have private health care too?

Can only hope moderators allow this comment as I've complained about 'Reform' too much already?

Just how is cutting beds supposed to help improve health care?

What about all the storeys we hear about people being left on trolleys in corridors because there isn't a bed available, or how a seriously ill patient is being driven from County to County to find a bed then later dies because the journey was either too much for them, or because they couldn't get the urgent treatment they needed because they were stuck in the back of an ambulance?

We hear of these horror stories all the time, this is not going to help in one little bit, save money yes by getting rid of all the pen pushers on ridicules wages, I can’t remember to ratio but some time ago I heard that these way outnumbered the doctors and nurses who do actually help.

I am due to go into hospital myself very soon for an operation, I am lucky that I have not had to wait long, but how long would I have had to wait if these beds were not available, I dread to think.

Has anyone told the academics of these so called 'think tanks' that there is an old wise proverb 'much learning doth maketh the mind go mad!'

While its a good thing if people can be treated at home especially the elderly who would rather have this, it seems this axe of beds is yet another excuse to trim the helath service. All we here about is cuts because we dont have any money. Yet we dont have any money because of the crime of deregulation and privatisation which have been allowed to drain the public purse. I say tax the Rich, reign in the tax havens. I bet Tony Blair and David Cameron might manage to live on 1 million instead of the obsence amount they have thanks to this evil free market system. And it IS evil. The antichrist if you ask me. Obscene Private wealth while the public is deliberately bled dry IS evil.

Tax the City, the Rich and the finance sector, reign in the tax havens and we could gain £440 billion per year to be spent on reducing our debt, and saving public services and ending the crime of poverty and I bet keeping our defences up to scratch as well. That is democracy..... what the USA and Britain are NOT because both these wicked nations are at the mercy of the dictatorship of the Wealthy.

"75. At 2:27pm on 17 Mar 2010, Steve Day wrote:
No, Every hospital needs to be able to take a ward completely out of service in order to fully clean it on a regular cycle, having 100% bed occupancy will only make outbreaks of E coli, MRSA, C diff and other nasty bugs more common. Also each hospital needs one ward kept free incase of some large scale diaster.

Our local hospital used to have 1200 beds and very few cases of MRSA or C Diff etc, now they have trimmed it down to 440 beds and its rampant with disaseas and infection outbreaks. Hot bedding is wrong, some units are going years without being cleaned properly."

Before Tony Blair came to power there was no MRSA at all. The figures prove it!!!!!!

Actually one of the first things Blair did was make hospitals report their levels of MRSA infection (and then a few years back cDif). Its very hard to say whether increases in reported rates are down to better reporting & detection or higher levels of the disease.

What is cast iron fact is that 1 in 3 people in the street carry MRSA (normally up their nose), every single one of them carries multiple strains of E.coli in their guts and up to 5% of healthy adults carry C.dif in their gut without any symptoms at all (take some powerful antibiotics and clear out the normal gut bacteria and its a different story though......)

Contrary to what most HYS ranters believe MRSA (etc) is rarely caught in hospital. The germs that you normally carry around with you with little ill effect when you're healthy can surge up and cause disease in the sick. There is no way to stop this happening short of screening everyone going into hospital and not treating those who carry any potential infection. This would mean no-one being treated, no need for any beds at all, and hospitals with zero infection or death rates. Some pencil pusher in Tory HQ would doubtless think this is a great thing but it rather misses the point of having a hospital.

We have a massive shortae of beds in our hospitals and many times when people are taken in via emergency they spend at least a night in corridors on trolleys as there are no beds. If they are going to get rid of thousands of beds how many people do they intend to get rid of and who decides. There would be far less beds required if we were allowed living wills there would not be so many sick, lonely and unhappy old or sick people - they would be allowed to die with dignity when they want to.

As being a student nurse myself, I have to say YES!!! (are you out of your crazy minds)

Lets axe 30'000 beds and see where that gets us. I can tell you, it will be in a far worse off place then we are currently in.

At this moment in time, within the trust I am working for I can tell you that they (the government) has been attempting to permantley close wards down thus leading to staff cutbacks. This change was due to begin the week before christmas but as ever it didn't happen. Is this because they had a change of heart?...
No! It is because the other hospital in the trust went on red alert (for those who dont know, that means NEEDING MORE BEDS) So, at the hospital where I am working they had to not only keep that ward open but open another ward and cram as many beds into availavble spaces as possible.

On my ward, we have this rather important book that sits on the nurses station in the corner. Any guesses what this book contains?

A whole book dedicated to patients waiting to come onto the ward. Thats correct, a book which is nearly full of patients waiting in un-suitable wards to be transferred to my ward (rehabilitation ward).

The government says that we need to cut back on costs for the NHS...how about we stop sending all the hundreds of thousands of pounds to the EU and spend it on improving the NHS. Creating bigger hospitals with more hi-technology thus allowing nurses and other members of staff working for the NHS to do their job effectively.

These 'think tanks' are just what I love to call 'PEN PUSHERS' who know nothing about what really goes on within a hospital or what a hard days work actually is. They just sit in their offices thinking of new ways to demolish this country. It, would be great if, for one day only (just because I think thats all they would manage) they swapped their pen pushing jobs with nurses and see what a high demand hospitals are.

Lets think of the consequences of cutbacks;

NHS - Less beds means waiting lists get longer & longer. Less patients get seen and if they do then the care recieve may be less then expected. In the end more people would die...

If so would they make cutbacks in the following;

Fire services : cutbacks on fire engines means that more fires wouldn't be stopped because of lack or resources, more casualties (but hey, there aint any beds for them due to the cutbacks of hospital beds) thus eventually leading to more people dying.

Police : cutbacks on police cars and stations, even prisons this means that crime would take a rise. People who have commited a crime and need to go to prison can't because there would be no room for them, thus basically saying to criminals, hey its ok, you just carry on we don't care. More accidents would occur and oh my gosh in worst case scenarios more people would...wait for it...DIE!!


----------------------------------

Are you seeing the same thing as me here?


Every cutback whether it be NHS, Fire services or the police force all in the long run end up with more people dying. But isn't that what this government wants?
More white elderly people to die thus lowering the white population and then allowing foreigners to take their place?

I mean look at Mr David Cameron (if you can call him a mister) isn't he in the press bascially saying how 'white' people are ruining 'black' peoples lives?
Also saying that if his party is elected he will help 'black' people more then 'whites'. I am sorry but to me that sounds a lot like the BNP but the other way round.

The BNP, wanting to do better for Britain and helping the native people of this country and for that they are classed as racist.

The Tories, wanting to help black people other his own fellow people. Isn't that being racist on whites? But, as ever if its white people which are being discriminated against it doesn't get any attention. How backwards are all these parties.


I know I have gone off the subject slightly but it all ends up the same. Think about what type of country you want to live in. I am 18 years old and it is my generation which this election is going to affect most (I would say) so please EVERYBODY think! When I have children I want them to feel safe in this country and I want them to grow up with the ability to have their own say (freedom of speech). I want them to be taught everything I didn't when I was at school.

If I am 18 and this is my first time at voting and i can already see what this government is trying to do, I pray to god other people can see it too.

We could probably be able to lose a few beds if it wasnt for the bed blocking, we could also save a few if it wasnt for the foreigners using the NHS and we could further save some if illegal immigrants were not allowed access to the NHS.
Solve these issues and then lets look again at how many beds we could lose.