1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is broke.

[Mpsox]

For a number of reasons I had to go and get the swine flu injection today at my local vaccination centre in my local HSE centre.

On arrival, I was given a simple form to fill out by a very efficient and polite member of staff who was very helpful with anyone having issues. The form was very straightforward. From there I was taken to another room where another member of staff inputted the form onto a PC, wrote a reference number on it and then send me to the nurse who gave me the jab. I then had to wait 15 mins to see if I had a negative reaction, give my form to one of 3 other staff sitting at laptops in that waiting room who filled out a simple 5 line card and gave it back to me when my 15 minutes were up

Thinking about it going home (I'm an operations manager), it took 5 staff to "manage" the bureaucracy of a nurse giving the flu jab. I'm not giving out about the staff involved and this is not a public sector staff bashing post. They were all very nice, helpful and professional in all that they did, but 5 staff and 4 laptops to manage a queue of around a dozen people and manage the inputting of around 15 lines of data per person?

Simple things, (pre-print the reference number on the forms for example) could have eliminated chunks of this and if I had been asked to size this as a piece of business for tender, I'd have done it as a nurse and 2 staff at most

If we assume for a second that the average pay of each bureaucrat was €25k, then including fringe and ancillary costs, it's costing the state at least €150kpa to administer the delivery of the flu jab in a small country town. Note this is just to administer it, not to actually stick the needle in.

HSE management have a lot to answer for as far as I am concerned, they are throwing our money away

 

[Purple]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

My wife is a GP. There is one full time and two part time doctors in her practice as well as one practice nurse (part time), so that’s two and a half “healthcare professionals”. For that they have tow clerical/receptionist support staff. They do all data input, day to day accounts, answer the phones, liaise with the HSE etc.
In a private practice there would be a maximum of one bureaucrat/ clerical person doing the job of the 5 people you met today. Since margins are quite high amongst doctors they are not overly efficient so even at that I’m sure there is plenty of room for improvement.

 

[Towger]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

Several years ago I did some work for a section of our 'local government' as they could (not bothered to read the manual and give it ago) do to it them selves. To cut a long story short they had 12 people doing basically the exact same job as me, for less 'customers'.

 

[PyritePete]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

4 in HSE Clinic in Celbridge a few weeks back (not including 1 employee behind reception counter) 1 lady to return form back to, 1 doctor/nurse who gave jab and 2 nurses checking on patients post-jab.

In fairness the place was jammed that day

 

[Leper]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

I think I can answer each question as I am one of those who works in the Swine Flu Clinics.

The clinics can be extremely busy. The actual jab while administered with a medic with qualifications is the easy bit, although for obvious reasons most talked about.

None of the staff in the clinics can say how many people will arrive at any one time. I experienced several hundred people arriving almost together and most had no appointment. Such is the nature of the beast. I am not saying that Crowd Control is necessary, but people want to pass through quickly and efficiently.

It is not a case of just giving everybody who shows up the jab. Each jab must be recorded. This is a Swine Flu jab not a prick from a safety pin. There can be serious consequences.

I think I have answered the general point. Now, let me have a rant of my own and in support of the much maligned public service backroom brigade.

(a) I have to travel to the Clinic at my own expense. I use my car, but have to claim the minimum bus-fare to the destination as I do not get petrol or mileage expenses.

(b) My attendance at the clinic is not voluntary - I am instructed to attend and must attend. When I return to my permanent place of work I am behind in my work due to attending the clinics. I must make up for lost time at my own effort i.e no overtime etc. Medical Staff return to their permanent place of work and do not have to wade through arrears.

(c) The medical staff at the clinics are paid full subsistence for the day. I am not. They can claim for using their cars. Surely, a case of discrimination? But, no - I am support staff and can go an whistle Dixie.

There is no doubt, the Medics are the stars of the show - the support staff while they work their buts off (and without any thanks) are never recognised until something goes wrong.

 

[Complainer]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

I know it wasn't intended as such, but this really is more public sector bashing.

Firstly, why are the admin staff suddenly 'bureaucrats'? You said yourself that these were "all very nice, helpful and professional", so why bash them as bureaucrats? They are really just clerical staff.

Secondly, of the five clerical staff that you moan about, two had nothing to do with you. There happened to be three staff ready to deal with customers, one of whom dealt with you. So pull back on your moaning by 40%.

Thirdly, there may well be a very good reason for non pre-printing the reference number on the paper form. Perhaps the reference number is related to the particular unit of vaccine that you were given. I can't be sure of this, of course, but neither can you - so don't be so quick to criticise when you really don't know what's going on.

I could do the same kind of moaning about most of my visits to Superquinn or Tesco, or most of my visits to my bank or insurance company, or most of my visits to the local hardware shop. All of these places have processes that could be improved, but being imperfect organisations with imperfect people, they are not perfect.

I'd love the see the queue with your 'nurse and two staff' when 15 people turn up at the same time for vaccination.

 

[DonKing]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

I know it wasn't intended as such, but this really is more public sector bashing.

No it's not. Most people just want to see an efficient public sector and are frustrated when they see bad work practices. Even the public sector unions have admitted that there's plenty of room for improvement and reform. So lets get going with the reform!!

 

[Purple]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

No it's not. Most people just want to see an efficient public sector and are frustrated when they see bad work practices. Even the public sector unions have admitted that there's plenty of room for improvement and reform. So lets get going with the reform!!

You may as well be talking the wall.

 

[Bronte]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

I know it wasn't intended as such, but this really is more public sector bashing.

Firstly, why are the admin staff suddenly 'bureaucrats'? You said yourself that these were "all very nice, helpful and professional", so why bash them as bureaucrats? They are really just clerical staff.

Secondly, of the five clerical staff that you moan about, two had nothing to do with you. There happened to be three staff ready to deal with customers, one of whom dealt with you. So pull back on your moaning by 40%.

Thirdly, there may well be a very good reason for non pre-printing the reference number on the paper form. Perhaps the reference number is related to the particular unit of vaccine that you were given. I can't be sure of this, of course, but neither can you - so don't be so quick to criticise when you really don't know what's going on.

I could do the same kind of moaning about most of my visits to Superquinn or Tesco, or most of my visits to my bank or insurance company, or most of my visits to the local hardware shop. All of these places have processes that could be improved, but being imperfect organisations with imperfect people, they are not perfect.

I'd love the see the queue with your 'nurse and two staff' when 15 people turn up at the same time for vaccination.

This is a perfect example of a bureaucrat justifying bureaucracy.

 

[Mpsox]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

I know it wasn't intended as such, but this really is more public sector bashing.

Firstly, why are the admin staff suddenly 'bureaucrats'? You said yourself that these were "all very nice, helpful and professional", so why bash them as bureaucrats? They are really just clerical staff.

Secondly, of the five clerical staff that you moan about, two had nothing to do with you. There happened to be three staff ready to deal with customers, one of whom dealt with you. So pull back on your moaning by 40%.

Thirdly, there may well be a very good reason for non pre-printing the reference number on the paper form. Perhaps the reference number is related to the particular unit of vaccine that you were given. I can't be sure of this, of course, but neither can you - so don't be so quick to criticise when you really don't know what's going on.

I could do the same kind of moaning about most of my visits to Superquinn or Tesco, or most of my visits to my bank or insurance company, or most of my visits to the local hardware shop. All of these places have processes that could be improved, but being imperfect organisations with imperfect people, they are not perfect.

I'd love the see the queue with your 'nurse and two staff' when 15 people turn up at the same time for vaccination.

Firstly I made it quite clear in my post that my issue was not with the staff concerned, it was with their management who had designed this operation.

Secondly, I simply pointed out that as someone who manages operations for a living, I could see simple ways in which the process could be improved. I simply do not understand why it took 4 people on laptops to input data onto a system to produce a hand writen 6 inch square piece of paper. I run a data processing centre and based on the form concerned, I estimate it would take one of my staff 75 seconds to input the data on it and another 30 seconds to produce the relevant card

I fully agree with you that there are plenty of inefficiencies in the private sector, I've no doubt that if you came into my organisation and looked at things with an outside eye you would see things that I have missed. However my post was not about the private sector, it was about the HSE. Feel free to raise posts about inefficiences in the private sector if you want to.

The public sector is not perfect, I'm disappointed that you cannot take constructive criticism for what it is.

 

[Purple]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

This is a perfect example of a bureaucrat justifying bureaucracy.

I wish I'd said that!

 

[Complainer]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

This is a perfect example of a bureaucrat justifying bureaucracy.

Pity that you can't express a relevant opinion without resorting to namecalling.

No it's not. Most people just want to see an efficient public sector and are frustrated when they see bad work practices. Even the public sector unions have admitted that there's plenty of room for improvement and reform. So lets get going with the reform!!

There is no question of 'admitting' that there is plenty of room for improvement and reform. Of course there is plenty of room for improvement and reform in every organisation, public and private. Reform is a continuous process, and is never finished. There is no evidence of bad work practices from this post - just 'hurler on the ditch' opinions from someone who doesn't actually know what is going on.

Firstly I made it quite clear in my post that my issue was not with the staff concerned, it was with their management who had designed this operation.

Management are people too, generally hard-working, concientious and professional people who do the best they can with the resources available to them. Generally, they know a bit more about the job in question than spectators, who breeze through for a minute or two and convince themselves that they are experts in healthcare.

Secondly, I simply pointed out that as someone who manages operations for a living, I could see simple ways in which the process could be improved. I simply do not understand why it took 4 people on laptops to input data onto a system to produce a hand writen 6 inch square piece of paper. I run a data processing centre and based on the form concerned, I estimate it would take one of my staff 75 seconds to input the data on it and another 30 seconds to produce the relevant card

If you really do want to be constructive, stop exaggerating. It did not take four people to deal with you. Stick to the facts.

The public sector is not perfect, I'm disappointed that you cannot take constructive criticism for what it is.

Indeed, the public sector like any organisation is not perfect and there is lots of room for improvement. I recognise constructive criticism when I see it, and this was not constructive. Try again without using derogatory terms like 'bureaucrats', without exaggerating the number of people involved, and when you actually understand what the form in question does, what systems are being used, what data is being validated etc etc. Then it just might be constructive.

At present, this is just 'hurler on the ditch' moaning, and of no constructive value.

 

[Purple]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

Can we take it that Complainer is an expert in the area of healthcare administration, since he deems himself qualified to not only rebut criticism of healthcare administrative practices from other posters but adjudicate whether such criticisms are constructive or not?
Mrs Purple is a doctor and has worked in both the public and private sectors of the health service and she agreed completely with the Mpsox’s first post when I showed it to her.

She’s be very disappointed when I show her Complainers post and she discovers that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about...

 

[Towger]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

Nope, but as it is more his area of expertise can he expain how it costs over 500k a year to run the motor tax renewal website while his local 'family run' [broken link removed] can operate a site of similar (arguably more) complex site for a fraction of the money?

 

[Mpsox]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

Pity that you can't express a relevant opinion without resorting to namecalling.


There is no question of 'admitting' that there is plenty of room for improvement and reform. Of course there is plenty of room for improvement and reform in every organisation, public and private. Reform is a continuous process, and is never finished. There is no evidence of bad work practices from this post - just 'hurler on the ditch' opinions from someone who doesn't actually know what is going on.


Management are people too, generally hard-working, concientious and professional people who do the best they can with the resources available to them. Generally, they know a bit more about the job in question than spectators, who breeze through for a minute or two and convince themselves that they are experts in healthcare.


If you really do want to be constructive, stop exaggerating. It did not take four people to deal with you. Stick to the facts.


Indeed, the public sector like any organisation is not perfect and there is lots of room for improvement. I recognise constructive criticism when I see it, and this was not constructive. Try again without using derogatory terms like 'bureaucrats', without exaggerating the number of people involved, and when you actually understand what the form in question does, what systems are being used, what data is being validated etc etc. Then it just might be constructive.

At present, this is just 'hurler on the ditch' moaning, and of no constructive value.

So let's deal with facts then

Fact 1. Person 1 who I dealt with was the receptionist giving out the forms and managing the queue

Fact 2. The 2nd person I dealt with was the person who I gave the completed form to who input the details onto one laptop in one room. The form comprised my name, address, contact number, next of kin and their contact number.

Fact 3. The 3rd person I dealt with was the nurse

Fact 4. The 4th person I dealt with was the person I dealt with in the waiting room who filled out the relevant handwritten card that I was given

Therefore it took 4 people to deal with me end to end. Those are facts.

The other 2 people sitting there in the waiting room were dealing with the 12 people (I counted them) who were given the injection in the 30 minutes or so I was waiting for. In effect, the last 3 people were processing an average of 1 person every 10 minutes. The card they gave me has only a few words to be filled in by hand

Can I just also say how absolutely delighted I am that you see there is room for improvement in the public sector. Perhaps you could make some constructive suggestions and I am sure lots of posters here would be glad to share their views

Lastly I have never said I was an expert in health care. However I am an expert in data management and back office processing (including in the health area) and I stand over my belief that the process was inefficent.

 

[becky]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

I got my swine flu jab in my workplace. There were no admin staff at the clinic, one doctor and three nurses. I filled out my form and the nurse put a sticker on the form and gave me a card with a batch number on it. It took me 10 minutes but I didn't hang around afterwards.

I heard that 300 people were dealt with that morning. Now, while I don't have access to the data there were about 20 people waiting when I arrived and left.

 

[Firefly]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

I got my swine flu jab in my workplace. There were no admin staff at the clinic, one doctor and three nurses. I filled out my form and the nurse put a sticker on the form and gave me a card with a batch number on it. It took me 10 minutes but I didn't hang around afterwards.

I heard that 300 people were dealt with that morning. Now, while I don't have access to the data there were about 20 people waiting when I arrived and left.

That sounds more like it

 

[Firefly]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

I got my swine flu jab in my workplace. There were no admin staff at the clinic, one doctor and three nurses. I filled out my form and the nurse put a sticker on the form and gave me a card with a batch number on it. It took me 10 minutes but I didn't hang around afterwards.

I heard that 300 people were dealt with that morning. Now, while I don't have access to the data there were about 20 people waiting when I arrived and left.

Do you have any info on how this was organised? Did the HSE drive this by contacting your employer, or did you employer contact a GP service etc?

 

[Complainer]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

Nope, but as it is more his area of expertise can he expain how it costs over 500k a year to run the motor tax renewal website while his local 'family run' [broken link removed] can operate a site of similar (arguably more) complex site for a fraction of the money?

If you want me to be the sole defender of the public sector, you'll really have to start paying for this service. If you are genuinely interested in this issue, you might have to do a bit of digging yourself and see what is behind these costs. It might help though if you start comparing like with like. I really doubt if the Ormonde get 4 million unique visitors per annum? Funnily enough, the first page on the Ormonde site that I opened (http://www.onlinecinematickets.com/index.php?s=ORMONDE&p=tickets&perfCode=47463) is broken, with no option to enter the number of tickets required. The HTML has a huge number of failures on the WCAG validator, and there a loads of missing discriptive texts for the images used. Are you sure you want to hold this up as an example of shining private sector effeciency?

Fact 1. Person 1 who I dealt with was the receptionist giving out the forms and managing the queue

Fact 2. The 2nd person I dealt with was the person who I gave the completed form to who input the details onto one laptop in one room. The form comprised my name, address, contact number, next of kin and their contact number.

Fact 3. The 3rd person I dealt with was the nurse

Fact 4. The 4th person I dealt with was the person I dealt with in the waiting room who filled out the relevant handwritten card that I was given

Therefore it took 4 people to deal with me end to end. Those are facts.

The other 2 people sitting there in the waiting room were dealing with the 12 people (I counted them) who were given the injection in the 30 minutes or so I was waiting for. In effect, the last 3 people were processing an average of 1 person every 10 minutes. The card they gave me has only a few words to be filled in by hand

OK, so it wasn't the '5 people and 4 laptops' of your original rant? Nice to see that we are getting closer to the truth now.

Can I just also say how absolutely delighted I am that you see there is room for improvement in the public sector. Perhaps you could make some constructive suggestions and I am sure lots of posters here would be glad to share their views

I've explained on several other threads why this would be a pointless exercise, and indeed, the level of analysis on this thread confirms my view on this. We might as well as posters to share their views on getting to the moon or curing cancer.

Lastly I have never said I was an expert in health care. However I am an expert in data management and back office processing (including in the health area) and I stand over my belief that the process was inefficent.

Do you exercise this kind of 'drive by management' in your day job, where you come to definite conclusions about the effeciency of a process from a single user experience?

 

[Purple]

Re: 1 nurse and 5 bureaucrats to give me a swine flu jab, no wonder the country is br

We might as well as posters to share their views on getting to the moon or curing cancer.

I don’t think public service reform is as difficult as space travel or curing cancer. I’m not sure others think so either.