Following on from my earlier comments.
What really ****** me off was; If I managed to save money on my budget, my boss would tell me to spend the savings to ensure that the departments overall budget would be cut the following year. The guy that was in my post before me, used to buy the most ridiculous things just to burn excess money. At least when told, I expanded our workshop facilities to make things marginally easier to run our service. But being realistic, a lot of the stuff we purchased was not really required.
Another thing that got my goat was the number of junkets a close knit bunch of middle and upper management went on. These trips often took them to far flung destinations and would frequently be extended by adding one or two weeks holidays, having had the air travel paid by the government.
Why stop now; NHS Tayside has gone through more extremely highly paid useless executives than I care to remember over the years, and when they are found lacking, they got huge golden handshakes instead of getting kicked out. They should have been made to pay back some of the money they were paid in the first place.
Regarding the lack of nurses, there is something wrong in the system when NHS trained nurses leave, sign up on a nursing agency then get re-employed in the same department and get paid a higher rate. Bearing in mind the nursing agency is also getting paid for supplying them. I’m in no way having a go at the nurses, they are brilliant, but boy is there something wrong with the system that allows agencies to profit the way they do.
If the NHS was a private business, it would have collapsed years ago.
Rant over!
