30th March 2023

Bonanza for agencies supplying NHS staff
In 2021 the total cost of agency supplied staff was £3 billion, up 20%. One single shift for a freelance doctor at one hospital cost £5,200. Why then are the numbers of medical student places capped? Why was the student nurse training bursary abolished?

NHS’s need of massive injection of staff
The NHS needs a massive injection of homegrown doctors, nurses, GPs and dentists to avert a recruitment crisis. A long-awaited workforce plan says it’s already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs, and that number could balloon to 571,000 staff by 2036.

Why use management consultants?
Here’s a short Radio 4 programme critically examining this. A professor in management says the acronym FEEL describes the reason. F for facilitate, E expert, E for extra (where you don’t have enough people) and L for legitimate. Such is the hyped-up capability of “consultants” I’m persuaded it’s the L.  Research only confirms our scepticism.

ICSs: “corporate control of our healthcare”
“…those assisting in the rollout of this deadly system. including MPs, may not even know they are growing the private healthcare industry.”

Collapsed PFI firm sues NHS trust
The private finance initiative agreement between Whittington Facilities Ltd and Whittington Health Trust ended in August 2020 after the former went into administration. They claim the trust’s decision to withhold service payments following a fire in January 2018 caused the company to enter administration. Should litigation like this be involved in providing a national health service?