The UK Political Landscape

SP Only said:
The privatisation points made are more than valid however I have to disagree about the blackhole. There are maintenance contracts that were signed for 50 years at a pop that charge £100 for a light bulb change. Go and speak to any leader of a department and they will give you 5 things where money is just wasted and there isn't a damn thing they can do about it. Most hospitals major decisions are made by a board of trustees many of whom have no working experience of a hospital.
Click to expand...


In England, NHS Supply Chain (who manage and distribute goods/services within the NHS), are accountable to the Secretary of State. This is a private company, that sits outside the NHS, and is responsible for around 80% of NHS sourcing. As you rightly point out, there isn't a thing the NHS can't do about it, as they are obligated to use these services.

The point being; it's not the NHS that is inefficient, wasteful, or a "black-hole" for money - it is those responsible for agreeing the contracts, and imposing them on NHS Trusts who are responsible......and the trail of breadcrumbs leads all the way back to the Health Secretary.
 
Last edited:
Aye, grassy, the trouble is that top management know bugger all about IT which makes it almost impossible for them to ask the right questions and/or judge the validity of what is promised.
 
SP Only said:
The privatisation points made are more than valid however I have to disagree about the blackhole. There are maintenance contracts that were signed for 50 years at a pop that charge £100 for a light bulb change. Go and speak to any leader of a department and they will give you 5 things where money is just wasted and there isn't a damn thing they can do about it. Most hospitals major decisions are made by a board of trustees many of whom have no working experience of a hospital.
Click to expand...

But the idea is sold to you that decisions are made on a cost-effectiveness basis - largely its easy to sell, as the common sense is unimpeachable. However, no such scrutiny is given to Mrs Cool Dawn or when 13.8m ferry contract is given to a company with no ships, or shipping experience. Yet apocryphal light bulbs is where the real problem lies.
 
barjon said:
Aye, grassy, the trouble is that top management know bugger all about IT which makes it almost impossible for them to ask the right questions and/or judge the validity of what is promised.
Click to expand...

They shouldn't need to know anything about IT, barjon.

All they need to do is provide the requirements, and let the IT experts decide how best to meet them using whatever technology is appropriate. They can also hire IT people to police what is being proposed, and what is being delivered, at not very-much cost at all (infinitessimal compared to what the actual spend on these projects usually is).

Example: "I want all NHS Trusts and GPs to have access to all patient records, regardless of their location/where they are registered."

It's a very straightforward request, and not difficult to articulate if your the NHS guy. Delivery of same using IT is the hard part, which is why it should never be left to people who have degrees in sub-Saharan basket-weaving.

These contracts are terrible value for money, because you pay top-end consultancy prices (minimum £800 a day for the most junior Accenture or Deloitte resource, I reckon) for clueless dopes. If you paid the same money to a battalion of horrible, hard-nosed IT contractor bas*tards, you'd get it done in half the time, for half the money, and for ten times the quality.

I might add that last paragraph to my LinkedIn bio. :lol:
 
HawkWing said:
But the idea is sold to you that decisions are made on a cost-effectiveness basis - largely its easy to sell, as the common sense is unimpeachable. However, no such scrutiny is given to Mrs Cool Dawn or when 13.8m ferry contract is given to a company with no ships, or shipping experience. Yet apocryphal light bulbs is where the real problem lies.
Click to expand...

Spot on.
 
Maybe not the nuts and bolts part of it, grassy. In my experience, admittedly early IT days, I thought of IT merely as replicating what we did with pen and paper without a proper understanding of what else it could do with the information it held. Thus, I found it difficult to formulate what I wanted from it since I was ignorant of what it could do, post implementation my questions were always along the lines of “can it do this?” with the inevitable answer “It could have done if you’d specified it”. Similarly, I struggled to question capability at presentations which meant that overblown promises went unchallenged with disappointment the result.

Maybe the Post Office is a case in point. How senior management could believe that hundreds of their sub-postmasters had suddenly become fraudulent following introduction of Horizon (despite previous audits) can only be because they could not challenge those responsible for the Horizon system properly,

Ps: I’ll enjoy reading LinkedIn :)
 
Last edited:
Impressive discussion. Opposing views and nuances argued respectfully and intelligently too. Can we being on some late substitutes to the PM race? Grassy in for Rishihopper, Barjon for Trussy and Marble for Mordaunt?

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
 
HawkWing said:
But the idea is sold to you that decisions are made on a cost-effectiveness basis - largely its easy to sell, as the common sense is unimpeachable. However, no such scrutiny is given to Mrs Cool Dawn or when 13.8m ferry contract is given to a company with no ships, or shipping experience. Yet apocryphal light bulbs is where the real problem lies.
Click to expand...

No idea like that is sold to me. I know what a bunch of devious buggers they all are and their one overriding concern is to line their pockets. The whole lot from top to bottom needs ripping out roots and all.
 
Hope he's right,Col.
Generally apolitical, but 1 had a small wager on her at 80/1 to make final 2, purely on the basis of it being a daft price.:)
 
barjon said:
Maybe not the nuts and bolts part of it, grassy. In my experience, admittedly early IT days, I thought of IT merely as replicating what we did with pen and paper without a proper understanding of what else it could do with the information it held. Thus, I found it difficult to formulate what I wanted from it since I was ignorant of what it could do, post implementation my questions were always along the lines of “can it do this?” with the inevitable answer “It could have done if you’d specified it”. Similarly, I struggled to question capability at presentations which meant that overblown promises went unchallenged with disappointment the result.

Maybe the Post Office is a case in point. How senior management could believe that hundreds of their sub-postmasters had suddenly become fraudulent following introduction of Horizon (despite previous audits) can only be because they could not challenge those responsible for the Horizon system properly,

Ps: I’ll enjoy reading LinkedIn :)
Click to expand...

Perhaps I should have said "not very much about it", though fundamentally, I think it's largely a truism.

One of the keys to success is having an IT partner you can trust, and someone on the 'inside' that can keep them honest.

A high-level requirement, as I described above......or even a vague notion of what you want as a client.......are usually sufficient as a starting-point. The two sides would then work-out what they really means in practical terms, and build the IT solutions to meet those needs.

A bit simplistic, perhaps, but that's how it generally works in an environment that is more-or-less functional.
 
Boris could be back in the Cabinet. Starmer lacks oomph.

Can't see a real leader on either side to take us through some troubled times.
 
Tout Seul said:
Can't see a real leader on either side to take us through some troubled times.
Click to expand...

That debate last night was a tough watch, two idiots not well handled by Sophie Raworth who would struggle to control two garden gnomes.

Geezo, if these two are the best the tories can come up with...
 
Tout Seul said:
Boris could be back in the Cabinet. Starmer lacks oomph.

Can't see a real leader on either side to take us through some troubled times.
Click to expand...

I think the concept of a political 'leader' is seriously over-rated. Cabinet has joint accountability, and whenever we've elected a 'leader' that dominates Cabinet (Thatcher, Johnson) through force-of-personality, it has been an unmitigated disaster.

Right now, I'd take safe, boring, Keith without a second's thought, because the only priority should be consigning this pox of a Tory Government to the history-books (hopefully to be followed shortly thereafter by their entire shi*thhouse of a party).
 
When I’d it become necessary for PM’s to have oomph? I don’t recall it been talked about when Cameron or May were PM’s.
 
Truss. No surprise of course, but it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top