The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[Bruce Wayne]

When did doctors go on strike? I'm assuming you're refering to the non-urgent care industrial action of a few years ago. You make it sound rather more dramatic. And your characterisation of people striking as "working class heroes" and doing it "because they want more money" is a puerile oversimplification of an often complex issue. But then, you always misrepresent Unions since you don't actually think they should even exist (which makes your views on the subject null and void to many, I expect).

And are we talking about "doctors starting a company to provide services in a different way"? I'm thinking of profiteering companies getting their foot in the NHS door to make money out of healthcare. Sounds a bit less altruistic than the terms you framed it in.

It is not a left-field view to think Healthcare services should be non-profit-making. It is you whose views are outside the mainstream, not us.

Of course it's an over simplification, just as it is to tag anyone non-state as being unable to provide healthcare without checking their balance sheet first. And we kind of are talking about doctors starting a company. I've met with dozens of such doctors over the past year or so, and by the simplistic labeling of 'public good/private bad', they'd be in the bad camp because they've done their thing externally of the NHS. I mean the marketplace for home carers I linked to earlier was started by a doctor, yet it's not state run. Is he an evil profiteer or someone frustrated with how things are (and how tough it is to change things) and driven to try it on his own?

As Simon Stevens himself says

“No. Most services in this country are delivered by the NHS and that’s going to continue to be the case under any foreseeable future. But the tests we should be applying are that we think like a patient and act like a taxpayer and sometimes there will be a case for whether you need a hip operation [being done in the private sector, but paid for by the NHS].”

In other words, the quality of the care and it being free at the point of delivery is the primary concern, not who provides it.

I'm not saying private business is "cold hearted and dastardly" - I'm saying the core reason they exist for the most part is to make a profit. I should know, I bloody run one! For example, if it's a supermarket making a business decision to sell cheap in volume to beat a supermarket who sells at a moderate price but dominates market share, they aren't selling cheap out of the goodness of their own heart; they're doing so as it enables growth and profit.

The difference is the subject matter - health. The moment you privatise health, you underpin it with the need to make a profit. You've seen Circle jump ship as profit was hard to come by, meaning instability for the hospital, and you've seen standards slip alarmingly whilst chasing those profits. For a supermarket, downsizing is an option, as is negotiating with suppliers and so on - for a hospital, not so much. That's why it's dangerous.

That isn't how it works though, is it? I mean the state don't manufacture all of the equipment that is in our hospitals, do they? They buy that equipment from companies who mostly operate to turn a profit. Do you think that's wrong as well and that these companies are out to profiteer from health?

I'm certainly not advocating the privatisation of the NHS, far from it. I'm saying that healthcare throughout the developed world is facing some enormous challenges at the moment. We've seen tremendous improvements in value in other areas of life, yet healthcare still suffers from Baumol's disease. Therefore I don't think it's at all wise to restrict access to ideas and solutions to the challenges faced to employees of the NHS and them alone. That isn't the way things are going to improve.

That's a long way from advocating something akin to what America has.

 

[Clint Planet]

Of course it's an over simplification, just as it is to tag anyone non-state as being unable to provide healthcare without checking their balance sheet first.

Well, that's okay, then. And you have the nerve to complain about the quality of debate.

*sigh*

 

[Blue 1]

Let me get this right.

You are ok with a link being posted but not what the link shows 'others' writing'. So you are ok to read the link but not when the 'others' writings' (the link) is shown.

 

[hullefc]

You only need to post the link, mate.

Is anyone else finding the constant copy/pasting of huge swathes of others' writing quite annoying?

Which 'swathes of others' writing(s) are annoying you?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

An example here of the kind of thing I mean. Obviously we've all seen the stories about the 'A&E crisis'. One possible solution to that is to get fewer people to go to A&E. There have been a host of developments in this field over the past few years, from the wearable devices that can monitor our signals (led by the Tricorder competition), to Watson style data diagnosis through to the various platforms offering telehealth.

Airedale NHS trust wanted to try some of this out so set up an experiment to try and reduce A&E visits in their community.

http://www.adjacentgovernment.co.uk...iredale-nhs-trust-combat-healthcare-problems/

They setup secure video connections between residents in nursing homes and clinicians to give them access to 24/7 medical care. So if a resident takes a tumble (for instance), they can receive medical attention without having to leave their home.

When the system was tested out, it saw a 35% reduction in emergency admissions and a 53% drop in A&E attendance.

One of the pioneers of this kind of telehealth is Ali Parsa who has created his Babylon platform to provide just that. Who's Ali Parsa you ask? Former CEO of Circle, so you'd probably have hung, drawn and quartered him by association.

Things aren't always black and white.

 

[hullefc]

An example here of the kind of thing I mean. Obviously we've all seen the stories about the 'A&E crisis'. One possible solution to that is to get fewer people to go to A&E. There have been a host of developments in this field over the past few years, from the wearable devices that can monitor our signals (led by the Tricorder competition), to Watson style data diagnosis through to the various platforms offering telehealth.

Airedale NHS trust wanted to try some of this out so set up an experiment to try and reduce A&E visits in their community.

http://www.adjacentgovernment.co.uk...iredale-nhs-trust-combat-healthcare-problems/

They setup secure video connections between residents in nursing homes and clinicians to give them access to 24/7 medical care. So if a resident takes a tumble (for instance), they can receive medical attention without having to leave their home.

When the system was tested out, it saw a 35% reduction in emergency admissions and a 53% drop in A&E attendance.

One of the pioneers of this kind of telehealth is Ali Parsa who has created his Babylon platform to provide just that. Who's Ali Parsa you ask? Former CEO of Circle, so you'd probably have hung, drawn and quartered him by association.

Things aren't always black and white.

There is always someone that will make money out of health.

"Parsa launched Babylon, a mobile healthcare app, in April 2014.[6] This is a subscription health service that lets subscribers, for £7.99 per month, book virtual GP consultations with professional clinicians, monitor symptoms and receive prescriptions 12 hours a day, six days per week.[7] It has a monitoring system that encourages tracking of the health of the subscriber".

I work in a care home and if a person I support has a fall, and there are signs of a bruise or bump, they have to be taken to A and E. It is company policy and I would assume be part of the insurance for the company.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Seriously, it isn't difficult to reference the quotes mate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Parsa

Does Babylon being a subscription model render telehealth as holding no lessons at all for the NHS? Airedale would suggest otherwise.

 

[hullefc]

Seriously, it isn't difficult to reference the quotes mate lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Parsa

Does Babylon being a subscription model render telehealth as holding no lessons at all for the NHS? Airedale would suggest otherwise.

Like I said there is always money to be made out of health. £7.99 a pop. A nice little earner after the elderly have already paid their taxes for free healthcare through their taxes and national insurance contributions. Airedale are charging those in the home for this service? Charging to see a clinician through their GP. Charging to see a doctor has always been on the cards and this is the first step in that direction.

And when TTIP become 'law' in the UK health insurance will be the norm.

 

[The Mighty Quint]

The Tories are scum, never ever trust a word that comes out of their mouths, vote Labour and get them out.

Close Thread.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Like I said there is always money to be made out of health. £7.99 a pop. A nice little earner after the elderly have already paid their taxes for free healthcare through their taxes and national insurance contributions. Airedale are charging those in the home for this service? Charging to see a clinician through their GP. Charging to see a doctor has always been on the cards and this is the first step in that direction.

And when TTIP become 'law' in the UK health insurance will be the norm.

No, it's an NHS trial using NHS doctors Seriously, do you work for free in your care home or do you profit from health too?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The Tories are scum, never ever trust a word that comes out of their mouths, vote Labour and get them out.

Close Thread.

Thanks for that considered contribution

 

[hullefc]

No, it's an NHS trial using NHS doctors lol Seriously, do you work for free in your care home or do you profit from health too?

Incredible. A trial using VIRTUAL 'doctors' connected to the hospital/GP surgery and from the care home. And not a practitioner in sight at £7.99 a person.

http://www.adjacentgovernment.co.uk...iredale-nhs-trust-combat-healthcare-problems/

From the case study.

“We’ve used it for advice on breathing complaints, a head injury, rashes, chest infections and the patient can be seen so clearly on screen.” Rachel Binks, nurse consultant for outreach and critical care at the trust, adds the high definition cameras and screens, linked by the NHS’s secure N3 network, provide a very clear view of the patient. “We can see whether they are having a problem, say with their breathing, and we can use other equipment like telemonitoring to assess them.”

 

[hullefc]

No, it's an NHS trial using NHS doctors lol Seriously, do you work for free in your care home or do you profit from health too?

Oh dear, scraping the barrel. 'Because you work in the health sector then you profit from your job'.

profit
ˈprɒfɪt/
noun

1. 1.
   a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something.
   "record pre-tax profits"
   synonyms: financial gain, gain, return(s), payback, dividend, interest, yield,surplus, excess; More
   
   
2. 2.
   advantage; benefit.
   "there's no profit in screaming at referees from the bench"
   synonyms: advantage, benefit, value, use, gain, good, avail, worth, usefulness;More

You seem to be implying the first definition. I don't own the care company I work for it and for minimum wage £6.50, whether I work mornings or afternoon shifts or nights. No days off in leiu for bank holidays including Christmas and New Year which I get a 'bonus' of £5 per hour more if I am rotated to work.

Welcome to the real world of privatised health care. Further expanded and coming to a town near you when TTIP becomes law.

 

[Azzurri]

Let me get this right.

You are ok with a link being posted but not what the link shows 'others' writing'. So you are ok to read the link but not when the 'others' writings' (the link) is shown.

Lol wut

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Incredible. A trial using VIRTUAL 'doctors' connected to the hospital/GP surgery and from the care home. And not a practitioner in sight at £7.99 a person.

http://www.adjacentgovernment.co.uk...iredale-nhs-trust-combat-healthcare-problems/

From the case study.

“We’ve used it for advice on breathing complaints, a head injury, rashes, chest infections and the patient can be seen so clearly on screen.” Rachel Binks, nurse consultant for outreach and critical care at the trust, adds the high definition cameras and screens, linked by the NHS’s secure N3 network, provide a very clear view of the patient. “We can see whether they are having a problem, say with their breathing, and we can use other equipment like telemonitoring to assess them.”

I think you're getting confused. The Airedale trial was not provided by Babylon, it was a tele-health project. Babylon are a tele-health provider.

An interesting piece from Brunel's Terry Young

So where have we mastered complex systems? If we think again about cities, you might have predicted that it would have become impossible to feed people if transportation routes clogged up. But most people in cities dine in and out rather well. Supermarkets haven’t built larger warehouses next to their stores in order to cope with fewer deliveries – rather they have done the opposite and eliminated most of the in-store storage space. Similarly, more staff or more beds tend not to solve the problems of healthcare capacity. We need to design the system in a new way.

Supermarkets didn’t just hope for the best. They designed ways to flow groceries into their stores with extreme care, setting up advanced signalling systems to tell them exactly what was needed where and when. To do this, they’ve moved well beyond checklists, using simulation and modelling to design their logistics and advanced computing to predict what will happen next. In the same way, we need to focus on the flow of patients into and around our centres of service.

Our intuition to meet demand by creating more posts, or more beds – or to run for longer hours – is simply likely to delay the point at which demand inevitably overwhelms our ability to provide a service. We need to design and implement much deeper solutions. Just as getting rid of supermarket storage was a measure that ran counter to normal intuition, so our intuition and experience in health are unlikely to help us find the best interventions for healthcare.

Again Gawande points to something very important: start using the methods and tools that have tamed the chaos elsewhere. Beyond checklists are more advanced tools, used routinely to manage supply chains, run rescue missions, drive production, maintain the flow of petrochemicals and co-ordinate transport systems across the globe. The NHS could use these: simple strategies that have been developed to help people focus on what really matters when the crisis seems overwhelming.

Computer models, like computer games, allow you to try out tactics and strategies quickly and safely. They allow you to evaluate options: what if I route these patients this way? What if I close this ward? What if I create this new type of community service? They also allow everyone involved to see what is happening and to have a say. It is this kind of resource that could transform the ability of the NHS to design and deliver services that beat demand.

We need such resources because the solution to this crisis will look, in places, very different to anything we have seen so far. The system will always beat us if our next step is simply to try to correct the problem facing us. But there are ways to beat the system.

http://theconversation.com/aande-cr...-systems-level-could-drive-a-better-nhs-36153