Fines for hospital who lie about poor care

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11401872/10000-fines-for-hospitals-who-lie-about-poor-care.html

As some of you will know, I am an avid supporter of this government and the conservative party, but that does not mean that I won't speak up about stupid policies such as this one.

In essence, unless I misread the article (I was at the bar), the suggestion is that hospitals who lie about having poor care standards could be fined up to £10,000 and members of the leadership face jail terms. Now, to me this seems like an absolutely absurd idea. To me, surely those that should be penalised should be the operators, whether that be a private corporation (when we finally see sense to try private operation again) or those who run the hospital in the form of reduced pay.

To me, all these fines achieve are a further reduction in the quality of care. Surely if a hospital is failing the last thing we should do is reduce their funding, we should penalise those that caused the poor performance and then covered it up, and if they fail to improve, like in any reasonable system, they should be replaced.

NHS board directors or other senior staff who are found to have “consented or connived in the provision of false or misleading information” could be subject to an unlimited fine or two-year jail sentence.

surely £10,000 is loose change in comparison to a hospital budget?

however the personal liability on the directors

should make people think twice about playing it fast and loose

Perhaps they could not lie to the government and put people's lives in danger with their poor care? It is hard for me to sympathise if these are the conditions by which they are fined.

But as I said, those that are responsible alone should be penalised, not the staff and users of the hospital.

£10,000 is still £10,000 though. While in relative terms it's not a lot it is still money being given back to central government rather than keeping it within the hospital is more likely to do harm than good.


As I said, I was at the bar and I've had a few drinks since then
This is good, those who are to blame for it are being held accountable, but that doesn't change that I see no point in reducing the funding of the hospital itself. I recalled the prison term, but not the unlimited fine.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11401872/10000-fines-for-hospitals-who-lie-about-poor-care.html

As some of you will know, I am an avid supporter of this government and the conservative party, but that does not mean that I won't speak up about stupid policies such as this one.

In essence, unless I misread the article (I was at the bar), the suggestion is that hospitals who lie about having poor care standards could be fined up to £10,000 and members of the leadership face jail terms. Now, to me this seems like an absolutely absurd idea. To me, surely those that should be penalised should be the operators, whether that be a private corporation (when we finally see sense to try private operation again) or those who run the hospital in the form of reduced pay.

To me, all these fines achieve are a further reduction in the quality of care. Surely if a hospital is failing the last thing we should do is reduce their funding, we should penalise those that caused the poor performance and then covered it up, and if they fail to improve, like in any reasonable system, they should be replaced.

One of the main problems hospitals have making their targets this winter is that their beds are blocked up by people who could go home with social service support... If that social support hadn't been cut by the government.

One of the main drains on the hospital budget is having to recruit foreign nurses and buy in agency staff because we aren't training enough new nurses. Each one thousands of pounds per year more expensive to the hospital than a nurse on a normal contract.

There isn't much chance of seeing any of our teflony government ministers getting a fine for causing any of that.

This is something that is trotted out but if you look at the figures, in an NHS that admits about 15 million patients a year, the numbers are about as constant as it is possible to get.

http://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/05/DTOC-England-Timeseries-December-2014-mHjnj.xls




First of all a foreign trained nurse on the regular hospital staff is the cheapest form of nurse. The Philippine government bears the cost of training and we pay the same rate of pay as for UK trained nurses. Moreover, the attractiveness of the UK to live for foreigners means that we are less likely to have to promote to retain a foreign trained nurse than a UK trained nurse.

Agency nurses are only expensive if they are being used to meet the base level of nursing demand rather than to cover peaks. The cost of employing permanent "spare bodies" is far higher than buying in at eye-watering rates agency nurses to cover short-term gaps. When you have poor management, agency nurses almost become part of the routine establishment.



These fines are gesture politics