Tuesday, July 11, 2006

BBC NEWS | Health | Managers blamed for NHS deficits

In as sense, the NHS managers are right. It is "all too easy" to blame them for the NHS SNAFU's.

The NHS is intrinsically inefficient; a massive "producer cooperative" where there are no career consequences for inefficiency. If a manager in a private company were to overrun his budgets by anything like the amounts which are common in the NHS, his career would be over - and not just with that company.

NHS hospitals should be privatised. The government should confine itself to regulating the health insurance industry so as to ensure that policies are not written to exclude pre-existing conditions etc. (averaging costs across all policies), enforcing a compulsory health insurance scheme and then writing cheques to insurers for those who are unable to pay for their own health insurance.

Hospitals which are in danger of going bankrupt if their budgets are not met would soon find proper people to manage them. They would also ensure a sensible ratio of managers to fee-earning staff (doctors and nurses).

BBC NEWS | Health | Managers blamed for NHS deficits

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