Time for Beds Said Zeb..

Now, I know that I promised to go into more detail on the BMA paper 'A Rational Way Forward'. That was before I was so rudely interrupted by Patricia Hewitt suing the ass off Remedy UK for- well, existing. I will go back to 'A Rational Way Forward', but couldn't let the recent discussion on waiting lists pass without comment.

I'm glad that Nicola Sturgeon has committed to a more honest form of recording waiting times, instead of having lists within lists. But once they've done that, I hope they will tackle the problem of waiting lists itself.

It should be simple. The number of acute beds in many hospitals has been reduced. Fewer beds means fewer operations. If you don't have a bed to put someone in, you can't do an operation. Not unless you have one of those 'Early Discharge Teams' with baseball caps and matching teeshirts, who load you into a catapult and fling you from the roof of the hospital building, two hours after your quadruple bypass. So, to reduce waiting lists we need more beds. Simple? No.

A lot of our hospitals are smaller. That is because- yep you've guessed it- they were built under PFI. Because PFI is so expensive, the buildings were made smaller to save money. So we need more capacity.

Operations and the stay in hospital afterwards, cost money. If a trust is short of money, they will reduce the number of operations in a month to try and stay within budget. In particular,- yep you've guessed it- PFI buildings are paid for out of a trust's clinical budget and severely affect their finances. So what Nicola Sturgeon needs to do as a matter of urgency, is to sort out- yep, you've guessed it- PFI. Good luck Nicola, don't envy you, but this particular thistle has got to be grasped.