Christmas Tree

Upgrade just sticking for me :-(

Huston, we have a problem! Take your head out the sand! Your in denial! (delete as appropriate)

Os4 is here! Downloading now!

craig did it Naughty Craig, thought Cunt was a word that was virtually banned that Stevie got a shit load for. Wait til Catmag finds out. Its not a nice word for a young'un to be using

So can anybody just change their name through my controls?

Your avatar is sexy And I could eat yours for breakfast

Its meant to be due out today

Dunno why but I like the idea of having a transit.... Ive always wanted a transit too With an ample supply of duct tape and chloroform?

Dunno why but I like the idea of having a transit.... Ive always wanted a transit too

I cant believe your seriously putting up this sort of rhetoric :) What do you think the defecit is? The difference between money in to the government and money out. If we have a defecit then surely its because we havent got enough to pay our bills. Translation We have money to spend and the deficit is funded by the lowest rates of interest in history. If we grow the economy we can pay it back. My credit card limits just been increased as part of my 3 month o% balance transfer deal. If things look up, I'll pay it off. The point is, we have access to capital to fund the deficit and have a huge budget to spend. 'There is no money left' is rubbish. As long as people keep offering me credit to fund my overspending theres lots left to buy in the argos catalogue. Breathtakingly amazing

Haven't had (past tense) because times were shit - unless Osbourne fucks it, we will have enough. No we wont. No political party is reccomending no cuts or no tax rises. NONE.

It's the new Tory catchphrase - what it means is "we now have the chance to do exactly what we've always wanted" knowing that the gullible will swallow this "we're broke" shite. In 5 years time CT how will they be able to answer the question "Is the NHS better or worse?" Labour catchphrase actually You all seem to miss the point. The tories would much rather be taking over an economy that was booming with a manageable debt and a surplus not a defecit. That would allow them to concentrate on improvements, tweaks, new ideas.....Unfortunately AS ALWAYS happens, Labour has left power once again with the country on its knees. You really should try and sweep past these very true and important points.

It's not really my concern but I fail to see how you can improve quality of care without having objective targets. The NHS is certain to decline under this government. Of more interest to me from a personal point of view is what happens to NICE. Rumours are afoot big changes are coming, none of which will be good imo. Fair enough I was mainly asking from an insiders point of view as to how the targets culture over the last few years had gone down. Thought it may have been the sort of stuff you discussed with the nurses and doctors in the canteen over lunch. Naah, I'm quite detached from the clinical realities of the NHS really. I'm more involved with clinical effectivenss of interventions, and more recently cost effectiveness. Seriously though, I'm not being partisan here when I say this government doesn't seem to have a clue what its doing regarding healthcare. For instance, before the election, Cameron promised a chest of money for the provision of cancer treatments. This just sounds like popularist bullshit to me. Early days still, we'll see soon enough. If your not been partisan then you'll agree their decisions have being reduced somewhat by the state of the countries finances. Have you also noted that Asda is to start selling all Cancer drugs at cost. Just chatting about this at lunch. The clinicians are all agreed that the targets are being removed as a prelude to reducing the quality of service. Makes perfect sense if you think about it. Btw CT, Cameron had promised the NHS would not be affected by his cuts. Looks like that was a lie then. Charlie and the Docs on Casualty hate the targets. I suppose you enjoy waiting in casualty for more than 4 hours, or having your elective coronary bypass operation postponed indefinitely? Nope, but I would rather Charlie and his mates finish off stitching your stab wound up rather than leaving you too wait because Kevins ingrowing toenail that he rediculously attended casualty with has been waiting 3 hours and 55 minutes.

I cant believe your seriously putting up this sort of rhetoric :) What do you think the defecit is? The difference between money in to the government and money out. If we have a defecit then surely its because we havent got enough to pay our bills.

It's not really my concern but I fail to see how you can improve quality of care without having objective targets. The NHS is certain to decline under this government. Of more interest to me from a personal point of view is what happens to NICE. Rumours are afoot big changes are coming, none of which will be good imo. Fair enough I was mainly asking from an insiders point of view as to how the targets culture over the last few years had gone down. Thought it may have been the sort of stuff you discussed with the nurses and doctors in the canteen over lunch. Naah, I'm quite detached from the clinical realities of the NHS really. I'm more involved with clinical effectivenss of interventions, and more recently cost effectiveness. Seriously though, I'm not being partisan here when I say this government doesn't seem to have a clue what its doing regarding healthcare. For instance, before the election, Cameron promised a chest of money for the provision of cancer treatments. This just sounds like popularist bullshit to me. Early days still, we'll see soon enough. If your not been partisan then you'll agree their decisions have being reduced somewhat by the state of the countries finances. Have you also noted that Asda is to start selling all Cancer drugs at cost. aye right. Cost to whom? The cost to ASDA? Then you mean at their wholesale price. Which is what the NHS currently pays. Not sure what the smileys for???? I dont think they are trying to compete with the NHS more compete with other organisations / chemists who charge individulas a lot more, ie for profit.

It's not really my concern but I fail to see how you can improve quality of care without having objective targets. The NHS is certain to decline under this government. Of more interest to me from a personal point of view is what happens to NICE. Rumours are afoot big changes are coming, none of which will be good imo. Fair enough I was mainly asking from an insiders point of view as to how the targets culture over the last few years had gone down. Thought it may have been the sort of stuff you discussed with the nurses and doctors in the canteen over lunch. Naah, I'm quite detached from the clinical realities of the NHS really. I'm more involved with clinical effectivenss of interventions, and more recently cost effectiveness. Seriously though, I'm not being partisan here when I say this government doesn't seem to have a clue what its doing regarding healthcare. For instance, before the election, Cameron promised a chest of money for the provision of cancer treatments. This just sounds like popularist bullshit to me. Early days still, we'll see soon enough. If your not been partisan then you'll agree their decisions have being reduced somewhat by the state of the countries finances. Have you also noted that Asda is to start selling all Cancer drugs at cost. Just chatting about this at lunch. The clinicians are all agreed that the targets are being removed as a prelude to reducing the quality of service. Makes perfect sense if you think about it. Btw CT, Cameron had promised the NHS would not be affected by his cuts. Looks like that was a lie then. Charlie and the Docs on Casualty hate the targets.

Coming from a business background Im all too familiar with being able to "measure" as much as possible, be it sales persons performance, product performance or ruturn on advertising spend etc etc. But... We there are some truths that need adding in to your logical argument. 1. There is no money left. Somethings going to have to give. Frontline or backroom? 2. As in all walks of life there will be good targets and stupid targets. Anyone who has worked for a company will know all about departmental empire builders. Just look at your average Personnel department over the last 15 years or so. Staffing laws, health and safety, risk assesment, training.....an endless list that increases year on year as "managers" think up something else we should be "measuring". 3. The cost to taxpayer / patients and health workers time on meeting those targets. I would never have taken by best salesperson off the shop floor to stand at the door and count the number of customers coming in or walking by...It used to happen. Similarly how much of a health workers time is taken up filling out targets, monitoring timespans etc. The same is very often mentioned by police officers. In 2010, we will spend 9% of GDP on healthcare, thats a lot of money. So point 1 is just gibberish. Point 2 is about economic choices, the reason why you need to related inputs (money) to outputs (health) so that the choice is the best for the taxpayer. Point 3 is vaild and is in line with my last sentence, its about which targets are used and how they are used. Its not 'targets' that are the problems its 'bad targets'. To be very clear on this, let me ask the question. If Osborne promised to reduce spending without affecting frontline services, how are you going to prove that this statement is right, that he is not a liar, in 12 or 24 months time? Are you going to ask frontline staff what they think? First of all, have you been on Mars every department is facing cuts, regardless of gdp so simply saying "its a lot of money" is like something I would say With regard to your last paragraph, I think the phrase they used was "without cutting not affecting".

It's not really my concern but I fail to see how you can improve quality of care without having objective targets. The NHS is certain to decline under this government. Of more interest to me from a personal point of view is what happens to NICE. Rumours are afoot big changes are coming, none of which will be good imo. Fair enough I was mainly asking from an insiders point of view as to how the targets culture over the last few years had gone down. Thought it may have been the sort of stuff you discussed with the nurses and doctors in the canteen over lunch. Naah, I'm quite detached from the clinical realities of the NHS really. I'm more involved with clinical effectivenss of interventions, and more recently cost effectiveness. Seriously though, I'm not being partisan here when I say this government doesn't seem to have a clue what its doing regarding healthcare. For instance, before the election, Cameron promised a chest of money for the provision of cancer treatments. This just sounds like popularist bullshit to me. Early days still, we'll see soon enough. If your not been partisan then you'll agree their decisions have being reduced somewhat by the state of the countries finances. Have you also noted that Asda is to start selling all Cancer drugs at cost.

Coming from a business background Im all too familiar with being able to "measure" as much as possible, be it sales persons performance, product performance or ruturn on advertising spend etc etc. But... We there are some truths that need adding in to your logical argument. 1. There is no money left. Somethings going to have to give. Frontline or backroom? 2. As in all walks of life there will be good targets and stupid targets. Anyone who has worked for a company will know all about departmental empire builders. Just look at your average Personnel department over the last 15 years or so. Staffing laws, health and safety, risk assesment, training.....an endless list that increases year on year as "managers" think up something else we should be "measuring". 3. The cost to taxpayer / patients and health workers time on meeting those targets. I would never have taken by best salesperson off the shop floor to stand at the door and count the number of customers coming in or walking by...It used to happen. Similarly how much of a health workers time is taken up filling out targets, monitoring timespans etc. The same is very often mentioned by police officers.

It's not really my concern but I fail to see how you can improve quality of care without having objective targets. The NHS is certain to decline under this government. Of more interest to me from a personal point of view is what happens to NICE. Rumours are afoot big changes are coming, none of which will be good imo. I guess that depends on its true value with regard to taxpayers money. (Not that I know anything about nice). Sometimes these organisations start out as a very good idea and well intentioned and then over time, department building takes place, and before you know it you have hundreds / thousands of managers suddenly trying to come up with new ideas to justify their department / wage. I suppose when theres no money left and a government is trying not to reduce front line services, it is this sort of organisation that looks easy prey. Im sure that it does do lots of good stuff though. good luck.

It's not really my concern but I fail to see how you can improve quality of care without having objective targets. The NHS is certain to decline under this government. Of more interest to me from a personal point of view is what happens to NICE. Rumours are afoot big changes are coming, none of which will be good imo. Fair enough I was mainly asking from an insiders point of view as to how the targets culture over the last few years had gone down. Thought it may have been the sort of stuff you discussed with the nurses and doctors in the canteen over lunch.

NHS Targets on their way out. First ones on their way seem to be the requirement for GPs to see people within 48 hours, the four-hour A&E target and the 18-week waiting target. They form part of a drive to save money on management costs across the health service and reflect a major shift from how the NHS operated under Labour. But in the lead up to the election the Tories claimed it was time to move away from the target culture and instead focus more on the quality of treatment. Mr Lansley said: "I want to free the NHS from bureaucracy and targets that have no clinical justification and move to an NHS which measures its performance on patient outcomes. "Doctors will be free to focus on the outcomes that matter - providing quality patient care." Whats the word inside the NHS Renton about the general target culture?

Its about balance and currently the balance is far too much to the wrong end of the scale.

They'll be paying tax for the 50-odd years after the 3 spent at university, you know. The Tories have it in them to ensure top universities become enjoyed only by the wealthy. Increase tuition fees, commercial rates of loans, present 18 year olds with a nice mountain of debt if they want to go to uni. That's right pleb, know your place and get yourself down to the production line.* Hope they prove me wrong. *Have to point out that Labour very nearly did exactly the same thing about 7 years ago. Universities and degrees imo, should be there for the brightest in the land regardless of wealth. Recently it seems to have been decided that everyone should get a degree. Fair enough if your going to be a teacher, lawyer, engineer etc. But so many just going to do jewelry making, media studies, and various tosh that really wont stand them well for the jobs that are available after uni. We do need our bin men, asda workers, window cleaners, call centre staff, factory workers etc. Millions gets wasted every year trying to shoe horn some of these kids through the college / a level route when there is just no point. Let degrees go back to actually meaning something so the brightest in the land rise run our companies and make the nation better equipped to compete.