The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry is big… very big…
… it houses a submarine and a coal mine!
The Trustees wanted to figure-out which of the exhibits were of most interest to visitors. Counting the visitors arriving was no problem, they just couldn’t keep track of them, once they were in.
The solution… they looked at the floor tiles… where they needed to be replaced the most often.
Smart, eh?
The tiles were what’s called a proxy measurement.
There was another interesting example. During the Kosovo wars the authorities wanted to have some measure of civilian morale and normality.
They chose the price of bread!
If the fuel supplier could get thorough the road blocks, the baker could get to work safely and the public were prepared to queue, out in the open, without the fear of sniper fire… bread prices would be low, morale high and civil population anxiety manageable.
Payday loans are a proxy for working poverty.
Delays in getting regulatory agreement is often a proxy for corruption in a system.
Child mortality, a proxy for health and access to healthcare.
Wherever it’s not feasible or practical to directly measure the underlying concept or when data may be limited or unreliable… figure out a smart proxy.
Proxy measurements can arise from actual reliable data. We have the data, what does it mean… type of question.
Like this… in the pages of the £walled Times…
… I don’t feel too bad about busting their £wall as the news isn’t new and the source is public data. In fact Ed Smith and I first raised it in our free-download, discussion book ‘200 Questions for the NHS’.
We asked (Question 70);
- The NHS has a final salary pension scheme. Some staff, particularly lower paid nurses, are starting to opt-out of the scheme. They take the view they’d rather have the value of their contributions available to them now. The scheme is contributed to by the individual and the employer. Is it sustainable or indeed relevant, compared to current pay levels?
The NHS pension scheme has over 1.7 million members, who pay on average 9.8% in employee contributions; the employer contribution rate is 20.6%…
… it’s a very good deal… but as the Times reported yesterday;
‘… record numbers of workers are leaving [the scheme] … amid the cost of living crisis. More than 75,000 NHS staff pulled out of the scheme, considered one of the most generous in the country…’
‘… including 25,000 aged under 30… The figure is an increase of 67% over the past four years… more than 10% of those with less than £20,000 in pensionable pay opted out…’
The NHS scheme, despite having moved from a final salary to a career average model, represents an attractive structure, with a high employer contribution.
Various solutions are aired; payment holidays, changes to the opt-in or opt-out arrangements. A period of reduced contributions. With a bit of creative thinking anything is possible.
That’s not the point.
What is the point, is the proxy measurement. What is this telling us?
I think , pretty loud and clear; people are not earning enough now, to worry about pensions and whatever comes next.
The crazy situation where a nurse can’t afford to live now and might actually be better off in retirement.
Full-Fact was never able to come up with data, substantiating another proxy, claim, that nurses are using food banks although the RCN reported knowing ‘growing numbers’ were doing so, reported via their local reps.
Media reports have found specific cases of practising or trainee nurses using food banks but there doesn’t seem to be any research on how widespread this is.
However…
… more than half of NHS trusts and health boards were reported as either providing or planning food banks for staff.
All good proxies.
The energy price guarantee supports households more widely and higher interest rates impact the low paid… all putting lower paid NHS staff in the cross-hairs.
The RCN settled for a below inflation pay rise and the way things are, I doubt few of them are any better off.
According to a press release the RCN Foundation awarded over 500 financial hardship grants… one in four went to a full-time nurses.
Put the proxies together and you get more than an approximation.
Back to the museum and the proxy tiles…
… where were they most worn?
The answer…
… in front of the exhibit where baby chicks were hatched.
It looks to me like the pension data is a proxy for ‘the chickens coming home to roost’.
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.
