Hospital Monopoly Money

You would think money is the same everywhere. A pound is a pound, a fiver a fiver and so on. This might be the case in other places. It does not seem to hold true for the NHS. Hospital money is Monopoly money.

Before reading this article please remember I am not an accountant, I can’t even count up to 20 without needing to take off my socks. This can be a problem when doing drug calculations. All the following is anecdotal, most of it is second or third hand tales. Part of the oral tradition of nursing.

Everyone complains about the NHS being run by accountants, too many managers. Well apart from accountants probably. This shouldn’t really be a problem, money is important after all. The problem is that the accountant are on some kind of occupational therapy work scheme, on pass from the worst of the long term care psychiatric wards.

Money has purpose. I used to think all the money to run a department came out of one giant, or not so giant, bank account. With hindsight this was foolish. Our ward was being run on a very tight budget. There was a ban on overtime, agency staff could only be used when regular collapsed from exhaustion. We were massively over budget.

Things were very bad.

We were somewhat bemused when the workmen from the estates department came round and started replacing all the pictures on the walls with new pictures. These were nice pictures mind you, not the tatty stuff you get from Athena.

“How much”, I asked, “is this costing ?”

“Two thousand pounds”, I was told.

In todays money that would be about two thousand pounds.

At the same time the ward managers were getting all their offices refurbished. There was almost war over which colour schemes would be chosen. This costing more thousands of pounds.

“I thought we were poor !”, I whined.

“It comes from the decorating budget”, I was informed.

It was only the ‘Keeping Staffing Levels Safe Budget‘ that had run out apparently.

I learned a little more about how the world worked that day. My universe became a little less fluffy.

Money also must be spent. Really.

In one psychiatric hospital staff could always tell which ward was due to be closed.

They could tell because it always got decorated and generally spruced up. Apparently the ward budget always had to be spent before the ward was closed. Somewhere on a spreadsheet this obviously made sense.

Money also floats ahead of the management inspection.

The wards, where I trained, where always done up shortly before the management popped round for one of their irregular inspections. Fair enough you might say.

Staff would also raid other wards to get quality furnishings and pictures. Plants, chairs, pictures, ornaments, furniture etc. You name it, it was borrowed from other wards.

The management must have thought they were being stalked by Triffids, also that nurses were very unoriginal in their choice of furniture.

Money is never sufficient.

Obviously.

Must go the movie I am watching has got so bad I am compelled to watch it.