From today’s Evening Telegraph - “Kettering General Hospital is considering asking staff to take five days unpaid leave in a bid to cut almost a 10th of its budget.
The hospital is also considering buying cheaper medicine and reducing the number of patients staying overnight before surgery as it tries to cut between £12m and £15m from costs.”
Wow, this is incredible.
Now I have friends (and a relative) who are nurses at this hospital and they do an absolutely fantastic job. Everytime my son has been in (from his birth and subsequent stay in the special care unit and on), he’s been treated brilliantly, as have I and my family when we’ve needed to call upon their services. I’ve had no complaints which is why I find it infuriating that, when needing to save £15m, acting Chief Exec Mike Smeeten suggests unpaid leave for staff and cheaper medicines?
Might I advance the opinion that, before he does this, he publishes a list of senior management salaries and bonuses’ (including his own and, presumably, the much higher fee when a permanent person is found, along with the agency fee they’ll trigger and the pension contributions), middle management manning levels, salaries and bonuses and also any outside consultancy fees (because, as we all know, big businesses meant to be doing the best for us can next survive without platoons of outside consultants)? And, whilst he’s at it, what’s the ratio of permanent employees to locum/agency staff?
I know the NHS is suffering at the moment - it’s happening all over the country - I know they have to make deep and painful cuts but seriously, it’s a hospital, it’s there to care for people. Keep the nurses doing what they’re doing and look elsewhere - non-nursing/direct staff, waste, manning levels, purchasing, you know, the stuff that normal private sector companies have to look at - before you start impacting on everyone’s lives.
Oh - and while you’re at it, take a brush to the corridors!
Here’s the link to the ET article - http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/local/corby/hospital_in_bid_to_save_up_to_15m_1_2586276
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