Welcome to NHS Watch
Updated: 13:00 - 1st March 2008
NHS Watch undergoes an update
Still monitoring and tracking NHS Job Losses since April 2006.
We have been a bit quiet with updates since the end of 2007. However we are preparing a revamp of the site including a review of Hospital Car Parking charges. Come back and see us in the next few days.
The current NHS Job Loss total now stands at 24,610. The Bed Loss total remains steady at 2,785.
NHS Watch - Now tracking NHS Waiting times
We have received a number of requests asking us for information on Hospital Waiting times, so we are please to announce that we have now added a new page to the web site NHS - Waiting Times that addresses these requests.
The new page offers two new options, you can connect direct to the NHS web site and use their search engine to find out current waiting times, and you can also connect to the Department of Health (DOH) web site to find out how your Trust/PCT had been performing over previous months/years. There are some explanations that you should read before browsing through the DOH data, there is a huge amount of it, but this will give you a very good idea of past NHS waiting time performance.
Please let us know via the usual routes (Email/Submission Page/Blog) what you think about this new page and if there are other areas of the NHS that we should think about tracking, MRI Scans and the Choose & Book system are two that have been suggested.
Again, it seems that we are still the only place on the Internet maintaining a complete and constantly updated (hourly if required) table of the number of NHS Job Losses based on publicly available information.
However it seems that the NHS Confederation has taken to including on its joint NHS Employers web site a 'cut-down' version of our Job Loss table! We checked on this and found that of nine NHS locations listed showing 'press reported job losses' of 3,765, their comment is that only 554 will actually be redundancies, with 4 being in one location and 550 in another! Their list can be found here (you'll need to scroll down the page a bit to find the table). We'll look into this further and report later with an update.
We also now have our own NHS Watch Blog, check it out and send us some comments.
You can send us details of any newly announced NHS job losses by email, our Blog or by our submission form.
We look forward to hearing from you soon.
NHS Watch
Where we came from?
After carrying out some research on the Internet and although we could find lots of 'individual' items about the emerging National Health Service (NHS) Budget Deficit problems, we could not find any central place where a record was being kept, of all the current 'Budget Deficit' problems that are starting to beset the NHS. Therefore, we have created this web site as a means of tracking the unfolding stories on NHS Job Losses, Bed Losses and other 'Value for Money' issues that seem to be surfacing in 'our' NHS.
We have started tracking these items by setting out a table that lists all the known NHS Hospitals that have announced various Job Losses and Bed Losses. Of course, this list is only a beginning as we expect to update this and other tables that we may create as we gather more information from our searches on the Internet and of course when we receive any updates from 'you'.
'You', can send us new NHS Job Loss information via the 'Submit Your Information' page. You can also use the form page to send us any other relevant information that relates to other NHS 'Value for Money' issues that you become aware of.
We will, for obvious legal reasons have to check your submitted information before adding it to the web site. It is therefore important that you provide us with accurate information, including any relevant Internet links, where you obtained the 'publicly' available data from and your contact details. This will help us understand the validity of the information. Please do not send private, privileged or non-publicly released information, as we will not publish this on our web site.
Another suggestion that has already been made is for a table that lists what each hospital charges for visitor Car Parking. If you have information you wish to send, please use the form page.
We look forward to receiving information from you, as we build what we hope will be a useful web site, tracking some of the important information that we think everyone needs to know about 'our' NHS.
Visit our new Blog for additional comments.