Public Health England

[cromwell]

PHE is a massive health service quango. 5,000 staff and a budget of £4.25 billion pounds a year.
They are supposed to be doing something important re vaccines for the government.
Only, some private firms who have offered to help with the task seem to doubt this.
the Daily Telegraph had a story yesterday about a British company called Apacor who gained approval from the Medicare and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to supply 150,000 antigen tests to Britain. This is a South Korean test that the Germans are using.
BUT the PHE lab at Colindale has still not sent for a sample to be verified and says it hasn't got time to talk to Apacor until next week.
Apacor have been waiting for two weeks already.
Testing is supposed to be vitally important, so what's happening here?
Im what is happening is that the PHE is defending it's turf. They don't want some private firm turning up and showing them up. They are desperately trying to justify their own existence here because if these private firms can do what Public Health England can't, then what's the point of Public Health England?
Other private firms offering to help with testing have had no answer from the NHS, the government or PHE.
This is a scandal, I'm surprised the rest of the press haven't latched on to it.

[medsec222]

Do you think perhaps Donald Trump has latched on to it ?

[Workingman]

After all this is over there is going to have to be a massive analysis and restructuring of how and where government gets its information from, over a whole range of subjects. The lobby group, think-tank, quango and "expert" system has failed miserably, as we see every day at the so-called briefings.

We, all of us, need a wholesale clear out of this mess and to start again. Bring everything back in-house, fund it properly and accountably, employ those with views from all sides and not just an echo chamber, and give them all the tools necessary to do the job properly.

[Suff]

Yep but how do you do that when government is broken, government services are broken and most of the in house services work on "health within a budget" where s/he who shouts loudest gets elective treatment and others get to die quietly??

I see no reason whatsoever for this to be brought in house until in house is thoroughly blood let to get rid of the dead wood.

Then we can think about fixing it.

Those extra NHS funds? Oh yes they were doled out, at the same time as the cuts which had to be implemented!

[Workingman]

Suff, you missed this ...

After all this is over there is going to have to be a massive analysis and restructuring of how and where government gets its information from.

and

We, all of us, need a wholesale clear out of this mess and to start again.

We cannot just carry on as we have been doing. The NHS might be the focus, for now, but there are failures in just about every department, and they have to stop. This is not a party political issue it is structural, governance structural. All this 'echo chamber' and 'shouting loudest' nonsense has to go.

[medsec222]

The NHS is a bottomless pit - the more money it gets the more money it needs. We have a fabulous NHS and fabulous staff working within it. Who else gets free care at the point of need. It is time now for the NHS, funding, recruitment of nurses and doctors, to be discussed across all Parties and some sensible affordable way forward to be implemented. If it is decided taxes have to up to fund the NHS in its present form, then we will all have to pay more. However, there may be other solutions that could be agreed cross Party. I am heartily sick of one political party continually telling the other that they are trying to privatise the NHS or sell it off.

[Workingman]

The managerial side of the NHS is going to have to be looked at long and hard.... with plenty of P45s handed out. Procurement of equipment, drugs and services is a complete mess for such a massive organisation, with one place buying a few from here and another down the road buying a few from there. No private company would operate in such a way, for obvious reasons. It is the National Health Service, make it so.

[medsec222]

Frank - years ago when I started off in the NHS and when there was no such thing as Trusts, monies to run the hospitals came down to the various hospitals through area Groups which were responsible for say five or six hospitals surrounding each Group. Every hospital would have its own budget but would have to make a case for capital expenditure etc via the Group. However, there was only one place to order various items of equipment, medicines, ward supplies etc. It was Central Purchasing. They were responsible for finding the best possible price for everything, which was then bought in bulk, and each individual hospital would requisition all supplies through Central Purchasing, as and when required. There used to be the Hospital Secretary, Physician Superintendent, and the Matron in those days. Effectively they ran the hospital between them. With the advent of Trusts has come layer upon layer of management.

[Suff]

Didn't miss that WM, I just felt that bringing it in house, before cleaning house, was going to make house cleaning that much more difficult and wanted to make it clear.

[Workingman]

Meds, my sister was a supervisor in admin in one such group. Her very best attached-at-the-hip friend was a purchasing supervisor for the same. She is now something like a Senior Executive Procurement Facilitator Director or some such ballcocks. The job is much the same but now only for a Trust. She is cloned across the region and her clones are cloned across the country. It is management for management's sake.

It is the same within other departments and also local government / councils.