It seems that inveterate hospital shutter Nurse Patricia Hewitt is enlisting the support of Chelsea Clinton to shut the A&E at Southport Hospital. The former First Daughter was part of a McKinsey management consultancy team to visit Warrington recently to meet Southport NHS Trust bureaucrats to discuss how best to cut their costs. Closing the A&E and transferring it to Ormskirk was high on their list of subjects to discuss. It's not clear how many nursing positions will be lost if the move goes ahead, but we all know the Clintons are expert in 'blowing' jobs! I don't know if Chelsea and her colleagues will be invited back, but it would be interesting to know how much McKinseys are being paid to help "save" the NHS money. A written PQ perhaps, someone?
Thursday, April 20, 2006
EXCLUSIVE: Chelsea Clinton Advises NHS on Hospital Closures
It seems that inveterate hospital shutter Nurse Patricia Hewitt is enlisting the support of Chelsea Clinton to shut the A&E at Southport Hospital. The former First Daughter was part of a McKinsey management consultancy team to visit Warrington recently to meet Southport NHS Trust bureaucrats to discuss how best to cut their costs. Closing the A&E and transferring it to Ormskirk was high on their list of subjects to discuss. It's not clear how many nursing positions will be lost if the move goes ahead, but we all know the Clintons are expert in 'blowing' jobs! I don't know if Chelsea and her colleagues will be invited back, but it would be interesting to know how much McKinseys are being paid to help "save" the NHS money. A written PQ perhaps, someone?
So the Tory pledge is never to shut a hospital?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, don't be such a prat, or at least if you're going to be a prat, at least have the decency to say who you are. Nowhere in this story do I say whether the hospital should be shut or not. The point of the story was to highlight Chelsea Clinton's involvement. Quite why the UK taxpayer should pay for her services is beyond me. I cannot think what kind of expertise she brings to the table.
ReplyDeleteI think the Tory pledge will be not to melt down the NHS and not to use highly paid consultants to do it!!!
ReplyDelete"24 hours to save the NHS" is becoming "10 years to destroy it"!
Well... she's a trainee at McKinsey and presumably has the same kind of expertise the others can bring to the table. I think consultants probably are overused in the public sector but the fact that they include trainees in their teams is hardly the most egregious of sins. The expertise needs to gained through experience.
ReplyDeleteShe's still a trainee?
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding me!?
Iain,be careful slagging this sector of the economy off.It's the only growth industry we have now that Brown is having to tighten the public sector purse strings,retail is dying(thanks to overindebted consumers) and manufacturing is having to absorb increasing raw material costs.
ReplyDeleteIt's always the way.The axemen are the last to have their overtime cut. and as you need to cut more you need more axemen.
You would have thought though we had some of our own who can bill out at £400 an hour,it's not that hard to do.
Lets not forget that another former employee at McKinsey was the Shadow Foreign Secretary. Clearly, it did him no harm at all.
ReplyDeleteyes please! can we have decisions on closing hospitals made by american trainees.
ReplyDeleteespecially by the firm that gave the world the towering apogee of management that was william hague. he really knew how to run things...
oh.