Jameson
Active member
It's not mad at all just good economics and prevents bad clinical decisions driven by money rather than clinical need. You have to know that every time a hospital treats someone, you pay. It's called Payment by Results, a system which if not managed will encourage hospital to treat people who don't need to be treated just to generate income which comes out of your taxes. (bit like it used to be for dentists - drill + fill etc...) All hospitals have optimum activity based on their populations needs and there is absolutely no need to go much above or below this. For instance, a corrupt and devious hospital management could increase the number of follow ups (to a particular course of treatment) just to raise cash, to pay for things which thy are too crap to manage properly in the first place - eg expensive and innefective drugs, underperforming doctors, inefficient systems that are hopelessly disfunctional for patients. Good for Ipswich PCT I say.