| The NHS in England is in crisis. Facing a shortfall of £2 billion this year. Agency staff costing a fortune; PFI deals taking a big slice of their money; an ageing population causing greater demand, a big cut to budgets and a complete arse at the helm. Still we're better together with the broad shoulders of the Westminster government pooling and sharing misery. So don't worry people, you're in safe hands. But do remember that if you are desperate for treatment and the worst comes to the worst, there are some good hospitals in India. |
And who set up the NHS to fail? Yes the Labour party and their criminal use of PFIs to build shoddy hospitals at inflationary interest rates which the public will never own. Useless pricks every last one of them just like their friends in the BBC.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair Thatcher, Major and then the Blair/Brown tag team all did their part in making the health service such a mess, but I agree some of the biggest wastes were under labour.
DeleteThe stupid new contracts with consultants and GPs that cost billions; the idiotic computer system that cost billions and never worked; the setting up of a system where you could go anywhere in England to get your operation, that no one wanted and no one used, and that yes, cost millions, and all the endless administrative changes over the years that have demoralised staff and .... cost billions.
So we have a huge chunk of money disappearing down a black hole, a.k.a. P.F.I., carefully crafted together by the biggest moronic Bampot known to man ... Broon the Loon. Now we have Hambone himself pushing, ever so quietly, for Private Health Insurance.
ReplyDeleteHmm.
I wonder if Broon the Loon can tell us all if he STILL believes that OUR health service is better together with what remains of the English health service.
Funny that Broon the Loon appears to be almost non existent these days, I wonder why.
I don;t think Brown believed in anything after he became chancellor. Everything he had previously believed inn seemed to be ditched and Thatcherite policies became to dish du jour
DeleteThe man who saved the world and then saved Scotland seems to be a bit impotent these days, admitting he was duped by an Eton boy with a degree with fox hunting!.
Maybe if they stopped being the health service to hordes of third world immigrants ,and stopped wasting money on things like IVF and tattoo removal.
ReplyDeleteThere is even more cash squandered on printing millions of leaflets and meaningless surveys ,not to mention a translation "service" in about two dozen languages .
I see the brain implant didn't go well, sadly you are still spouting absolute bollox.
DeleteWell now Anon. I se you are being your usual open warm loving self this morning.
DeleteI tend to agree with your about tattoo removal though. I don't know if they ARE doing it; never heard of it... but they certainly shouldn't.
I always think that it is handy that when I'm somewhere abroad where English isn't spoken.... Croatia, Romania, Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, Sweden, etc, etc, the staff manage to speak to me in English or French without me having to make any effort at all to learn their language.
Handy that.
PFI is the main reason for the disaster that is NHS finance. NHS trusts in England are paying millions just to service the contracts, that is before a single penny is spent on infrastructure, wages and drugs.
ReplyDeletePFI was supposed to improve efficiency and ensure cost savings within the public sector. But the whole thing is hijacked by contracts not worth the paper they are written on. Several years ago I worked on in contract monitoring on behalf of the Government, and it was bollocks then. I'm not an accountant but even I could figure out the flaws.
As to private health insurance? I don't think it will ever happen. What you are hearing are controlled leaks, designed to test the water. Making people may for the NHS really would be political suicide. Although, I can see what they are thinking. If you earn over a certain amount, you will be expected to pay a contribution based on earnings (erm, I think that is called NI?). However, no doubt there will be a maximum level so that the upper earners are unaffected, as most of these will have private medical insurance anyway.
By the way, I'm not the Anon above!
zog
I didn't think so, Zog.
DeleteYou're probably right. They are testing the water. But it is interesting to know that their minds can go along this route.
They have a problem with an ageing population and too few well educated trained people to support them in their old age. They are putting pension age up and up, but there is only so far you can go with that. Already in some areas the pension age is 10 years greater than average life expectancy, and about equal to maximum life expectancy. The truth is that people may live longer, but that doesn't mean that they can work much longer. I'm guessing the 70 is as far as they can go with that.
The NHS is ever more strained by people in their 90s and 100s who wouldn't have lived before but who can now be kept alive, whether they like it or not, but who cannot work.
I don;t know if David Cameron is aware of National Insurance. You can never tell with him, but he is probably once again testing the water.
If insurance for health and unemployment is forced on people it will be played by opposition parties as an increase in taxes, which is what it is. Unless the major parties are all for it, it will be the death of the party that introduces it, I reckon.
Tris
ReplyDeleteI suspect that there is a lot going on here to be honest. I don't think anyone can be in any doubt that the Tories want a private health care system and I was just saying yesterday to a friend that it would not surprise me if the idea is to get things as bad as they can get them so that unthinking people start to call for it to be privatised.
We already have a two tier system where the wealthy pay for private health care, but some of their taxes go towards funding the NHS, the real danger here is any policy that comes along that allows people to opt out of NI Contributions if they can show they have both medical and social insurance, which the wealthy can afford. This will then see a much lower funded NHS resulting in lower funding to Scotland, Wales and N Ireland resulting in a return to the old system of health care prior to the NHS. What is even more scary is that most politically aware people can see it for what it is but still people are voting for this crap because they don't care until they need the service and continue to get their information from the usual sources.
Having grown up in the 80s I actually feel that right now every services is at serious risk. Scotland has done well fighting the cuts due to austerity but that I suspect is finished now, next year will see more cuts, and for people like myself in the public sector I suspect that ,if I still have a job, I might find I am doing ten different things as services start to buckle. That NO vote becomes more firightening every day. Cameron and his nutters are really going for it, they think they might win in 2020 and anyway they will have made enough damaging changes by then that whomever is in Governemt will never be able to reverse them, what a sad state of affairs and I must admit i fear for many in this country now. We really are living within an intolerant right wing agenda that means to rip this country apart after ensuring that it is carved up for the wealthy first even more than it is right now, call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but I dont think I have ever been so alarmed about these things than I am right now.
Bruce
Bruce, you're correct about the changes in the public sector. EVERY department - even those which are supposedly protected - are having to implement massive cuts. There is massive restructuring, with the aim that anybody can do any job, so the skills threshold is being lowered in many cases. I've seen what is happening with HMRC clawing back money from the most vulnerable, with the shallowest of reasons. The thinking must be that most people will not challenge them, even though many of the cases I've seen on the internet would be thrown out of court. You don't need to be a lawyer to see that documentary proof will blow any assumption out of the water,
DeleteStress levels is some parts of the public sector are now at dangerous levels. Privatising the services makes it worse, since some companies taking over the roles do so with up to half the staff. That is not to say there are areas where efficiencies are needed, provided they are done so in a proper manner,
The problem is that politicians only look to the next election, rather than creating the systems that will last decades. Look at agriculture, farmers would plant treelines to prevent soil erosion. They would never see the results, but they ensured that future generations would benefit. That is what is missing from our governments today.
The NHS is not a market. It is a public service. Run properly, it benefits the economy as people who are treated and recover are able to contribute once more.
zog
I must admit to being frightened too.
DeleteMore and more we are in a situation where we don't expect anything in the public sector to work any more. And most of that is because of cuts in staffing ... and contracting out of work to people who are not trained to do the job, and not paid properly to do it.
For example no one would deny that there were always people who played the "sick" card to get out of work; some intimidated their doctors into giving them sick notes. It needed some sort of tightening up.
But under Labour and the Tories they have made it virtually impossible to get benefits if you are ill. I read about an autistic lad who can;t read or communicate, who suffers form epilepsy and has to be supervised 24/7, being sent for a work capability assessment.
That's extreme and probably an error, but it is wicked and cruel sloppiness to put him and his parents through it. This government tightens up the conditions and the target driven result oriented contractor with its untrained staff apply further restrictions.
No one seems to have much in the way of compassion, and surely in health and in social security that is what we need to have.
In the meantime nothing seems to great an expense for the people at the top.
There is no way that Westminster is going to do anything which increases the Scottish block "grant" through Barnett consequentials....quite the opposite.
ReplyDeleteSo....no increased public spending in England,unless they can designate it "UK" spend which means we pay our share but get no benefit.
And another thing.
DeleteWhy are they asking the House of Lords,many of whom have interests in health companies,whether we should spend more on private care?
A bit like asking them if we should support increased French champagne production.
Surely,the government should be consulting the population on this matter since they didn't include this in their election manifesto?
British democracy at work again.
There's an awful lot of UK spend that doesn't benefit the UK...
DeleteThere is, of course no such thing as British democracy. Like British values it is a construct of the manipulative establishment.
We are told that this is the greatest country in the world; that our values, which we share with the USA are better than everyone else's and that we should all worship the queen. Then we let ex-servicemen who fought in illegal wars, starve to death for want of benefits.
British values? Values from the top? Greed, selfishness, avarice, sexual depravity, and then some more greed.
The NHS England is being bled to death and PFI's are the biggest problem. If there is a reason for not allowing someone with a History degree to be Chancellor as in Broon and now Osborne, this is it. Oh all their nice chums are raking it in. Up here we got all those shiny new schools, which if the one that used to be across from my previous house was anything to go by those with the maintenance contracts are raking it in. A wee bit of frost on the pavement and enough salt put down to do the whole of Dunfermline. It rains, and as you know it does a lot, get someone to blow the water of the playground, preferably whilst it is raining. I have seen it all from my living room window and that only in passing. None of these schools will ever face the fate of the one which was at the centre of the Bi-election that saw Labour get in again here in the Council. Poor old Pitcorthie Primary School is no more, now I wonder what will be built on the space it used.
ReplyDeleteAs for Gordon Broon, he should take the easy way out, run back to the States where his children are now in School. He pretended he could not find Scotland or at least he did not come from here. He should make it official, I am sure the Republicans can use him over there.
Saw young Mr Straw on the News this morning, Jack's son, and before I knew who he was I said to my other half that don't the Tories always look like Tories, ah well.
One good thing I see Blair and Brown are joining the Tories in the In Europe Campaign, now that should be fun.
The trouble with joining the Tories in any campaign is that it tends to stick with you after the campaign is over, rather like the smell of burnt cooking clings to your clothes.
DeleteOf course Blair and Brown would hardly likely to get behind anything that Mr Corbyn organises. They are far closer to Cameron and Osborne.
I'm indifferent to the EU campaign, having been sadly disillusioned by the treatment of Greece. However I have an interest from the point of view that if England votes to come out, and Scotland votes to stay in, we might have another referendum on our hands and a chance to escape this horrible mean minded country governed by spivs and slimeballs.
Having Blair on your side in anything is a very definite disadvantage. He could put a starving man off a plate of mince and tatties.
Now that last paragraph is as direct as your excellent Photies Tris. Worse than that he would put a starving Scotsman on holiday of the idea of mince and tatties.
DeleteHe's a man of much ability when it comes to sickening, Helena.
DeleteHelena, it amazes me how the constitution of this country allows someone without any education to hold the most senior jobs in government. The Chancellor is effectively the financial controller of the UK. But to hold a similar position in industry you are looking at chartered account qualifications, and ideally an MBA. For senior civil services positions these qualifications are mandatory. And then to top it all Cameron makes Michael Gove the Lord Chancellor! His degree is in English ffs. We haven't had a Defence Secretary who has worn uniform since Tom King. Jeremy Hunt speak fluent Japanese, a skill well suited to running the NHS. IDS (insert own thoughts here). Greg Hands (Chief Sec to Treasury) also has a degree in History.
DeleteThe list goes on,,,,,,,,,,
zog
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/10/the-self-appointed-elite/
ReplyDeleteInteresting article from Craig here.
One in four Tory MPs and one in six Labour MPs (probably the ones pushing for more PFI) has a declared interest in a private health care company. If MPs were under the same rules as county councillors they would not be able to vote on the health care bill and it would be defeated. That is what this has been about all the time nothing to do with saving the NHS.
ReplyDeleteExactly. What a surprise.
Deletehttp://socialinvestigations.blogspot.co.uk/p/key-facts-of-lords-and-mps-connections.html
ReplyDeleteThanks... good resource.
DeletePFI are bleeding NHS dry ,Started by Major continued by Blair.The people in power have all helped themselves and chums to a nice little earner via privatisation not one of them are innocent. they will continue to do so with UNUM insurance waiting in the wings to sell us all a p;olicy like the good old USA style healthcare. shame many have only just woke to this but thats why as part of welfare state bevan created we should fight for this
ReplyDelete