[blue_cookeh]

> Ideally the NHS would just build it in house, but sadly it's a slow and bloated organisation unable to innovate (as most government managed things usually become).

This is patently false, a narrative often parroted by people who don't understand or have never worked in the NHS.

There are many intelligent people in technical/digital roles in the NHS that innovate on a daily basis - heck, many build systems internally at a hugely reduced cost compared to outsourcing yet decisions come from parliament/gov agencies that overrule internal decision making and waste insane amounts of cash on vanity projects, or scrapping internal work to be redone by the likes of Accenture.

[0xy]

Given the NHS' costs continue to explode, and most of the cash goes straight to padding middle management, it seems easy to see that it's a slow and bloated organization.

After all, the UK's health spending is increasing at a rate 2,000% higher than close neighbor France's is -- indicating massive fraud and waste.

[Terr_]

That "increasing at a rate" vague phrasing makes me instinctively suspicious of abused statistics.

For example, suppose in 24 hours France's spending goes up +0% and the UK's spending goes up +0.001%: "Oh my god! The UK's spending is increasing at a rate infinity times more!!11"

[0xy]

The time period was 2010 to 2019. Even since 2019, the NHS has several hundred billion in planned budget increases.

My favorite thing about dysfunctional UK political rhetoric is when someone will say "the Conservatives are slashing the NHS!" when what they really mean is that they've slightly decreased the rate of increase, so by every metric it's still skyrocketing (but not enough to those who want to dump infinite cash in the middle management growth machine).

Another fun factoid: the pro-Brexit crew were chided for claiming they'd increase NHS funding by 350m Euros a week. Since Brexit, NHS funding has actually increased by more than double that.

Nothing can stop the NHS cash burning. Expand middle management at all costs. Nevermind that we're outspending comparable countries with comparable health pressures.

[Terr_]

Dude, I'm gonna have to ask you to back up your statements with some actual data, because what you said doesn't match the what I found at all.

To be specific, I mean these charts of those countries' total spending [0] and govt/compulsory spending [1] during that time period. (Using the OECD stats visualization tool [2].)

For total spending [0] UK's spend-growth was less than France's (not greater) and for govt/compulsory spending [1] the UK's larger growth over that period was still in the same ballpark of ~1.31x versus France's ~1.28.

In other words, the nearest number I can derive for your "increasing at a rate X% higher than France's" is around 1.31/1.28 = ~2.4%. Yet you said 2000%! That's a gap of three entire orders of magnitude which desperately need explanation.

[0] https://data.oecd.org/chart/7jcQ

[1] https://data.oecd.org/chart/7jcV

[2] https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

[0xy]

I'm using World Bank data (sourced from the World Health Organization Global Health Expenditure database) on a per capita basis. As you can see, UK spending is skyrocketing. The rate of increase between 2010 and 2019 is 2,000% higher than France's, as originally claimed.

I don't think your data source correctly accounts for inflation, making it essentially useless to see true costs.

As you know, France is a similar country with similar health concerns and similar hospital pressures.

Yet the UK lights taxpayer money on fire on NHS middle management salaries (care certainly isn't improving!) and France has no such problem.

Source:

- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?locat...

- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?locat...

[Terr_]

> As you can see, UK spending is skyrocketing. The rate of increase between 2010 and 2019 is 2,000% higher than France's, as originally claimed.

I'm still not seeing it, what are the actual digits you are you math-ing in order to get 2000%? Are you sure you aren't comparing two different time ranges?

Because putting both country-lines on on the same 2010-2019 graph doesn't show anything too shocking:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD?start...

[Engineering-MD]

Do you have a source to say most of the money goes to middle management? My understanding was management employment numbers and costs have reduced over the last decade, but I’m happy to be shown to be wrong via up to date evidence.

[cedws]

Why does the NHS have a mismatch of IT systems that don't fit together then? Why are they still running Windows XP?

[red-iron-pine]

I've been at three F500 companies, ones you've heard of and probably own products from, and most had Server 2003 and aging HP-UX (or AIX, or Solaris) boxes in the mix.

That the NHS has a few old systems doesn't mean jack shit.

Like, there are still mainframes in use in many places, and more than you'd think.