NHS "Fat Cats" ?

[J4CKO]

Not sure what to make of this, are these managers in the NHS required, valuable and make their various trusts run better or are they just having a nice lifestyle at the expense of frontline staff ?

All organisations have a boss, generally they get paid well because they are good at what they do so I am perhaps not that quick to dismiss them as leeches getting fat on our tax money, as such I am not making any comment either way, am just after hearing your insights into this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3046054/Gr...

[Talksteer]

J4CKO said:

Not sure what to make of this, are these managers in the NHS required, valuable and make their various trusts run better or are they just having a nice lifestyle at the expense of frontline staff ?

All organisations have a boss, generally they get paid well because they are good at what they do so I am perhaps not that quick to dismiss them as leeches getting fat on our tax money, as such I am not making any comment either way, am just after hearing your insights into this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3046054/Gr...

Switched off the second they got the the revelation that somebody go paid more than the Prime Minister....

The NHS turns over £110 billion, dozens of parts of the NHS will spend more money and employ more people than companies on the FTSE 100.

As an example Nottingham University Hospital, has a budget of £650 million and employs 6000 people, I'd expect the person who runs such an establishment to be well paid.

Likewise in such a large organisation they'd be plenty of opportunity to hire dodgy people or to have people taking unjustifiably high salaries, doesn't mean that people are in general overpaid, my gut feeling is that NHS managers are probably paid less than someone in a corporate environment with equivalent budget or responsibilities.

I'd make two points on this article:

1: It st like this article that makes the debate on the NHS so annoying, parties vying with each other to out spend each other with our money, and trying to scare people with the plans of other parties make it impossible to reasonably reform the NHS. If we could agree a few things between the main parties it would actually make it possible to improve the health service.

1: We should spend a fixed percentage of national earnings on healthcare (removed the argument we'd spend more on health, the other guy wants to cut it).
2: Everybody will receive a high standard of healthcare irrespective of their ability to pay.
3: Nobody will be bankrupted or suffer significant financial loss from medical bills.
4: The healthcare service will attempt to achieve the maximum amount of societal good from it' fixed budget.
5: The government will regulate the healthcare system, in line with the above aim.

Everything else is up for grabs....

2: High pay is another issue, I'd actually argue that we've got the point where payment of top employees (as opposed to owners or founders who I'm happy to see keep their billions) is out of line with the value actually required to attract capable people. The bosses of the top 100 companies are not more skilled or cleverer than the people one tier below them (fundamentally they can't be). That salaries in many areas are disproportionately high would indicate that there is not an efficient market in the top echelons of companies or in certain industries. Goes somewhat beyond the scope of this article......

[carinaman]

How many of them are managing and how many of them are playing Common Purpose Snakes and Ladders?:

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Nepotism-row-h...

Her plotting and bullying became unraveled just after she'd been awarded an honour in the New Year's Honours list and been awarded an honourary doctorate from Exeter University.

That trust now seems to refer to it as 'a damaging whistle blowing incident' or something like that.

So not a case of Managers leading beyond authority and running an NHS Trust like their own family firm then?

I wonder how much the NHS pays annually to Common Purpose to develop and train 'Future Leaders'?

How big a Leech on the public sector purse is Common Purpose?

Edited by carinaman on Monday 20th April 04:31

[Countdown]

What does ^^^^ have to do with Common Purpose?

With regards to "NHS Fat Cats" - for the amount of work involved I don't think they're that well paid.

[carinaman]

The thread or my post? I'm sure if you look you can see how that head of NHS Trust and that NHS England's National Lead for Equality and Diversity was getting paid before she came unstuck for changing a job description to suit her girlfriend's boyfriend and giving her the job as Diversity Manager.

I've assumed that that was a little cabal of Common Purpose people. Some opined that it was the funny handshake club, but subsequent stuff coming from that NHS Trust hasn't done much to dispel my thoughts that Common Purpose type nonsense was involved.

The thread is about how much NHS Senior Managers are getting paid. I've just cited an example where an NHS England Lead for Equality & Diversity and head of an NHS Trust couldn't see anything wrong giving her daughter's boyfriend a job.

So I am wondering if she was paid to 'manage' or getting rewarded with a large salary for running part of the NHS like her own little fiefdom.

Are they working for the NHS, patients or Common Purpose?

[NicD]

Countdown said:

What does ^^^^ have to do with Common Purpose?

With regards to "NHS Fat Cats" - for the amount of work involved I don't think they're that well paid.

ah good, a knowledgable insider.

How much work is involved, and how do you know this?

[carinaman]

Do any of these well paid Managers ever get hauled to account for their actions and failures?

Like Vaz asking why they were using Anti-Terrorism legislation to spy on whistle blowers? Or was it Hodge?

Using Anti-Terrorism legislation to spy on whistle blowers sounds like a trick the Common Purpose crowd would think is justified or could excuse their way out of.

[98elise]

The NHS is the lergest employer in the country. It needs a decent managment team, and that comes at a certain cost.

That said for the money it recieves we get a piss poor service so something is not working.

[gruffalo]

98elise said:

The NHS is the lergest employer in the country. It needs a decent managment team, and that comes at a certain cost.

That said for the money it recieves we get a piss poor service so something is not working.

The NHS employs around 1.3 "million people and I agree it does need a very good management team, one though.

Massive reform of the NHS is needed, the ratio of admin and managers to patients is far from where it needs to be.

All in my opinion of course.

[V8 Fettler]

Substantial remuneration should be associated with substantial responsibility. This should include the likelihood of manslaughter charges on an individual basis when management failings lead to fatalities. Mid-Staffordshire.

Senior NHS management are generally incompetent, hence the need for frequent structural changes.

[blueg33]

My business works closely with the NHS, on our joint projects we take all the ticks and drive all the decisions. NHS management practices are always the cause of delay and cost increase. This failing of mid upper management can only be laid at the door of the senior management who do not empower or provide clear direction.

Certainly our main Bosrd are not paid as much as these top execs but are mostly much more capable.

I have no issue with paying top dollar for excellence but not for mediocrity.

[Baryonyx]

These top heavy management structures desperately need cutting down to size and bringing back to reality. They're rife across the public sector. It's strange that the cuts have wiped out the bottom at great cost to the end user, but the fat cats are still rolling in cash.

[mercGLowner]

The ratio that is really important is the number of "managers" to the number of those people that directly delver health outcomes (Drs, nurses, HCAs and other healthcare practitioners). One suspects that in recent years the proportion of pen pushers, paperwork shufflers and managers has increased. A close family relation pushes paper and runs meetings for a local CCG, she gets paid 2.5 times what my wife gets as a 30 year qualified nurse. Priorities all wrong.

NHS Chief Execs should be well paid, but linked directly to patient satisfaction and health outcomes. Not top down imposed targets like the 4 hour A&E waiting time. Outsource all non core operations (HR, FM, catering)

[wc98]

Baryonyx said:

These top heavy management structures desperately need cutting down to size and bringing back to reality. They're rife across the public sector. It's strange that the cuts have wiped out the bottom at great cost to the end user, but the fat cats are still rolling in cash.

this ^ . remuneration will always be arguable, but the sheer numbers of middle and senior managers in the nhs, and the way they carry on has gone beyond the pale. these will be probably be the type that decry legitimate tax avoidance while making use of a scheme intended to allow retired nurses to continue to work in some capacity to earn tens ,in some cases hundreds ,of thousands extra per year.

[Digga]

wc98 said:

the sheer numbers of middle and senior managers in the nhs, and the way they carry on has gone beyond the pale

It's not only this. There is a tendency within the public sector to build empires, not least because manager's pay may be derived as a function of the headcount of the staff for which said manager is 'responsible'. Then, with OPM, you have budget grab dynamics - budgets, from the POV of a manager, are always sticky-up. A lot of this tends toward inefficiency on a grand scale, which I have witnessed first hand; front line staff may be worked very hard, whilst surrounded by a plethora of busy-doing-nothing, admin and overhead.

[s3fella]

I'm afraid it is no surprise, the NHS is MASSIVELY wasteful and all levels. Always has been, always will be whilst is stays as an NHS.

[Ovaltine]

NicD said:

Countdown said:

What does ^^^^ have to do with Common Purpose?

With regards to "NHS Fat Cats" - for the amount of work involved I don't think they're that well paid.

ah good, a knowledgable insider.

How much work is involved, and how do you know this?

Exactly. How do you qualify an 'amount of work'? Do they sit at their desks 18 hours a day 6 days a week, or are they 9-5ers with 4-6 big holidays a year?

They should be paid for the quality of their work, in which case the trusts they preside over shouldn't be failing... but they are. In the private world they would be sacked, but just as everything in the public sector, there is never any accountability, from politicians all the way down to the cleaners.

The NHS is a completely inefficient old dinosaur, that if not needing putting down, needs major reform, but no one in power has the guts to say it or do it.

[Mr Whippy]

Ovaltine said:

Exactly. How do you qualify an 'amount of work'? Do they sit at their desks 18 hours a day 6 days a week, or are they 9-5ers with 4-6 big holidays a year?

They should be paid for the quality of their work, in which case the trusts they preside over shouldn't be failing... but they are. In the private world they would be sacked, but just as everything in the public sector, there is never any accountability, from politicians all the way down to the cleaners.

The NHS is a completely inefficient old dinosaur, that if not needing putting down, needs major reform, but no one in power has the guts to say it or do it.

And how hard can the work really be?

There are only 18 working hours a day, realistically.

6 days a week.

So how many times harder or more work than the top surgeons in the hospital? Or any of the other staff in a busy hospital, who also make tough decisions and manage people on a daily basis.


The reality is, having a top job is about being the fall guy when the SHTF, since you're where the fault stops.

But the problem today is these people are the ones who DON'T fall on their sword any more, and then the next year give themselves their own bonus and usually award themselves even when, by all accounts, they've failed.



If all the politicians and director types who'd buggered up NHS stuff over the last decade had fallen on their swords I wouldn't begrudge them their nice salaries.

But while they reward themselves for failure within a crony clique, then I think they're far too highly paid.

And to compare public with private sector salaries is just bonkers. If you WANT more money, go private. But to expect a public service job, which by definition you should do because of motivations OTHER than wealth, then you should go feck off imo.

Work a public job and take a salary more in line with the philanthropic 'job for life' nature of those jobs.

Dave

[Scuffers]

realistically, the only way this is ever going to get sorted is to break up the NHS into smaller units with direct management and responsibilities.

no more parachuting senior political appointments in, proper accountability for their actions/record, etc. etc.

It's a shame circle were forced to bail out of Hinchingbrooke, as from the looks of it, they had got a grip on doing the job properly (only to be screwed over)

I'm not a privatisation fan, (and think PFI should be a criminal offence!), but I am am fan of private management of public services, as the alternative has been proven beyond doubt to be a total failure.

I am also not wildly keen on doctors being in management, they might be the very best doctors, that does not make them good managers though, yes, they should have an input, but they certainly should not have the final sway over non-medical decisions.

[anonymous-user]

I thought the issue was that they've had significant increases over recent years, where the 'frontline troops' haven't?