Beeching not Gershon

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Sat, 10/03/2009 - 22:37

The political parties are falling over themselves to say they will protect the health service budgets. But is this true? (http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/finance/andy-burnham-makes-no-promises-over-nhs-cuts/5006740.article)
Department of Health (DH) has asked SHAs and PCTs to identify £20bn of savings.
Lets examine £20bn. This is an enormous amount of money! It means a colossal shift from inpatient to outpatient, from hospital to community. It means real cuts in staff numbers. The money is all gone?It means real cuts in the drugs budget, when UK already knows it has some of the cheapest medicines (as GPs and hospitals start selling them abroad to make a quick buck). Without massive involvement from GPs to change their referral patterns (and we've banked on this happening so many times before and failed to engage, what's different this time?), it means cuts in the quality of care. Could this be the push that will drive people from Care Free at the Point of Need to Basic Care Free, pay for everything else you use? I hope not, but then the rising cost of health and social care for an ageing society may simply not be a vote winner.

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If I were running the country - encouraging business

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Tue, 05/21/2013 - 09:33

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Minimum wage

Fantasy government - what would I do if I were in government?  Well how about reduce corporation tax, increase income tax, increase minimum wage and invest in job creation in the regions?  That would be a good start - create jobs where there are workers, then make sure that the right amount of tax is collected and at the same time reduce spend on benefits which are only used to increase profits of selfish organisations.

Would it work?  Have your say.

PwC Report on the Current State of Project Management

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 10:44

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PwC Project Management ReportPwC found that successful companies are getting more mature in their project management ability.  This raises the game – successful companies have lower costs from fewer failed projects, and less successful companies have to work harder to catch up.  There are some important lessons to take this report for everyone – Read more…

Joy instead of tedium

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Fri, 05/10/2013 - 21:04

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The Office

Every office has them - the tasks that have to be done that nobody likes doing.  Whether it's the audit, the wages, standard letters, whatever it is - someone has to do it and it feels like a waste of time and money.

Why should you care?

So you employ somebody, so why do you care about how tedious the task is? Well they are costing money, to do something that could be done far more effectively.

Learning from the Past

Submitted by HugoM on Fri, 05/10/2013 - 20:27

Evidence for service improvement

Many public service changes have little basis in evidence. Their success (or otherwise) does not appear to depend on how 'good' the policy itself is, but rather on how it has been implemented. This relies on staff attitudes and relationships. My research falls into a number of broad categories: finding out what is currently happening; what people think about it; and what people think it will mean.

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Consumer Price Index (CPI) Calculator for SROI

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Tue, 04/16/2013 - 10:05

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CPI components

When calculating a Social Return on Investment (SROI) evaluation or SROI forecast , sometimes you have to rely on published figures from reports.  But if these are from a few years ago, then they probably need adjusting for inflation.

There are calculators on the web to do this for you, but I found them cumbersome and it was difficult to keep a record of what calculator I'd used, and how, for which value - auditability and transparency is vital for SROI.  So here's a spreadsheet to do this properly!