Now being an overpaid underworked GP in Northernshire means that at the end of the working day one hands over the keys of ones Farrari to ones manservant and goes to dress for dinner.
As one does so one may watch the news on that most modern of appliances called the television usually a 7 inch monochrome device for only people who need home visits have 90 inch colour ones, 5 cars in their driveways and cannot come to surgery as Wayne is doing a “deal” and on the sick with a bad back.
We really must get more au fait with the use of elephant doses of Diazepam in the management of back pain and remember the really dark opaque glasses to shield our eyes from plasma TV glare and industrial ear muffs to protect us from the surround sound system on such home visits for acute emergencies such as itchy scrot that is doing his head in but he has gone out - sorry doctor.
Meanwhile back on track and at the usual GPs baronial mansion house, whilst being served our G&T and while the memsahib was away at her toilet preparing for dinner, we watched an item on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s evening news.
We heard this and thought this was a slight case of déjà vu and spot the difference between the Parties for all three seem to be rolling out similar speeches about any (still) vaguely useful and cheap public service they are meddling with the one difference being that one and a half of them are in power.
The link to what we listened to is here and we reproduce the text with a few thoughts which if you cut and paste summarize the current attitude politique to healthcare/education/anything that might help you advance yourself or make you better.
So here goes:
The White Paper therefore proposes unconstrained recruitment of the roughly 65,000 high-achieving students, scoring the equivalent of AAB grades or above at A-level.
We will bail out the organization using private sector funding paid for over many years and increase service provision as a result of a public sector/private sector engagement.
Quotas for those students will be abolished and funding will go to whichever university offers them a place they accept. In addition, we will create a flexible margin of about 20,000 places to reward universities and colleges that combine good quality with value for money and with average tuition charges, after waivers, at or below £7,500 per year. That adds up to around 85,000 student places—roughly one in four places for new entrants contestable between institutions in 2012-13. We aim to expand this further year after year.
We will introduce competition via a market of sorts with additional capacity provided by any willing provider but wouldn't dream of centrally fixing prices.
We will also extend the scope for employers and charities to offer sponsorship of extra places, provided that they do not create a cost liability for the Government, and provided, of course, that there is fair access for all applicants, regardless of ability to pay, and no sacrifice of academic standards.
We ain’t going to pay for nuffink the Big Society will and everyone will have“equal” access if they can pay for me bitches.
The reforms put students in the driving seat, but if they are to use that power to best effect, more than a liberalising of the quotas regime will be needed.
No decision about me without me and in order to put you in charge there will have to be some reform and you will have to pay more to get less.
Prospective students also need to know far more about the academic experience on offer. We will therefore transform the information available to them about individual courses at individual institutions. Each institution will make available key items of information, such as contact hours and job prospects. Information will also be available to outside bodies, such as Which?, so that they can produce their own comparisons. That will lead universities to match their excellence in research with a high-quality academic experience.
More league tables and expensive websites anyone?
We listened to this little less than 2 minute speech on the video link and thought of a word relating to something bovine for has not much similar been said about the NHS by all Parties? Give the people and the professionals the illusion of control but only if they can afford it?
For reasons of brevity we have confined our comments to the BBC piece. You can, if you are a cowpat afficionado, read the whole speech here. We think all 3 Parties are doing an excellent job recycling these cowpats for different public services.
Praise be to the Party for allowing all of the many, who paid for the education that benefited the few now in charge, to have the privilege of paying for what they gave the few for free.
Welcome to NHS Reform and the Market movie coming to a child, a mature student or university near you soon in its follow on Education – the sequal to NHS reform.
More "reform" anyone? We’ll ask Kato to get you some more . . .
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