Brighton A&E doctor tells Prime Minister ‘you lied’ about NHS

[Thunder Bolt]

Understood but also there is some validity when you think about the NHS as a whole, what happens in one area surely has impact on available budgets for another. The social care point appears to me to be a huge issue from both anecdotal and first hand evidence. I like Burnham's idea around combining the budgets, it will emphasise the direct and symbioitic relationships they have with each other. Anecdotally, the ward my other half works on has around 27 places, last night 22 were fit to be discharged but had nowhere to go.

There's an example in today's Argus.
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/1171..._hospital_and_sent_home_to_an_unfit_property/

 

[spring hall convert]

Sadly the thing that's going to swing my vote is Europe and a promise of a referendum. As we get told so much, we live in a democracy and it's time we had a vote on this to shut everyone up and either get behind it or get out. Millibars and Balls are terrified of the public actually voting to leave so don't give us a vote.

Thing is, Cameron wants this referendum about as much as Milliband.

 

[withdeanwombat]

Sorry, I've read this and fail to believe that sweet Mr Cameron and his hard working friends could possibly tell porkies. There's a three minute wait at our NHS hospital, beds for everyone, and safe havens for those discharged.

 

[Birdie Boy]

I think whoever gets in will feed their own self interests, the NHS will still be shit, taxes will be too high and money will get pissed up the wall on complete bollocks.

Exactly, nothing changes even if who is in power does..

 

[jackanada]

Exactly, nothing changes even if who is in power does..

Yes politicians like to blame voter apathy for low turnouts, but if you refused to make a choice between a dog shit sandwich and a cat shit sandwich that wouldn't be down to apathy.

However to continue the analogy if you are definitely going to have to eat one of the shit sandwiches it would behove you to have the less disgusting dog shit sandwich.

For those unclear the Tories are the cat shit sandwich, labour the dog shit sandwich, UKIP are a double helping of cat shit on a fruit bun and the greens are a veggies shit rolled up in a lettuce leaf but it's not on the menu.

 

[cunning fergus]

I believe it. You'd be amazed at some of the things numbers are not kept on in this country - children who disappear from care for instance.

Clearly that cancer/HIV comparison is very politically sensitive but HIV is an expensive thing to treat. We certainly shouldn't have people coming to this country, who haven't contributed specifically for that treatment.

What would you do about it? (I have a feeling leaving Europe is going to be somewhere in there!)

Believe me these days I am rarely amazed at state incompetency……………….the fallout from the Rotherham grooming scandal provided a decent indication of how the “care” system in this country works.

Your second point neatly encapsulates the problem we have in this country with open and honest debate about subjects like the NHS. Why should the comparison be “very politically sensitive?

If those who say they care about the NHS really do genuinely care about how it is being managed, the fact that in London hospitals are spending twice as much on HIV treatment as chemotherapy should be the kind of outlier that means questions are asked. Apart from NHS professionals like Professor Thomas no one is though, and despite being in the public domain this kind of issue is not making any headway in the media to counterbalance the no doubt justifiable concerns of Doctors like Rob Galloway.

As for what I would do, ideally, de-politicise the NHS as it should not be a political football. I would create a trust body of non-politicos’ who have a budget set and they manage the budget. I would reduce the budget by limiting the treatments you can get on the NHS too, it does too much for free. Treatments like IVF and cosmetic surgery should not be free of charge.

We have to be honest about the NHS too, the orthodoxy that exists today is that its untouchable, and it should not be. We are lucky to have the NHS but we need to recognise its got flaws too.

I don’t think there is an EU exit dimension here, however I would get all employers to make a social security payment when they recruit employees from outside the UK, and introduce a short term health insurance stamp on those employees wages for a period of (say) 5 years. Where this doesn’t apply we should make sure we get payment from other countries for treating their citizens free of charge………………seems fair to me.

 

[spring hall convert]

Believe me these days I am rarely amazed at state incompetency……………….the fallout from the Rotherham grooming scandal provided a decent indication of how the “care” system in this country works.

Your second point neatly encapsulates the problem we have in this country with open and honest debate about subjects like the NHS. Why should the comparison be “very politically sensitive?

If those who say they care about the NHS really do genuinely care about how it is being managed, the fact that in London hospitals are spending twice as much on HIV treatment as chemotherapy should be the kind of outlier that means questions are asked. Apart from NHS professionals like Professor Thomas no one is though, and despite being in the public domain this kind of issue is not making any headway in the media to counterbalance the no doubt justifiable concerns of Doctors like Rob Galloway.

As for what I would do, ideally, de-politicise the NHS as it should not be a political football. I would create a trust body of non-politicos’ who have a budget set and they manage the budget. I would reduce the budget by limiting the treatments you can get on the NHS too, it does too much for free. Treatments like IVF and cosmetic surgery should not be free of charge.

We have to be honest about the NHS too, the orthodoxy that exists today is that its untouchable, and it should not be. We are lucky to have the NHS but we need to recognise its got flaws too.

I don’t think there is an EU exit dimension here, however I would get all employers to make a social security payment when they recruit employees from outside the UK, and introduce a short term health insurance stamp on those employees wages for a period of (say) 5 years. Where this doesn’t apply we should make sure we get payment from other countries for treating their citizens free of charge………………seems fair to me.

That's all extremely sensible. I completely take your point about 'politically sensitive' (it helps no one.)

The other advantage of removing the NHS from its political football status, is that it would then be able to do some planning outside of the next 5 years cycle. Energy policy could benefit from the same depoliticisation if you ask me.

 

[Machiavelli]

the conventional wisdom is that demand is increasing, but 4% sounds very high - wheres this sourced from? that would amount to over 15% this parliament. is that that from a standing start, i.e. what was the rate of increase prior to 2010? the stats in this area are very suspect, partially due to politicisation and partially due to different methods of counting. for example, comparing to US is utterly redundant without a paragraph of caveats, as their system is different and the way spending is allocated is different. even here it changes depending what you include and exclude in your heading, "health care" spending is 18% of GDP.

back to the demand increase, where's it coming from, what can be done to address that? constant belly-aching over a few £billion here or there of NHS budget isnt going to solve much if it gets eaten in inefficiencies or the problems lie elsewhere.

Stephen Dorrell regularly trots it out. He's an ex-Tory Health Secretary, and currently on the Parliamentary Select Committee for Health.

 

[KVLT]

Watching the news this evening, what a joke Cameron is, since when has he cared about anything to do with the greens.
The sooner this prat is turfed out the better.

He turned his party logo into a tree and hugged a husky. What more could you ask for in the way of green credentials?

This makes for interesting reading: david-cameron-eco-image-retoxification

Sadly the thing that's going to swing my vote is Europe and a promise of a referendum

His referendum is nothing but a scam. Note that the referendum will (apparently) happen on condition of him being returned to number 10.

Even Crimea (with all its troubles) got a referendum in a matter of weeks.

Has there ever been a less sincere politician on these shores? I think not.

 

[inland seagull]

Its election year, we are going to hear plenty of comments like this because they will receive lots of media coverage

The should change the name of the National Health Service because they can't provide a service any more, despite the huge amounts of taxpayers money that is thrown at it

 

[gordonchas]

NHS spending is comparatively low, when compared to other affluent countries. It's especially low -- a decade ago, it was about half -- when compared with the US (7.5% versus 15% of GDP). They don't want you to know this, because it rather jars with the neoliberal narrative that the public sector is inefficient, sclerotic and cumbersome; in stark contrast to the swashbuckling private sector that delivers so much more 'choice' for less money.

You are making the mistake of conflating state-run with state-financed. Just because the state is financing universal health care doesn't mean it has to run it. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, only Spain of the developed nations has a system comparable with the UK.

Our neighbour European countries have much more privatised systems.

What "they" really "don't want you to know" is that the NHS provides some of the worst health outcomes in the developed world. The media - especially the left leaning media - made a big play about that American foundation Commonwealt Fund report last year which ranked the UK #1 overall in a list of 11 developed nations. However, this was because the NHS scored high in access and equity and (suprisingly) efficiency. However, when it came to "Healthy Lives" - the measure in that report which dealt with mortality and healthy life expectancy at age 60, the UK was 10th out of 11.

If I have to go to the doctor, or need hospital treatment, I don't much care how "patient-centred" the care is (that was another category). I just want to know if they're going to make me better.