I’ve worked for the NHS for a number of years through the years of seeming plenty, and the years of austerity and crippling underinvestment - both have left us with an estates infrastructure that often is not fit for purpose, a divided and worn down staff, and problems for the future in making a service that is sustainable.
There can be money found if the government want to make a political statement, but it’s often IMO not spent in the right places. We have restructures every 2 years and with every change in government, that are expensive and destructive to the workforce and continuity of service. The NHS does a lot that is good, but often the focus is on its faults. Due to massive underfunding of social care and MH services there is much more strain on the system.
I hate the phrase ‘NHS Managers’ as it is often thrown around in a very meaningless way to refer to individuals considered to be wasteful, overpaid and incompetent. It’s a stock phrase for the Daily Mail types who froth at the mouth about these phantom managers who sit in their ivory towers whilst Rome burns. As with all organisations, there is dead wood, there are people who turn up and do the bare minimum, but there are also a vast number of people who would be classified an ‘NHS manager’ - by virtue of the fact they are not a clinical member of staff - who work very hard and regularly do many hours over their paid amount.
The people who may be held up as examples of poor performance are often without an NHS background and given a job by one of their Tory mates (e.g. Dido Harding). The exorbitant contracts awarded to companies profiteering from the Covid crisis are done so by the Health Secretary not NHS managers.
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