Saturday 1 March 2014

Good to Know it's got so many Managers

From the Daily Mail

A NHS administrator who bought £160,000 of printer cartridges with public money before selling them on eBay was jailed today.

Madeleine Webster, 47, from Stoneycroft, Liverpool, spent years defrauding her own department by ordering printer cartridges and selling them online. The £160,000 she and her husband Stephen, 46, took from the NHS would have funded six full-time nursing posts, a court heard…

Webster's boss Bernadine Lynam also recalled occasions she had been working late and saw Madeleine Webster and her husband Stephen, 46, removing items from the office via the fire door.

An investigation was launched. It was found that before Webster took over ordering ink cartridges the department spent about £2,500 a year. After it became her responsibility, the bill rocketed to £10,854 in 2008 to 2009, then to more than £27,000, £45,000 and finally £60,000 in the following years.


How the hell is her boss still in a job? You've got an employee with purchasing responsibility who is removing items via the fire door (which is the point where I'd be immediately suspicious, because why are you not going via the normal exits?) with her husband (why is he there doing it?).

Of course, the problem with this really comes back to what Milton Friedman said about spending money. It's not her manager's money, or even his managers money. All the way up the line, the NHS is spending money taken from taxpayers and as a result can spend it as badly as they like.

4 comments:

Bayard said...

"An investigation was launched. It was found that before Webster took over ordering ink cartridges the department spent about £2,500 a year"

That says it all really. It took "an investigation" to find out what someone a) should have been aware of one year after Ms Webster took over and b) should have able to find out in a few mouse clicks.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Classic stuff.

Anonymous said...

I work in the NHS. The only way to get rid of somebody you don't like is to promote them. Otherwise it's a year of sick leave, free counselling, reduced responsibilities and conflict resolution courses before you quit in disgust.

The alternative is to get them drunk and make them post something confidential or defamatory on Facebook. That will get them dismissed before you go back to work the next day.

Robin Smith said...

Did you know 9 out of 10 emergency calls (Council Tax I think)

ARE NOT EMERGENCIES!

OK so its not the drivers fault. But its rather convenient at times of cut back so did you ever hear one complain?

Even the civies are not fully to blame because they have no idea where to start to remedy it. Nevertheless they do not try hard to address it. I wonder why.

Its The People making the calls who hold the ultimate obligation. Interestingly its worse in cities than rural. My wild guess is the cause is due to stress of work and drug addicts. First sign of headache and the call goes out in case they cannot make it to work. And we tend to look after each other less(family) and rely on the system in urban life.

So how bad does to have to get before action becomes unavoidable. 99 calls out of 100. 999 out of 1000?

Then, how much of what is saved could be spent on ACTUALLY stopping more people from dying from the savings of sorting it all out?

It cannot be perfect, say, every other call was genuine would be reasonable.

I say this as a NIMBY as I live on the main road and calls have doubled in the past 2 years but no more people are dying. With LVT I would pay less rent now the location was less valuable. My choice.

The stats I use came direct from an NHS director. 3 pages of excuses to close out the conversation, all said with well trained politeness. No sign of action. More people dying than needed.