NHS MONEY WASTE

Rant alert! Oh Gawd, not again (big sigh). I’m very angry, where’s my soapbox? Run to the hills, run for your lives…

What’s lit the blue touch-paper this time? The NHS or more specifically their complete lack of co-ordination and waste of everyone’s time/money both theirs and mine.

On Wednesday I wasted £11 buying a train ticket to trek all the way to Hove to attend a 30 minute physio appointment that technically I wasn’t entitled to. Being somewhat financially squeezed at month end then you can imagine I’m was not best pleased.

Here’s three recent examples of how the NHS wastes tax payer money:

Postage – A few months ago I was invited to attend a follow-up telephone consultation with one of the local NHS clinics. The appointment was arranged via a phone call, confirmed by text message then re-confirmed with not one but two physical letters that arrived in the post within days of each other. I clearly can’t be trusted to remember such an important event!

In the past, I’ve asked hospitals for emailed appointment letters only to be told that the NHS does not regard email as a ‘secure’ form of communication, it would instead prefer to squander oodles of cash on keeping the Royal Mail afloat. Money that could have been saved – cost of 2 x postage stamps, 2 x envelopes, 2 x sheets of A4 paper and ink, plus an administrators time to prepare and mail the letters.

Granted all of this probably doesn’t equate to a great deal of expenditure but multiply this small expense by the millions of patients receiving physical mail and the NHS could generate a significant revenue saving. Give patients the choice to opt in to their preferred method of communication – texts and emails cost nothing!

Procedures – I don’t mean surgical ones although we’ll get onto that one in a mo. What I’m referring to is the awareness by all NHS staff as to what procedures they should be following so as not to waste everyone’s time and money.

After a lengthy phone call in the middle of my train ride home with the physio centre at Hove, it transpires that the NHS consultant I’m under should not have referred me for treatment to their clinic because the contract between them and the NHS only covers patients who have recently undergone surgery. They’ve not been paid by the NHS and I’ve no intention of paying for a service which I expected to be provided for FREE.

The NHS cannot expect patients to foot the bill for services that are part of their rehabilitation process UNLESS they have been told upfront that the provision of that service can only be privately funded.

Pathways – Whilst no-one can fault the expertise or pleasantness of the doctors or nursing staff you encounter on your NHS travels, it does make you wonder if the whole system of ‘pathways’ they follow hasn’t been put together by sat nav since it subjects patients to the most lengthy and tortuous route to get the most effective treatment for their health issue.

I’ve just waited 6 months for an appointment for something called a SPECT scan where radioactive tracer will be pumped round my system to pin point areas of pain in order to clearly identify my health issue.

I would have thought that after 3 years of being on the NHS merry-go-round, a CT scan, several MRI scans, and feedback from my chiropractor it is abundantly clear that I still have a herniated disc in my neck causing nerve compression. I really don’t need an expensive, risky ‘glow in the dark’ experience to confirm what is already known – what I really need is surgery to correct it!

The NHS doesn’t need MORE money chucked at it – what it does need is shorter treatment pathways, less bureaucracy and faster, cheaper means of confirming appointments.

Rant over – for now!