HCA History

Suspicion of private medical care has always been rife in the UK mostly because it remains one of the few countries in the world with a functioning and (so far) viable national healthcare provision for the populace.  The NHS is envied and cited as a shining example over what other healthcare systems should strive to achieve.  Yet the private sector has proven to work well as a viable alternative when the NHS is unable to cope with demand.

HCA began life in the US but has since expanded into the UK operating multiple hospitals and have been so effective that they are now the largest independent provider of cancer care, cardiac care and critical care.  They are now able to provide 820 beds in London alone and many people come to the city just to take advantage of the care HCA offer.  But does this make them a good alternative?

HCA’s View

It is to the group’s credit that they do not make claim to be in competition with the NHS.  Quite the opposite in fact; they believe they can provide relief and assistance when required.  On close inspection HCA have had problems in the distant past when in the US, but their efforts in dealing with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 have now entered a kind of medical legend on what disaster response should be.  Whilst the US government were struggling to evacuate patients, HCA implemented a plan that included leasing helicopters to get people out of the area to safer facilities.

HCA’s Status in the UK

Going to London private hospitals with HCA is a bit like walking onto the bridge of the starship Enterprise.  No expense has been spared in terms of both patient care and staff commitment.  Indeed this investigator found the treatment received by the doctor and nursing staff to be amongst the best ever received.  However the most notable recommendation for HCA is their high regard and passionate belief in the NHS and that it must not be allowed to decay.

Not the kind of response you expect to hear from a private hospital group who are traditionally believed to be only interested in turning a profit.

Why has there been an increased focus on data management?

The move to paperless filing has been the key goal for most major companies for at least the past decade and for good reason.  Records and data are routinely misfiled and in many cases simply lost.  Whilst the loss of some records such as sporting data from a snooker tournament may seem trivial, the loss of NHS patient records is not.  Key medical information on a cancer sufferer can literally mean the difference between life and death.  The increase in population has meant an increase in the amount of filing and data that needs to be kept.  Paper systems are simply no longer a viable option due to the time and possibility of mistakes being made.

Expansion of outsourcing functions to different countries has also led to an increased demand on effective data management solutions.  In the late 1990s there was no need for it because all of the office functions were usually in the same building – if someone screwed up you could simply walk over to them and hit them over the head.   Fast forward to 2013 and you now find that all office functions are split over several offices and in many cases, several countries.  The instant you go to dispersed locations then some kind of filing and data management must be in place to keep the organisation running.

Impact of poor data management on public bodies

The UK NHS already invested a significant amount of capital into a state-of-the-art computerised system commissioned under the last Labour led government.  Unfortunately the final delivery was inherently flawed and unfit for purpose.  The result was a multi-billion pound computer system that was useless and has been dismantled by the coalition government.   This failure highlighted even further the need for a viable system to be put in place and it has become a focus for Jeremy Hunt – the current UK Health Secretary – to institute paperless systems by 2018 at the latest.  As it stands, most patient records are still held in tatty manila envelopes and files.  This simply isn’t acceptable to a 21^st Century public paying for and expecting a respectable service.

Private Sector

The sheer amount of consumer demand means that paper systems are just not possible for 99% of trading companies.  The challenges facing companies of different sizes are unsurprisingly very similar.  They have to be fast, efficient, inventive, minimise costs and operate in highly competitive markets.  The solution may not always be the same for everybody, but the root challenge is.

Solution?

Understanding the problem each organisation or individual has is the first step to gaining a solution.  Once you understand the requirements of your business or organisation, then you will be closer to knowing what kind of data management company or CRM systems you need to operate.

It could be argued that the private sector is ahead of many public bodies in understanding the need for effective data management solutions, but there are still examples on either side that are struggling to come to terms with the challenge.

How to run a business is a subject that should be taught at school, especially as the government expects the small business man and woman to lead the country out of our current economic difficulties. However many of us who want to go it alone don’t have the basic financial skills necessary and this is something that effects our personal finances as well. Starting my own business was nerve racking, as I’m sure it is for everyone who ventures down that road. It’s not enough to have a great idea and provide the best service possible to your customers, you also have to get your head around the financial management of the organisation and above all get on top of the thorny matter of cash flow.

For me at least this was not easy. If I’m honest, prior to setting up on my own, I had been very lax, even careless in keeping track of my finances. I was lucky enough to always be in work and as far as I was concerned, as long as the monthly salary kept coming in I was happy to let matters take care of themselves. You find out very quickly that in your own business this attitude simply will not wash. However developing the discipline to monitor your finances properly can be tough, at least it was for me. Business credit cards were both a help and a problem. They allowed me to separate my business expenditure from my personal expenditure, or they should have done in theory. However I found that working from home often caused confusion because unthinkingly I used the business credit card to pay for personal items such as food and kitchen essentials etc. Naturally this caused confusion in my accounts. Learning to use my business credit card properly not only helped with the accounts but also helped me develop the organizational mind set you need to be your own boss.

I think that managing the money is often the biggest problem for people opening new businesses especially if they come, as I did from a non-business background. To often we are focused on what we want the business to be and how we will achieve that outcome and not on the day to day management of the money which is the thing that will realise our aims.

The European debt crisis has been raging on since 2009. Some experts feel that this crisis was a continuation of America’s debt problems. Other experts feel that it started off with a sovereign debt crisis in Greece, where the government found itself in huge debt. Greece had managed to raise capital on the guarantee that it was part of the Eurozone, and hence had implied creditworthiness.

However, Greece was (and still is) in no position to pay back the debt. Before the crisis began, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain had ambitious growth plans as well. These plans, too, were funded by external parties who found that these countries had low interest rates. Moreover, it appears that these countries were far too bullish about their immediate future, and most growth plans collapsed when they were actually implemented.

Adopting the euro as a common currency for 17 European countries ensured that the debt crisis spread like wildfire. One by one, individual countries in the Eurozone started reporting massive debts, which were unsustainable without the help of a bailout. Countries such as Greece, which have been given a bailout by the IMF and EU, have not been able to commit fully to the strict austerity measures that came as conditions with the bailout. The latest country in Europe to report deep trouble was Spain. In mid-2012, Spain reported that its banking sector needed a bailout. The EU managed to provide the bailout to Spain, but the weaknesses of the Spanish economy makes it difficult to speculate as to whether the bailout will help Spain’s banks tide over their problems or not.

There has been criticism over the EU’s handling of the European debt crisis. The common man in Europe feels that the EU’s approach has been far too cautious. According to a man employed in an Apple mac repair London store, “An exit of Greece from the euro would have been desirable for Europe”. However, analysts point out that the EU has done the best it can, and that Greece exiting the euro would create a further financial burden on EU member states and cause problems for the very integrity of the common European political and economic arrangement.

Payday loans have been widely criticised in the UK for targeting certain groups of people, particularly individuals who have a poor credit history due to large debts. These are exactly the kind of people that, when given the opportunity to receive these loans, fail to pay them back in time because they don’t take responsibility for their personal finances. The UK Government is demanding new policies to prevent these high street firms from taking advantage of vulnerable individuals.

Truly astonishing interest rates

The real danger of payday loans is the interest rates that accompany them. Paid back on schedule, they will typically incur a 20 percent interest rate, however should you forget to pay or if you are simply unable to afford it, these interest rates can increase dramatically. A payday loan of £500 that is scheduled to be paid in 21 days but is still unpaid after one year would command a four figure interest rate, which could be as much as £10,000. Many people use these loans to pay for non-essential things, like new clothes, holidays or fuel from a red diesel supplier.

Misleading adverts

Many popular TV channels are paid good money to advertise payday loans, which promote them as harmless ’short-term' solutions to financial woes and completely contradicts common-sense advice for people struggling with their finances. Many Britons don’t even know what AER means (Annual Equivalent Rate) and a large portion of the population doesn’t even know the definition of the term ’interest rate’, even people who are considering taking out loans.

The Government’s Commons Select Committee pointed towards a recent campaign by The Independent, which blasted short-term lenders for targeting people like Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants, who are ineligible for loans from banks or other lenders. It is hoped that news legislation will enforce much tougher regulations, which will make it much harder for people with very poor credit profiles to access short-term loans.

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If you are unaware of SOPA, which is the Stop Online Piracy Act, then it is about time you looked into it, as it is something that could change the course of the way we use the internet, forever. The act is going to vote in the USA, and if passed, will cause a full scale change in the law, allowing the government of America powers to shut down, without warning, or grounds for appeal, any website contravening copyright laws.

Although the law is only going to be effective on American based websites, the effects will be far reaching, as many of the most well used sites in the world are American. The laws were intended to help prevent piracy of copyright materials such as films and music, but the powers will be open to abuse on a huge scale, and could effectively cause a meltdown of the internet in many ways. It all sounds extreme, but when you look into the wording of the bill, it becomes clear that the wide reaching effects could be catastrophic. There will not be anyone safeguarding the law’s enforcement, such as the Enigin Scam Busters do for eco companies and their conduct. The laws will be powerful enough to stop almost any website from operating, and this is dangerous.

The bill would enable the government to close down any website that they deem to be in breach of copyright laws. This does not just affect those who intentionally put infringing videos on their sites for others to download and or stream, but any sites that may have links to such pages, or have any clips or videos posted on there. This means that sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Myspace, and many, many others could be closed, as could search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

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The research by the charity was explored fully by BBC. According to the news agency, the rents in London are grossly exceeding the rent prices in other parts of England. The capital city is not only significantly more expensive – it is also quite unattractive to people seeking employment. Many of the people within England aim to find properties either outside London or just seek employment elsewhere because they cannot afford the rental prices in the city. London properties are also growing in terms of prices far more dramatically. As seen on the chart above, the rental prices in London increase with almost double as compared to rents outside the capital.

Additionally, BBC reports that the increase in rent prices forces families to cut down expenses for food, necessities and even deprive themselves from essential services such as internet broadband and TV. The highly disturbing findings of the medium also contribute to another recently discovered trend – many people are leaving London for another place in the UK or simply emigrate from the UK. The percentage of people leaving the UK (mainly for Australia) increases dramatically every year and some of the reasons for emigration of UK citizens are either closely or indirectly related to rent prices. Australia and many other popular destinations among UK citizens offer quite lower housing rates and less tax associated with the new home.

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The first democratically elected president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, would now be quite unhappy with what political power turned his country into. The federation is no longer democratic and it has been such probably only for a year. The wealth is equally distributed among powerful figures, the political players stay the same for almost a decade and a half changing the laws to accommodate their own political and financial needs and to address their decreasing liabilities. Russian banks have long gone passed corporate finance and business loans – they now house the financial resource of a corrupted country.

So the question that begs answering is whether there has been actually been any change in the governance and the attitude of the Russian political elite towards democracy since the fall of the Soviet regime. The answer might be well composed essay of a few thousand words with millions of references. But we can put it simply into a sentence – the Russian federation inherited all the weakness of the Soviet regime and the names of the heroes that broke its chains are forgotten – simply because a brand new chains suffocate the Russian country.

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Famine is the easily described as poverty. However, this might appear to be wrong. According to the standards of delivering meaning in the English language, poverty means the lack of a necessity and not absolute starvation. This is why we would now use famine as ’absolute starvation'- the starvation that even animals do not experience.

This is, however, a true situation in Eastern Africa. The Economist has drawn a graphic that indicates the famine levels in troubled Easter African countries. The leadership is held by Somalia that has over 3,6 million people from its 7,5 million population that lack not only necessities but are also starving. Ethiopia is another story with almost 10% of its population starving. Kenya is gradually improving but even there the problems continue to persist and a lot of people lack any source of nutrition.

The reason according to the Economist is a complex mixture of several negative factors. And this has nothing to do with the primary teaching jobs – no matter how much we claim education is the problem in these countries, it appears that social understandings, international negligence and nature problems are the main sources of the spread of famine.

The rainfalls in these countries would be insufficient in regions of grossly exceeding the normal levels in others. This brings along agricultural disaster that would deprive millions from a meal a day. Furthermore, the civil conflicts in the country continue to rage whereas international organizations seem to be showing no understanding. More than half of Somalia is now on the edge of a food crisis and more than 50 billion dollars would be necessary for the countries in Eastern Africa to obtain nutrition for their people in 2011.

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