The Covid19 thread

[Seeker]

Meanwhile, the latest in anti-vaxx medicine:
https://i.redd.it/a8awthfzz1b81.jpg

I'll stick with the vaccine, thanks.

[garynortheast]

He's just taking the p1ss!

[Ruffy]

Originally Posted by ethariel

Agreed, HOWEVER if you leave the Civil Service to manage anything you know it's going to either fail or come online 10 years late, out of date and 5x over budget.

The ONLY way to make it work is have a Private Company run it and be able to make a profit based on performance - Privatised healthcare.

If it's run by the government or civil service they have absolutely no incentive to make it work as all they have to do is hold thier hand out for more funding every time they need it, a 'Private' company does not have that luxury.

I strongly disagree that it has to be private to make it work. That's just an over-simplification of what's involved


For starters, why does it have to be a for-profit organisation? There's plenty of successful not-for-profit entities out there that don't have the blank-cheque backing that you seem to suggest the public sector does.

Another problem with your concept is that a private firm facing financial diffculties can just go bankrupt and stop delivering the service when the going gets tough. The priority will become to balance the books (maintaining profitability first), not to deliver the healthcare: The reaction will be to compromise delivery, make excuses, but keep the shareholders happy! Have you not seen the recent energy sector examples? Or perhaps some of the not-too-distant events in the rail industry? Replicating events that have happened there wouldn't be good in a national healthcare situation.

What metrics would you put in place to be able to gauge the 'performance' of these private healthcare providers, given the uncertain and variable nature of the demand for their services? How would you price the contracts? E.g., what unit price for an A&E department on a Saturday night to give a, say, 2 hour wait time SLA?

And a public sector proposal doesn't get funding that easily, especially 'extra' funding once initial approvals have been given. Have you ever had to deal with public sector governance? Competition is very intense for a share of the public purse. The numbers are big but so is the scale of the works and it's still not an infinitely deep pot. Often the reason things end up 'over-budget' is because they were (maybe deliberately) badly estimated in the first place to secure the initial green light by getting over an arbitrary 'expect to pay' hurdle - dealing with the politics of 'you won't please everyone' so it inevitably becomes a compromise situation with much pushing of problems into the future rather than facing failure now. We've become quite a selfish society - Everybody seems to want things cheap in this country and no-one wants to pay for anyone except themselves.

I'm not saying the public sector is wonderfully brilliant at all it does, far from it, but suggesting the private sector is dramatically better in all cases isn't accurate either. It's horses for courses. The scale, complexity and uncertainty associated with many public sector requirements would panic many a private sector Director. 'Joe Public' is a hellish Chairman of the Board!

So, whether private or public, distill it all down and there still needs to be a balance between the cost to be incurred and the funding available. Too often it's just badly out of balance, with one side or the other being inaccurately calculated (for a variety of reasons, some good, some not so good). Then the games begin!

[Ruffy]

Originally Posted by ethariel

... Besides as the email is labelled 'Official Sensitive' technically whomever leaked the email has breached the Official Secrets Act ...

Sorry, you're not quite right with that. "Official Sensitive" is actually quite a low level of data classification. "Official" makes it, well, official. "Sensitive" basically just means not for general consumption, be a bit more careful with handling.

It's not necessarily a breach of the Official Secrets Act to release something like this. However, it is poor form IMHO and should be a disciplinary matter. Sadly, controlled 'leaks' appear to be part of the Westminster system of politics and government communication nowadays. (Plausible deniability to hedge bets on reaction - a 'leak' can always be later denied if it doesn't go down well enough, whereas an official release can't.)

[Ruffy]

Originally Posted by Bibio

...
its tough if people dont like their current government but they were voted in by the majority and in this country the majority rule as its not a dictatorship.
...

Originally Posted by Seeker

If corruption, unethical behaviour, cronyism and rule breaking is discovered it should be reported so voters can (hopefully) make better decisions next time.
...

if you don't like people commenting about the current government ...

I wonder if 'the Opposition' know your view Bibio?

Personally I find it pretty sad that we pay an 'Opposition' of MPs who's role seems to be solely just to whinge and moan. I feel the role of the whole of Parliament is to ensure the country is run as well as it can be for all the population. Shame our system doesn't really enable that.

Holding people to account is about more than just complaining about what they're doing. There needs to be some suggestion or indication of how it ought to be done better, and effort to make it that way.

IMHO, our 'Opposition' or the other alternatives are just as bad as 'Government'. Pretty slim pickings, it seems. So it's no wonder we keep getting repeat selections of 'least worst'. I agree that must start with exposing the ills so we can purge the bad or unfit for office at the earliest opportunity. It would just be good if there was something quite radically different on offer that voters could enthuse about as a replacement for a change, rather than getting more of the same.