Clapping - a Confession

A confession – I ‘clapped for Carers’ for a couple of weeks.  Wasn’t really that comfortable doing so – it’s not really a thing the English do but I did it.

Another confession – I don’t ‘clap for Carers’ anymore.

I feel better having got that off of my chest.  But I feel so much better knowing that no one can accuse me of clapping for the NHS because I won’t do that.

I won’t clap for NHS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Managers (starting salary more than £58K)

I won’t clap for NHS Climate Change Managers (starting salary more than £44K)

I won’t be clapping for NHS Procurement Managers (starting salary £38K)

I won’t be clapping for the owners of private care homes.

And I won’t be clapping for Sir Simon Stevens – NHS Chief Executive (salary £190K+) or the thousands of other  highly-paid NHS ‘executives’

Indeed, I won’t be clapping for any of these people who have failed us.

And that’s what they have done.  They have failed us. 

They have failed to have sufficient PPE supplies for hospitals and care homes.  Be clear – the failures are those of the NHS ‘management’ and Care Home owners.  It is patently not the failure of the government. 

The NHS have wasted taxpayer money on virtue signaling jobs such as those above.  Think of a local NHS trust.  Now think what possible impact the Trust’s Climate Change Manager can have on the climate.  The Sun (the one in the sky not the newspaper) is the single most important determinant in the situation regarding our climate.  Not just most important but overwhelmingly dominant.  And yet, Trusts employ someone who will tell you to turn off the light when you leave a room or recycle your plastic water bottle!

The leadership of the NHS and Care Homes have feathered their own nests while neglecting their core responsibilities to their patients and their employees.

Ask yourself this – Are you aware of any, I repeat any, NHS Procurement or Supply Chain Manager – you remember, those whose job it is to ensure that the NHS is supplied with what it needs to do its job – anyone who has resigned at his or her failure?   The lure of those above national average salaries (plus of course, cosseted benefits) far outweighs integrity and basic decency on the scales of life, for these people.

Imagine for a moment, what would have happened if the Government had not stepped in?  Does anyone seriously believe that the NHS Executive would have been able to organize the Nightingale Hospitals?  Anyone? 

Some of the actions taken by the Government have maybe later found to be unnecessary – Nightingales being a case in point – but they were, and remain, a necessary contingency.  These though were built by the organizational skills of the British military. Mostly the British Army.  Not the army of Supply Chain and Procurement Managers and so called ‘professionals’ but the real Army.  They just did what they always do – they got on with it.  Give them a problem and they’ll fix it.  Give the same problem to the NHS and they advertise for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Managers and Climate Change Managers so as to ensure that all aspects address the requirements of the ‘woke’ commentariat.

And while your ire might be directed against this army of bureaucrats, please don’t lose sight of their ‘leaders’.  The Tax Payers’ Alliance (@the_tpa) advised, in April 2020, that 242 NHS ‘executives’ were on 6 figure salaries.  Supposedly they get these ‘film star’ wages because they know what they’re doing.  Well, their stellar performance has led us to the situation where the Government had to intervene and assume responsibility to get things done because the NHS ‘executives' were simply not up to the job. 

Post-Covid19, there will be some kind of public inquiry – I now have the ability to predict the plaintive calls of the Labour Party for one – remarkable, I know - it’s a gift .  This inquiry must examine and name and shame the NHS ‘executives’ who so roundly failed us.  Heads must roll and a complete re-organization of the NHS must be undertaken.  Clearly it is not fit for purpose. Note:  When these heads roll – no Golden Goodbyes, please.

These NHS ‘executives’ and indeed, throughout the organization, support a group-think that – you have to have been in the NHS, in order to work for it.  This dangerous policy has borne fruit in the recent crisis with the so called leaders – you remember, those people that are constantly on the news, saying that the NHS is underfunded, those ones – unable to perform a basic task like getting PPE to front-line carers in hospitals and GP surgeries. 

And the private sector is no better.  I occasionally sleep so I must have missed the moment when responsibility for the provision of PPE shifted from private sector employers to the State.  I’ve never heard of a construction company, knocking on the door of No. 10 and asking for their hard hats or safety boots.

Of course, if you accept that it IS the responsibility of the State to provide for private businesses, then you can be sure that the BBC and other media will give you a platform from which to whine – after all, if it’s anti-Government, then the BBC  or Sky is your man (or woman).

I could go on in the same vein but enough for now.

I started off by saying who I won’t clap for but please don’t think I am some kind of ingrate who can’t recognize the huge contribution made by individuals up and down the country.  I am talking about;

Hospital doctors and nurses

Shop workers

GPs and their staff

Dustbin men and women

Postmen and women

Delivery drivers

Government Ministers

Volunteers who tirelessly just help.

I would have liked to include teachers but it seems that they, and their Left-dominated unions, have decided that while it’s safe enough for others to work, they can’t let the opportunity to thwart the Government pass them by and so they won’t return to work.

NHS and death

Another day, another NHS cover-up story!

What shocks me about the latest news of a cover-up, is the way that politicians and the media express faux-surprise that these events (the failures surrounding baby deaths at Cumbria hospital) occur.

What do we expect? 

We have an organization that has gorged on ever-increasing sums of tax-payer money and whose now almost sole purpose is to ensure that it can extract ever more funding.  Patient care or more properly patient-centred care is not even on the agenda. 

The NHS has been broken for years.  The Labour party, mindful of the strong union presence within the organization, has thrown money at the NHS and have very skillfully brought the debate (or actually the lack of debate) to such a state that funding for the NHS is almost considered sacrosanct.  Even the Tories and the 'tail wagging the dog' Lib Dems took office promising to ring fence NHS spending plans and funding.

So while the army gets sent to fight wars, poorly or ill-equipped and for their troubles then face redundancies, doctors, nurses and the whole plethora of middle managers get to enjoy job protections and perks that the rest of the world can only dream of.

The Taxpayers Alliance (TPA)  recently produced a report which showed the staggeringly large amounts of money that is wasted by UK government in its various guises.  For anybody that pays taxes this is truly a frightening read.  The low-side estimated total is £120 Billion.  And that likely excludes a whole lot of other waste that the TPA highlight but don't add to the total on the grounds that they might then be double counting.  If only the government spenders were so careful and acted with such probity!

Here are just a few examples of the waste that is found just in the NHS:

• £13 Million by London NHS Trusts on Public Relations (Source TPA and BBC)
• £6 Million paid by a single NHS Trust to five doctors to provide 'top-up' services in the period 2007 to 2010 (Source TPA and Daily Mail)
• £18 Million paid in gagging orders to 600 NHS officials (Source TPA and Daily Telegraph)
• £80 Million spent on prescribing Vitamin D, much of which is overpriced - for example, £2,400 was spent on a £16 Vitamin D treatment.  (Source TPA and Daily Mail)
• £128,383 paid to a healthcare assistant who falsely claimed the right to work.  (Source TPA and NHS Business Services Authority)
• £1 Million - spent on luxury vehicles for Strategic health Authority employees, including Porsche Boxters (Source TPA and Daily Mail)
• £1 Million paid as a golden goodbye to a former chief executive of the NHS Midlands and East.

Sadly, the list goes on and on.  Remember also, that these are just some of the examples that the gallant TPA (not government funded) manage to uncover through Freedom of Information requests. 

Also these include examples uncovered by the press.  The same press that Leveson and all of the political parties want to muzzle!  Draw you own conclusions as to motive.  My view is that the freedom of the press to uncover such waste, is much more important than a celebrity's right to have a blow job in public and not have the police case exposed!  I suppose it comes down to values, in the end.

Talking of values, search your news outlets and media organizations.  See if you can find any calls for the resignation of Andy Burnham (or just see if you can find Andy Burnham).  He was the minister in charge of the NHS in the last Labour government - remember?  he was the one in charge when 1,200 people died at Mid Staffs Hospital as a result of appalling levels of care being administered in 'our wonderful NHS'.   See also if you can find anything of Sir David Nicholson.  He is the head of the NHS.  He received a knighthood, presumably for his services to the Health Service (you couldn't make it up).  He was the head of the relevant Strategic Health Authority, at the time of the Mid Staff deaths.  he retains his knighthood and will leave the NHS, next year, with a rumoured £4 million pension pot.  That should give him something like £200,000 a year pension, for life!  Oh, and he will get that, even if he then, after a short break, goes and joins a health consultancy  or medical equipment provider, pharmaceutical company, etc.!

Surely the scales must be starting to drop from the eyes of the people?  Mid Staffs and Cumbria are just the tips of a very murky iceberg, I fear.   We likely won't ever know the full extent of the negligence and poor care that people receive at the hands of 'our wonderful NHS' because this 'national treasure' uses tax-payer money to buy-off potential whistle-blowers and usually settles cases of alleged mal-practise out of court and with confidentiality clauses attached.

It is surely time that the ring-fence was removed from the 'envy of the world' - which strangely no other country copies - and the  excessive fat removed.  Radical reform is required but in reality I hold out little hope of change.  It doesn't seem to matter whether it is old people in Mid Staffs or babies in Cumbria that are dying - no one in government cares enough about them to do anything.  I guess, what it comes down to is that the dead don't have a vote!