I believe that we would all be better served if the NHS was afforded a few years of stability (that is, a respite from the heavy-handed interference by government, and the constant change that this triggers), and given time to consolidate, and properly manage, what it already has.
I also believe that the continued emphasis on cost is an out-dated paradigm, and we should be looking for new, better, and more meaningful ways of measuring the value of the Health Service. Cost per head would always need a mention, but how about more emphasis on the
benefits ... and then a comparison with other countries? "Positive spin", if you like.
Live births per 1,000 (or however these things are best measured). Child mortality. Length of average in-patient stay (
ie, the shorter the better). A metric for infection containment (or elimination). Number of nurses per head of catchment population. Number of A&E cases per head. Successful outcomes per number of surgical procedures. And stuff like that.
OK, let's get radical. How about number of people per annum turned away from tobacco and alcohol addiction? That way, maybe we could fund a
doubling of the number of biomeds! That's it ... pipe-dream over!
And ... back in our own realm ... percentage of PM completed, accumulated equipment downtime (or, to continue in a positive frame of mind ... total uptime*), average response time, average time to repair, and stuff like that. Then get all that published on-line, for (yet another) "league table"! How does that sound?
Although it's always nice to have "happy campers", I'm afraid that the continuation of the cosy set-up of the biomed department (that undoubtedly exists in some places) must be placed a little further down the list of priorities.
*
This would be difficult to measure (unless you just assumed that everything not "down", was "up", as it were), and its measurement would itself be ... er, a waste of time! When you thing about it, it's not simply the reciprocal of downtime! It would also (hopefully) be a very high figure when tabled as a percentage. 99.9% or something like that, if every piece of kit was included.
