Two further examples:

Oxfordshire Mental Healthcare Trust is proposing to cut 7 Consultant posts, 6–7 SHO posts & 1 adult ward along with reducing out of hours & OT services. This is due to Thames Valley Strategic Health Authority telling the trust to save £5.9m from its budget. Mental health, always a ‘Cinderella service’, will probably implode in that area.

East Elmbridge & Mid Surrey PCT has overspent by £6.8m and is cutting services, such as chiropody to 3000 patients, immediately. No consultation — just dumping the patients.

For the first time we are starting to see significant unemployment in the training grades with junior doctors unable to obtain employment & satisfactory training. The cuts in services will have implications for training & the viability of future sevice provision; the BMA has undertaken a survey which reveals that 9.5% of junior doctors were unemployed in August, and a worse case scenario, if replicated across England & Wales, of up to 3,000 unemployed junior doctors as of August. This is a work-force planning disaster. Doctors are expensive to train & are now having to look overseas to find employment & training. According to the DoH's official statistics there were only 136 unemployed junior hospital doctors — compare & contrast!

Posted by: Thersites at October 13, 2005 05:02 PM

You mean to say that you poor British can't just walk into a physiotherapist's rooms, get treatment, pay a small sum (about 25 pounds) using your credit card and then go and claim some of that back from your medical insurer?

That's the from here in OZ.

God, the NHS sounds terrible. When are you Brits going to realise that a service that you don't pay for at time of delivery or by insurance is bound to be rubbish? Are you all so soft that you can't just privatise medicine and get the Government to fund THE PATIENT and not the bloody infrastructure.

Posted by: Peter at October 14, 2005 05:30 AM

Nothing wrong with Osteopathy getting cut, though (not disagreeing with you, just that there's too much quackery in Osteo).

Posted by: Scott Campbell at Blithering Bunny at October 14, 2005 10:03 AM

What the BMA forgets to mention is its role in hugely inflating the cost of employing doctors. They have seen vast pay increases (making them the best paid medics in the world) in return for giving up a few (but far from all) of their spanish practices. They are now paid extraordinary amounts compared to other professions. This is why health authorities are not recruiting new doctors or are considering cutting existing posts.

Let's remember - for the most part, doctors are simply intelligent technicians with strong unions to protect their status. Most advances in medical treatment have come about as the result of better diagnostic equipment (for which scientists and engineers, not medics, should be thanked), better drugs (for which the pharmaceutical industry is responsible) and better research (which most doctors do not do).

Posted by: HJHJ at October 14, 2005 10:20 AM

Question: what's the link between this story and Alan Johnson's recent decision to cave in to the public service unions and saddle the tax-payer with the bill for future public service pension provision? Answer, an unreformed public service. I do a lot of work with the public sector, and I am shocked at the massive, (and I mean MASSIVE) waste and inefficiency. If the tax payers could see what is happening, they would be shocked too. Can you imagine any private sector business in which the spending had doubled but customer service is being cut?

Posted by: Ricky at October 22, 2005 07:55 PM

Bah! Stuff and nonesense!

The NHS is flush with cash, as this link, courtesy of Scott Burgess, shows (scroll down to the last section).

NHS managers have spent £9million of NHS money on works of 'art', apparently for their scientifically proven magical healing properties.

Posted by: JohnOfCoventry at October 26, 2005 03:40 PM

There is no doubt that there is waste and inefficiency in the NHS, however,is it the doctors, nurses and support staff that are guilty of the waste of financial resources, well given the excessive management levels in the NHS how can the front line staff be responsible for the waste.
The fact is that now we pay more tax for overall less facilities, however the levels of management continue to grow, how can that be justified?
If Mr Blair continues with his reforms, essential services will be rationalised however, we will have several managers available to come up with plenty of excuses for why we are losing vital medical services.

Posted by: Paul Denison at June 28, 2006 11:06 AM