I'm sure you're right, Michael - political cover ...BOTH in terms of the
'prognosis' coming from private consultancies AND the resultant
management/ownership possibly being private.
Personally, I would prefer that Virgin cleaned up their UK train service
before offering trips to the moon or, now, the doc's surgery (maybe
there'll be real patient choice - "Do you want an airline-style seat in
the waiting room, or a traditional chair - supplement of $10 pounds for
the former and a further $3.50 for an in-date glossy magazine")....
....but maybe, like Adam, I'm just an incorrigible leftie.
Calum
PS This has put me in the mood to inundate you with another posting...so I
will in a min. when i retrieve it from the King's Fund site!)
Is this about the privitization of NHS hospitals or just about closing
> hospitals? I thought it was the latter and the role of the private
> consultants was to provide political cover.
>
> It might be interesting to compare what is happening in London to. NY
> State's recent efforts to close hospitals.
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone
>
>
> -----Original message-----
> From: Adam Oliver <[log in to unmask]>
> To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thu, Jul 5, 2012 16:01:29 GMT+00:00
> Subject: Re: What is likely to happen at South East London
>
> Max
>
> I'm not sure why the private sector offers the solution, although I don't
> doubt that it is possible to have private sector facilities. South London
> might have been a basket case, but there are many examples of public
> sector excellence. The key it seems to me, is to have excellent, command
> and control management.
>
> There is also little evidence that the private sector, in any sector, is
> more innovative than the public sector. Quite the reverse, actually. And
> given recent practices in banking and pharmaceuticals, there should
> probably be a serious discussion vis-a-vis (re)nationalisation, although
> there probably never will be. All the chickens - re banking, housing etc
> etc - are coming, or will, come home to roost. But most of the people who
> decide on agendas are not the people most negatively affected by them.
>
> Most people seem to get more conservative as they get older, but I seem to
> be going the other way. Either I'm stupid, or most other people are.
>
> Salute
> Adam
> ________________________________
> From: Max Hotopf <[log in to unmask]>
> Sender: Anglo-American Health Policy Network <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2012 16:33:46 +0100
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> ReplyTo: Max Hotopf <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: What is likely to happen at South East London
>
> I thought the list would be interested in our latest article in Healthcare
> Europa on South London...
>
> South London NHS Healthcare Trust - The game changer
>
> Expect fast progress and private sector involvement in the restructuring
> of the failed South London NHS Healthcare Trust. The administrator is
> about to be appointed and a short list of consultancies to advise and plan
> has been drawn up. The government wants the changes to be made in April
> 2013.
>
> Four consultancies - McKinsey, PWC, KMPG and Ernst and Young (who are
> already advising) are on the administratorâ�s short list. Our
sources say
> that there will be no option but to involve the private sector in the
> solution and that the solution will have to involve closing or completely
> altering the function of one of the three hospital sites.
>
> One scenario could see the hot acute site sloughed off to Kingâ�s
Health,
> the big central London NHS Foundation Trust with the conversion of one
> site into an elective factory run by the private sector and a third taken
> over by a mental health trust. We are likely to see the formation of a
> private consortium bringing together a primary operator such as Virgin, a
> hospital operator such as Ramsay and a property group like Langs. There
> is a need to push a lot more services into primary care and away from the
> hospitals.
>
> The big question is "how radical is the government prepared to be?" In the
> past, attempts to functionally outsource to the private sector have been
> hamstrung by union insistence that the private operators should not have
> the right to hire and fire staff. They have also been hamstrung by time
> frames of 5-10 years which means that it is impossible for operators to
> make the necessary structural changes. These can deliver very impressive
> savings. PFI projects which deliver new hospitals typically cost 10% of
> the revenue of the trust for the next thirty years. Providing management
> changes are made to take advantage of the new structure, it typically pays
> off in improved productivity.
>
> British governments are typically unwilling to be associated with actual
> hospital closures. Yet the consensus is that at least one of the three
> sites in South London has to be closed or converted if savings are to be
> made.
>
> So everything hinges on how brave the government is willing to be. We
> think it is doubtful that we will see the most effective private sector
> solution which would be to give the entire operation to a company like
> Helios, Asklepios or Ramsay, which is adept at hospital privatisation, on
> a 20 or 30 year contract, allowing it to close and sell off one hospital
> and completely reorganise services
>
> But some sources are optimistic that there will be real change.
> â�Administration is going to happen and it is going to be a
completely
> new set of rules. The powers that be are prepared to think the
> unthinkable.â�
>
> Our Analysis: Another test for the British government on the pace of NHS
> reform. The government wants a solution in place by April 2013. There will
> be an election before the summer of 2015 (probably late 2014 or 2015) and
> the tight deadline indicates that the government is prepared to deploy
> radical solutions and to get them out of the way before the election
> starts. A later deadline would make any radical solution most unlikely.
>
>
>
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