Last updated on May 8th, 2023 at 11:42 am
Reading Time: 4 minutesCRITICAL MASS
1. (Nuclear Physics) the minimum mass of fissionable material that can sustain a nuclear chain reaction
2. the minimum amount of money or number of people required to start or sustain an operation, business, process, etc:
Well, we must just about be approaching Critical Mass in UK PLC any time now.
I make no apology for concentrating on the wholesale slaughter of our Police Service, nobody would be surprised by that, but it doesn’t stop there does it?
17,000+ fewer Police Officers, with yet more savage cuts to come before 2020.
In the last 4 years the British Army (not including Ghurkas) has been reduced by 19,000 Regular Soldiers and Officers.
In the same period the Royal Navy has been reduced by approx 5,000 and the Royal Air Force by approx 8,000.
The Crown Prosecution Service has seen its budget cut by 25% and staff numbers reduced by 2,500.
Yesterday we heard the news that Addenbrookes Hospital had been graded Inadequate and placed in ‘Special Measures’. I have to say that my personal opinion, for what that’s worth, is that Addenbrookes is NOT a bad hospital, it is an excellent hospital made bad by the government cuts. The ‘highlights’ of the Care Quality Commission’s findings were;
- A “significant shortfall of staff” in a number of areas resulted in staff being moved from one service to another and patients being cared for by workers without relevant training
- Pressure on surgical services meant routine operations were frequently cancelled and, despite some outstanding maternity services, staffing issues led to regular closures
- Important messages from the clinical divisions were not highlighted at trust board level
- Introducing the £200m EPIC IT system for clinical records affected the “ability to report, highlight and take action on data” and meant medicines were not always prescribed correctly
- Inspectors found “caring staff who did everything they could for patients” and “efficient” and “effective” emergency and major trauma departments
Surely to goodness the first two findings are indicative of budgetary strangulation? ‘Not enough staff’ is usually caused by ‘not enough money to pay them’ rather than a physical shortage o staff or inability to fill vacancies. The final point above is an indication of excellence in my book. If the staff are ‘Caring’, ‘Efficient’ and ‘Effective’ then there is another reason why the hospital is under-performing, isn’t there Jeremy?
The Marine and Coastguard Agency is crumbling around our ears and the stalwarts who were not made redundant are now leaving the Service, presumably due the manner in which they have been treated.
Privatisation of Prisons has had a good effect, most of the lurid headlines we have seen in the last couple of years have taken place at privately run prisons I believe.
The list goes on and on, but getting back to my main point;
I don’t know what it is but somebody out there must do, and is keeping quiet;
There MUST be a Minimum Number of Police Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Doctors, Nurses, Coastguards, Lawyers, etc etc etc that we need for UK PLC to run efficiently and be safe and sustainable i.e. a Critical Mass. I truly fear that we will soon go below that number, if we haven’t already. All of the above services are NOT traditional Industries that sell things to make a profit, they all need money pumping into them to make them work and if you strangle that flow of money something breaks, doesn’t get done. I have seen the question asked many times before – “What shall we stop doing in order to meet your requirements?” I haven’t yet seen one single answer.
Some time ago I said that I had heard that the Home Office were looking to reduce Police Numbers as low as 80,000, nobody within the Police Service or the Home Office has ever challenged that figure and told me that I am wrong.
The Armed Forces are an embarrassment, through no fault of their own. I am immensely proud of our Armed Forces, but they can’t get the job done with slashed numbers either.
Three years ago the NHS was the ‘poor cousin’ worldwide;
There were just 2.8 doctors and 8.2 nurses per 10,000 population in 2012, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
In comparison, the other wealthy countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) had averages of 3.2 and 8.9 respectively, with the EIU describing the UK figures as “worrying” due to the link between staff numbers and patient outcomes.
n terms of physical resources, the report said the situation was even worse, with just 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 population against an OECD average of 4.8. In Japan there were 13.4 per 1,000.
The UK also had less than half the amount of equipment – such as computerised tomography (CT) scanners and magnetic resonance image (MRI) units – than the average, at 6.8 and 8.7 per million population.
Overall it ranked just 28th out of 30 countries for healthcare resourcing, with only Israel and Turkey coming out worse.
That was three years ago, how bad can it have got since?
Fiddling While Britain BurnsAnd all the time the pompous idiots that rule this country sit back and make sure that the bankers etc etc can have their bonuses back and not have to suffer like ‘ordinary’ people.
What makes it all worse, unforgivable even, is that this a cold, calculated, deliberate act by Camoron and his Cronies. Aided and Abetted by self-serving businessmen and women, Senior Police Officers, possibly even senior Service Personnel, Civil Servants all selling out for a Knighthood or a Peerage.
Now we know exactly what is meant by the words “Reform is Working”
Safe to say I’m not in line for either of those but I might just be on some kind of list by now.
Could not agree more.
I know we tend to harp on about what’s going on with the Police Service but you are right to point out we are not the only ones affected and many others in public service and the armed forces have had devastating cuts imposed on them.
I would have thought that we are already past the point (Critical Mass) were the UK is functioning effectively.
The very people who have brought this about will sit back and castigate all the hard working and dedicated people who in desperation are trying to keep the UK’s head above water.
The bankers and financial whizz kids will still get paid their preposterous salaries and bonuses.
These are the same people who caused a worldwide economic crash, have committed frauds, colluded to fix bank rates, miss sold services, over charged for services and in general mislead us all to generate profits for them selves.
If this sort of malpractice was committed by anyone else (with the exception of politicians) they would be arrested, charged and prosecuted.
Our politicians get a large pay rise, increase their expenses claims, get an overly generous pension (whilst diminishing other people’s) actually make false expense claims which anywhere outside of parliament is called fraud and would face prosecution.
This we are all in it together wears a little thin.
I thinks it is not just pigs who are being F****d.
They seem to think that the ordinary rules and standards don’t apply to them
It would seem they don’t!
Totally arrogant and give little thought or care for the ordinary folk!