Brilliant blog on financial performance by Paul Corrigan CBE. But it exemplifies one of the core problems we face in the NHS, which is that financial performance and access trump everything else (eg quality). Whatever happened to quality? 𒊓𒅂𒁓𒐗𒐕𒐗 Steve the skeptic Charlotte Augst David Oliver

Fat Jacques 🏴‍☠️ Sue Gerrard That Tom Bell - the journey IS the victory 𒊓𒅂𒁓𒐗𒐕𒐗 Steve the skeptic Julian Patterson John Seddon It was really long, as the graph showed.
Measuring the 4HT didn’t directly improve things but it forced hospitals to do things differently and make a change, supported by a government who had committed to make it happen.

Sue Gerrard That Tom Bell - the journey IS the victory Fat Jacques 🏴‍☠️ 𒊓𒅂𒁓𒐗𒐕𒐗 Steve the skeptic Julian Patterson John Seddon The four hour target made things improve; it led to proper investment in staffing and processes. It was painful initially but absolutely was a good thing. Piloted 2003, introduced 2004.

Fat Jacques 🏴‍☠️ 𒊓𒅂𒁓𒐗𒐕𒐗 Steve the skeptic That Tom Bell - the journey IS the victory Julian Patterson John Seddon What’s the alternative. Pre 4h standard waits to be seen were far worse, it uncomfortably but definitely improved emergency care.
In a functioning system heroic acts aren’t necessary.
People over 4h is the reason we need to collect 12h, 24h and (most importantly) APD data.

Fat Jacques 🏴‍☠️ 𒊓𒅂𒁓𒐗𒐕𒐗 Steve the skeptic That Tom Bell - the journey IS the victory Julian Patterson John Seddon It’s a surrogate marker of good healthcare. To achieve it the system needs to be working in entirety. When any part of that system fails the 4h standard lights up. It’s not good in of itself, but to get that performance the system must meet all demands. Drives that.

Chronic underinvestment – lack of knowledge diffusion – institutional fragmentation

Three critical elements holding back the productivity of people, firms and places in the UK.

Discover more by reading The Productivity Agenda: productivity.ac.uk/research/the-p…
#productivityagenda

Sorry (not sorry) if the data doesn’t fit with the ‘plan’ - I will keep sharing the statistics anyway😉

Charlotte Augst Same with the overall volume of people attending A&E. If you go by the media and NHSE statements you’d think attendances at A&E had almost doubled post-pandemic. In reality it’s up by 5%, still significant but suggest problems in UEC not caused by tidal wave of demand.

Years and years of health policy based on the erroneous assumption that people needlessly use A&E. It makes me so angry. Start with the data, and stop blaming sick people for seeking help.

The unfairness of rent controls is one of the best understood laws of economics

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A&E problems not volume, not low acuity patients …. not GPs

So the problem lies elsewhere in the hospital systems

Purplepingers Here's my summary of the main findings from Konstantin Kholodilin's excellent analysis of every empirical study of rent control to date:
x.com/GeorgistSteve/…

Tom Slater is a leftist housing scholar, and even his book clarifies that rent freezes have such devastating effects that 'among the left, very few, if any, scholars or housing justice activists are calling for them'.

So I'm surprised to see Purplepingers do so.

Per the paper I'll post below, we have pretty convincing data to indicate that rent freezes (1st gen rent control) increase rents in uncontrolled dwellings.

Now, you can avoid this by freezing all rents on all units, but that'll devastate housing construction & maintenance.

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Excellent editorial in The Times.