@RolloTreadway I won’t be a problem because with no one manning 999 calls there is nobody to dispatch your ambulance anywhere and I even if you did find a patient and took them to the hospital there would be nobody to check them in allocate them an A&E bay (not that those bays would be clean or empty anyway).

It amazes me that people can’t see through this utter lunacy.

@RolloTreadway
When I retired I was an NHS Manager.
My remit included investigating incidents, litigation claims, and complaints - among other things.
If I hadn't been in place then who would have fielded the complaints (from the vexacious to the heart-rending) or the litigation (from the trips in the car park to the horrific internal scars)?
I'll tell you who would have done it - clinical staff who should have been treating patients.
Do they really want time served clinical staff fitting paper-pushing in between drug rounds?

The same goes for Human Resources, IT, procurement, cleaning - do they want clinical staff to be ordering carpets, or putting job adverts out?

Healthcare Managers increase the productivity of clinical staff by letting them do clinical stuff.

@RolloTreadway I think it sounds phrased like its aim was provocative, suggesting that nonclinical staff are not doing the real work. I'm sure the %age would be lower if the question had been better explained/intentioned.

Well put though. I used to work in a social justice organisation and we had the same trouble with funders not wanting to pay for non-project staff. Yet the support staff (me!) were what made project staff efficient, equipped and focussed at delivery.

It's so easy to ask loaded questions and then claim a public view that sways public opinion. Thanks for exposing this one.

The nhs should employ MORE staff, and use agencies less, IMO. So much £ wasted in private profit.

@RolloTreadway
not to make light hearted of it as I 100% agree , kicking the legs out from under the chair your are sat on isn't a good idea

it reminds me of
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Golgafrinchans
and the getting rid of "the useless middle men" that comprised of hairdressers, telephone sanitisers, and other such "worthless jobs." after they had they were suddenly killed off by a raging disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

@RolloTreadway Meanwhile, https://www.digitalhealth.net/2023/11/nhs-england-awards-330m-federated-data-platform-contract-to-palantir/

That’s the bus fare gone then. You’ll have to walk this week.

@RolloTreadway

A classic example of respondents "reacting" rather than "reflecting".

When they think "non-clinical staff" they probably imagine some executive-in-a-suit micromanaging things and wanting to cut antibiotics with aspirin to make them go further and save costs...

If they stopped to *think* for just a few seconds, they would come to your conclusions.

Edit for clarity. My sister is a non-clinical clerk for a GP surgery. She's dedicated to ensuring people get the best care.

@RolloTreadway Thing is they’ll reduce non-clinical staff numbers by contracting many services to the private sector (party donors).
Directly employed staff numbers reduce, but cost doesn’t really reduce, it’s
rebadged as non-staff cost.
Efficiencies are service level reductions and donors, sorry, contractors make profit & pay dividends.
The “snout in trough” approach!

It gives me no pleasure to say I am concerned this is a route Labtor, Peeves and Streebling will likely follow.

@RolloTreadway

I think cleaners are considered front line staff - if they aren't, they should be!

Years back, I did a little software job for a local hospital in the UK. It was to deal with the provision of teas coffees sandwiches and biscuits for meetings various locations throughout the hospital.
The manual system is then in use, required the person placing the order, usually a doctor, to fill out a form in quadruplicate and submit the four copies to the catering department. One of the four copies was sent to a junior manager on a 50% part time salary for authorization (her sole responsibility). When I asked how many such requests were refused, the manager replied “Oh - we never refuse them” so I responded by asking So what is the point of “authorising” something that you never refuse to which the manager responded “well, it's public money, so it has to be properly accounted for!”
I'm quite sure there are literally 10s of thousands of instances of similarly, criminally wasteful management in the NHS.

@RolloTreadway As ex-health workers & patients, we know the importance of support staff & the very real difference they make. It's not only by what they do for systems to work but how they do it, with kindness & humanity.

As for percentages, according to NHS Professionals, owned by the DHSC, non-clinical staff comprise only 18% of the total.

Admin-wise, it's argued that a reduction in related NHS costs increases consultants' non-clinical work, so takes them away from patient-facing activity.

@RolloTreadway In the USA, where we play healthcare policy with the "Extreme Hardcore" difficulty setting, non-clinical staff are the duct tape holding the whole system together...and increasingly they're relied on for actual clinical roles as well, as when receptionists wind up acting as triage nurses and do med refills.

One consequence is that even non-clinical roles often wind up having to be filled by people who specialize in that role in a medical context, so "non-clinical" becomes a joke.

@RolloTreadway

I think you are being thoroughly disingenuous!

No one is saying sack all the clinical support staff obviously that would be a disaster for the NHS but junior managers have a dreadful reputation in many trusts as does the 'administration'. I know of one trust where one major speciality has 'divorced' itself from the administration and does its own admin; so dreadful is the central administration dept in that particular hospital.

Now here's a strange thing, I live in Luxembourg which spends a bit more per head of the population on healthcare than does Britain but the spend per head of population is nowhere near double that of the UK.

Over here in Luxembourg, there are no waiting lists worth talking about, even elective surgery is carried out within weeks, there is no problem whatever getting an appointment with the GP (if I phone up tomorrow, I would expect to be offered a GP appointment either tomorrow or the day after) and there is no problem whatever getting an appointment to see a dentist under the equivalent of the NHS, as all dentists work for the equivalent of the NHS. I have undergone two operations since I have been living here and in both cases I was given a private room with its own bathroom. The biggest wards over here have a maximum of two beds in them.

The healthcare system here generally is very different indeed to that in the United Kingdom! However, what I cannot understand is how the figures pan out. Here, both doctors and nurses are paid double often much more than double what they I earn in the United Kingdom. The same applies to ancillary staff like physiotherapists; In fact, everyone in the healthcare business over here he's paid much more generously than the equivalent staff in the United Kingdom. So, my question is; given that this is a very expensive country indeed and that most if not all healthcare staff are paid roughly double what they are paid in the United Kingdom how come the spend per head of the population is not double or even more than double what it is in the United Kingdom? There has to be a reason!
I suppose the next question is “where would I rather receive treatment for a serious illness, would it be in Luxembourg or in the United Kingdom” and the answer is, without one moment’s hesitation, in Luxembourg

@RolloTreadway my MIL was anti "pen pushers" despite working as a medical secretary for a bit....

As soon as you asked which departments to cut she couldn't name one, if you went through the departments one by one she would concede they were all needed

Pre tory the NHS was rated one of the most efficient in the world. Better than private systems.

And don't forget America pays more per head than the UK but gets worse outcomes

@RolloTreadway absolutely.

And we want our clinical staff doing clinical things. Not wasting 30 mins a day they could be doing clinical stuff trying to figure out a procurement system.