Looking at the economic problems of this country I can’t help but wonder whether our MP’s have not actually done us all a favour. The Treasury’s coffers are currently being filled by the repayment of their dodgy expenses. Monies lost to the taxpayer are being returned to the taxpayer. If the bankers follow suit our national borrowing requirement will tumble. At last we have a robust return to thrift.
Or have we? One way the Government seems determined to raise more cash is by insisting on the ludicrous Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks that mean that consultants have to be security cleared not once but each and every time for every hospital or other place where they practice outside the NHS.
At £64 a time plus the tiresome form filling, plus the payment to the GMC of a hefty fee to ensure that a practitioner is safe to treat children and vulnerable adults, one wonders whether doctors are not paying over the odds to fund the failing economy. The refusal of the CRB to allow a clearance certificate to be “portable” seems to defy logic and common sense, but it is certainly a fund raiser.
And on top of all this we will have a new Quango from October, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, that will vet over 11 million people who may have any connection with children and vulnerable adults. Wonderful. I wish the Government would either take steps to end this expensive bureaucratic gravy train or safeguard consultants from paying the bill.
Tags: CRB
