British Politics: Coalitions, Cuts and AV

[MOBIUS]

Hospitals have CEO's whose job it is to minimise costs.

Are those the guys being paid massive six-figure sums?

[MOBIUS]

ah, i must of confused you with mobius (sorry mobius ).

Yeah, that's me!

Nothing's changed my opinion re the Lib Dems. In fact I would say that I am now more committed to them now that they actually have the opportunity to positively affect government policy in a concrete manner.

As for Clegg, I think he has been very effective overall - it's just that everyone has jumped on the bandwagon of bashing him and hiding his accomplishments...

[C0ckney]

mike, if you spend over 3x as much money on something, you would hope it would be better than before...

i found some numbers on NHS staffing, from 1995-2005 http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/public...240406_PDF.pdf

it seems my memory failed me somewhat on the numbers. it does indicate that the number of support staff increased by more than by the numbers of doctors, nurses etc. it also says number of managers and senior managers increased more than any other group of NHS staff, in percentage terms. it's an interesting read, although it's hard to draw many conclusions from that alone.

however it seems that we're not getting enough value for our money, according to a parliamentry committee looking at the issue. article from the guardian

Despite increased resources, NHS productivity has fallen over the past 10 years, according to a report by parliament's public accounts committee.

Since 2000 total NHS productivity fell by an average of 0.2% a year, and by an average of 1.4% a year in hospitals, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Government spending on the NHS increased by 70%, from £60bn in 2000-01 to £102bn in 2010-11, with some 40% spent on services provided by acute and foundation hospitals.

This investment has resulted in improvements, as hospitals have focused on areas targeted by the Department of Health (DH), such as hospital waiting times and treatments for cancer and heart disease

Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the committee, said: "The quality of the health service has improved as a result of this increase in spending. But the taxpayer has been getting less for each pound spent."

[Krill]

Sounds like you already understand it pretty well.

People like local services, localisation is always popular as a concept for the NHS, being able to get any treatment down the road from where you live. But from efficiency and effective care perspective it's rubbish. You are better off having a few national centres of excellence, where people with specialist conditions can go and get really excellent care from teams that deal with their condition all the time, and who can afford all the latest equipment etc. than you are having every hospital being generalist and average at everything.

Actually, that's pretty much wrong on almost every level.

[Cort Haus]

Are those the guys being paid massive six-figure sums?

CEOs usually are. Maybe we should pay them £17,000 and see who we get.

[Provost Harrison]

OK, here we go, two similar but slightly different AV elections:

a) 33 Livingstone > Paddick > Johnson
16 Paddick > Livingstone > Johnson
16 Paddick > Johnson > Livingstone
35 Johnson > Paddick > Livingstone

b) 31 Livingstone > Paddick > Johnson
16 Paddick > Livingstone > Johnson
16 Paddick > Johnson > Livingstone
35 Johnson > Paddick > Livingstone
2 Johnson > Livingstone > Paddick

The difference here is that two voters have moved Johnson up from last to first on their ballots, keeping all the other candidates in the same order. Who wins election (a), and who wins election (b)?

Don't know...what's the weighting?

[MikeH]

Actually, that's pretty much wrong on almost every level.

Huh?

People don't like local services?

Specialist units, with teams focusing on one condition all the time aren't more successful than more generalist units?

Specialist units aren't more efficient than having equipment in every hospital?

More specific please. Thnks.

[MOBIUS]

Actually, that's pretty much wrong on almost every level.

WTF!!?

Kindly elucidate please.

[MOBIUS]

CEOs usually are. Maybe we should pay them £17,000 and see who we get.

Maybe we should - they'd probably do a better job half of the time.

[C0ckney]

budget today. nothing to really set the pulses racing, but overall i think fairly good. here's a summary

- 4p per litre fuel duty rise due in April postponed
-Additional 1p to be cut from fuel duty from 6pm
- Fuel duty escalator scrapped
- £2bn tax rise on oil firms to pay for fuel changes

i think overall this is good, especially with oil prices rising so rapidly due to events in the middle east. scrapping the escalator will provide more flexibility. although obviously the higher taxes will simply to passed on to consumers by the oil companies.

Air Passenger Duty rise delayed by one year

Previous government's alcohol duty rises will go ahead

sucks, but probably the right thing to do.

Further £600 increase in personal tax allowance from April 2012

taking the low paid out of tax

Corporation tax cut by 1%

i would be happy with a reduction in the headline rate, if more were being done to clamp down on avoidance.

Financial help for 10,000 first-time buyers to get on property ladder

pure political window dressing

Plans to merge tax and National Insurance

great idea. i fully support this.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

the budget is as expected, nothing particularly bad or good, but the bad was already decided on in the past... the pain is just starting... prediction for the end of this year is recession again vs no recession in the rest of the world

this year will be interesting on how it plays out in UK...likely high inflation, wider "borrowing" gap than expected, house price falls also faster than expected, higher unemployment than expected and less tax receipts... LibCons ... hope I am wrong, but this is the direction set earlier, and being kept up right now...

edit: during the year they will be cutting down NHS to size as they "cannot afford it" ... especially with the "tax & NI" bundling... while there are no indications in that direction yet, I could easily bet on this outcome

[C0ckney]

all the reports i've seen in the media say that borrowing is likely to be lower than expected, to the tune of around £8billion.

as for the NHS we've already had the spending review and two budgets plus the tory commitment not to cut NHS funding, and plans for a reorganisation published. so i wonder where you get your ideas from there...

[OneFootInTheGrave]

from the air

lets check in this time around next year

[Egbert]

CEOs usually are. Maybe we should pay them £17,000 and see who we get.

Monkeys?

[MikeH]

The most anti-environmental budget for over 20 years?