How much should your hospital be paid?

The BBC reports that one of the Government's proposals, in their pre-Queens Speech, is to add a measure of patient satisfaction and healthcare outcomes to the funding formula for hospitals.  The details are being kept from the great unwashed at the moment but, suffice it to say, this is a pretty poor substitute for genuine control of the health service by ordinary people:

"Professor John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund health think-tank, said he was sceptical over the merits of changing an "already complicated" system.

He said it would make more sense to get primary care trusts, which are responsible for buying services off hospitals, to use data already available to commission from the best-performers.

And he added: "You will end up putting primary care trusts in a situation where they have a choice of paying to give fewer patients top quality care or more patients average care. It puts them in a difficult position.""

The Government are proposing to complicate an already complicated formula and will have to decide how important health outcomes and patient satisfaction should be relative to the volume of work performed.  A simpler solution would be this: let patients choose which hospital they wish to buy treatment from and hospitals will have to compete to offer the best service at the best price.  Ordinary people are quite capable of deciding which hospitals deserve their money without any complicated formula.

Comments

[Narinder Chahal]

The PCT- Primary Care Trust model is flawed and lacks good governance. We have evidence of this first hand having been subjected to their inept management of my mothers end of life care. We witnessed a catelogue of errors which led to my mother not receiving the nursing care she needed during her last weeks of life. My mothers last 4 days were spent on a accident emergency ward where she died. End of life care planning a key responsibility of the PCT was something they could not manage. I have since seen my mothers files- no where in this world would such incompetence be allowed to flourish- but with the PCT they appear to be absolved. We wrote to Gordon Brown who wrote saying he was too busy. For the last 6 months we have been waiting for a response from the PCT which will be 'fiction' and fail to take any accountability of what happend. My mother was a tax payer- worked for 22 years and contributed to the public purse. So when someone tells me of the merits of the PCT- I will tell them to think again. This country, its people are being failed at the most vulnerable time of their life- end of life. This must stop.

[Narinder Chahal]

I wanted to follow up my post by advising Southampton PCT who neglected my mothers end of life care are now calling my evidence- defamatory.. it seems as well as understanding accountability in managing the care of the Vulnerable the CEO of the PCT needs a 101 on legal parameters- any volunteers?

[Hardeep_Singh]

I am sorry to hear of both your loss and the inability of the PCT to afford you the adequate and dignified care your mother required.

If only the health service and many other parallel yet equally centralised systems were made local can we ever hope of progress. The episode of Narinder's mother is not isolated and though you'd think that the initial failure of the system to provision adequate care would be bad enough these so called 'bodies' of government then go out of their way to pour scorn on anyone who dares challenge them. In their current state they are unaccountable, unanswerable and irresponsible who on earth do they think they are.

What a sorry state of affairs this is the UK not Soviet USSR.

[Narinder Chahal]

Well our fight with the Southampton PCT is not over- I have asked the CEO, Mr Skinner to explain his definition of defamation. He has yet to respond. I have also taken advice and we have evidence in black and white on what happend. I am going to make this public in blogs and will have the documents scanned. My mother paid her tax for 22 years worked really hard and what happend to her? All those national insurance contributions, tax and working without any time taken off... someone said to me take the time to enjoy your mothers life- I said my mother fought hard for 10+ years against this tumor which claimed her life. My mother deserved better and if I influence one family to ask the hard questions which allows their loved one to have an easier end of life- I will continue to speak my mind.