Do you know what’s proposed in the forthcoming Health and Care Bill? Are you as worried as I am?

I’m very worried about it. I read that the government want to eliminate the need to put everything out to tender. Need to get a few bullet points together to put in my (yet another) letter to my MP, even though writing to her is a waste of time. I’ll probably email the health and shadow health secretaries too..

As far as I can work out, my mums finances will hardly be improved by this plan. She’s been paying over £1000 a week for her care home for 20 months from her pensions and savings but apparently that counts for nothing, the accounting period will start afresh.

I have no idea how much of the fee is for board and lodgings and how much is for care, it is not a nursing home but as mum has dementia, she does need help with all aspects of personal and medical care but has no significant medical conditions.

As mum is 89 years old, has a very good pension from my dads job and we have rented out her house, her savings only top up her fees by less than £1000 a month ( although that will increase as fees go up annually by more than her income), hopefully her current savings will last her lifetime so we won’t need to sell her house.

But if she lives another 10 years ( her mother was 102 when she died!) mum will have paid an eye watering £680,000 ( not counting annual increases of around 5%)

I’m hoping the new bill will at least reduce that!

They are saying that the red wall Tories are up in arms and Johnson May u-turn on the care bit, but nothing about health.

One of my concerns is that the media are focusing on the Care aspect of the Bill and the potential changes to the NHS are about to be sneaked in under the radar.

It is obvious what is going on. The corrupt Tory government are selling off the NHS. After years of running it down, backed by the right wing media who now claim the NHS isn’t fit for purpose, control and provision of our health care is being privatised.

This has been on the agenda for years, I really don’t know why people are not up in arms about it.

I’m very concerned about this.

It's interesting to see that some right wing people think the way to go is the system used in the USA. Whereas some democrats and younger Americans, when told how the NHS works, would prefer to have a system like the NHS. One of the groups must be wrong.

Thanks for raising this issue. I thought of writing to my MP but as he is Matt Hancock that would be a waste of time. Someone else in the cabinet? But they are all as bad as each other, enabled by BJ.
So I have emailed Sir Keir Starmer, in the hope that the opposition can raise awareness of the issue.

grannyactivist

One of my concerns is that the media are focusing on the Care aspect of the Bill and the potential changes to the NHS are about to be sneaked in under the radar.

What are the potential changes to the NHS?

I’m afraid that for personal reasons I am one of those people who has focused on the care aspect - my mum has spent over £88,000 of her money for her care home fees in the last 20 months and at age 89 with no health problems, faces paying a lot more. However, I would like to understand the wider implications as I’m in the process of writing a letter to my MP - for what it’s worth as she hasn’t answered my previous one!

It looks like you are going the way we have, here in the US. All our congressmen are bought and paid for.

Why not have the same style as the Americans where you pay for everything from Schooling to health, even in Europe there are medical treatments that you pay for there is no welfare state. Perhaps making part/all of the NHS into a company that needs to show a profit/loss will stop the free-loading among some health boards management.

I am very concerned with this too, it would affect everyone eventually. Wales and Scotland already offer free NHS bits that England don't get.

I think this is where you can petition if you agree it's not been fully thought through!

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/592557/signatures

If NHS becomes anymore disjointed, how will things like pandemics and immunisations be handled across these boards. I also think there will be a generation who will fall in the middle - just like the raising the pension ages, the 11+ phase out, etc- it seems to me they never answer all their own questions before they proceed. Risk and analyse first!

My mum worked from the age of 14 and died at 91. I found it very hard when the NHS and Care Services couldn't agree on where she 'fell' for funding. After 6 months of waiting in hospital she passed before they made a decision. The nurses on her ward were on our side in that she just needed extra help in her own home (social housing) because of chronic health issues but neither wanted to fund it. She only had £120 per month private pension plus Gov, one. I was in tears after every meeting, if I had money and a bungalow I would have taken and looked after her myself. I think you have prepare for the worse and hope for better.

My worry is what this means for Scotland as although Health and Social Care are devolved issues and there is no intention to privatise services here, if England decides to privatise parts or all of the NHS, the subsequent cut in grant under the Barnett Formula will leave the Scottish NHS in dire straits. I'm not sure of the situation in Wales?

I cannot for the life of me understand how, when care home fees can be in excess of £1000/WEEK!!! Yet the care home bosses are always moaning about being on verge of closing? Am I missing something here?(other than you never hear or see a carehome owner of either a single home or a group, living in penury! ?) When staff are usually paid on or very close to m in minimum wage/living(joke) wages and property is usually owned or mortgaged, say 20 residents, £20k/week? Where does it all go? I'd love to see a breakdown of costs and profits?

Even companies with no connection to the government double their prices when they know its NHS. I don't want the NHS sold I don't want any petitions of any parties allowed to influence suppliers to the NHS. It's not just the Tories, Labour and the Scottish government are all the same. If Gransnet gets anymore political I'll be out of here, coz all politicians do it once they are elected to a reasonably safe seat and their party happen to be in power. I would think that enough of us on here are of an age to realise that.

Gabrielle56, when I demanded a breakdown of the £1250 weekly BUPA fees, I was shocked to find that the majority went on wages. Wages were for carers, cooks, cleaners, gardeners, security, administrators and managers. (Did you know that managers get bonuses for savings on costs?)

Another big chunk was spent on running the building itself, with insurance, maintenance, utilities, window cleaners, supplies (soap, loo roll etc. - although we had to provide toiletries, which often went missing) stationery, wine - and so on.

The grand sum of £25 per week was allocated for food!

That amount of money on food is appalling. My BIL, a chef, used to run his own business and was contracted to do 'meals on wheels' - he was allocated just 79p per person to come up with a main and pudding. My sister used to drop the meals off, many were frail and it was their only hot meal. When he was asked to reduce costs even further by the local council he threw the towel in and said it was impossible to give them enough good food to sustain them. He now works in a school, not quite as bad but not easy either.

Im 72 with health issues. I sold my house last year and rented one, which I love. Will give cash from the house sale to who I want when I want. I don't know if there's a better way.

Appallingly not surprised...... The food issue is an odd one, my mum was I. A Very nicely appointed care home but the food! They had fish and chips every week and no alternative on menu, other meals were soup and sandwich/curry(!)/burgers(!!)/ And always a stew thing... My mum's generation generally weren't McDonald munchers didn't go a bomb on curry and my mum's upbringing in countryside in 1920s didn't include fish and chips! We never had them at home ever! The laziness of the menu choices was the one thing that she emerged from her dreamlike state for! She always had a harsh word for the "rubbish" as she called it!

The thing with the new care bill is that it will not do as it is claimed
1. the cap is only for "care" and not for board and lodging costs so care homes are going to need to do detailed costings of how much time each "care" component takes for costings

2. Will "care costs" be fully funded? This didn't happen with the "free" nursery hours where the government pays only £3.50-4,00 per hour of the £6.00-8.00 that nurseries would normally charge so that nurseries are now charging for all sorts of "extras" that used to be included in the fee

3. It seems as though it will be a subsidy for wealthier pensioners - if you own a £1 million home you will be able to keep around 90% of assets - if you live in a £100,000 home then you will lose everything and your house will be sold. Why not go for a percentage instead

A friend sent me a link to this video this morning.

It IS political, but it sets out the implications for the NHS of various parts of the bill.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-kqTMX5yso

Anyone who wants a health service like that of the US is out of their mind or extremely well off.

My DM spent the last year and a bit of her life in sheltered accommodation in an Abbeyfield home. She had 2 meals a day provided and got her own breakfast and between meal snacks and drinks. She had a single room with a kitchenette and an en-suite wet room. The home was in Lancashire and cost a fraction of the amounts being quoted here. She got on well with the other residents with whom she shared the communal facilities and she enjoyed their company. She had some visits from outside carers which she paid for on top but while she was there the rent from her house and her pension income more than covered her expenses.

I guess things are much more expensive in the South of England so we were probably very lucky that she was somewhere so affordable where she was so happy! We'd tried to persuade her to move somewhere like that for many years but only succeeded after a hospital admission resulted in her being told she could only go home if she agreed to live downstairs at her own home for safety reasons. Once she was in that position she realised the home she hadn't wanted to leave was no longer her home any more.
Once settled there she told us "It's lovely here. I should have moved here years ago!" - eye roll!

If I ever need to lose my independence I hope I'm able to find such good provision, though I suspect it is unlikely to happen. Meanwhile I plan to relocate up North, release equity and give as much away as I legally can so my kids get some of their inheritance before I have to spend it on my care! If I manage to stay independent I'll be able to treat myself to things I can never afford living in the South East on a fairly meagre pension with a mortgage that still has over 10 years to run!

I'm very worried about the future of the NHS and hope that this government's plans can be thwarted. Back in 1988 we spent some time on holiday with an American couple. The NHS had just brought in charges for eye tests ( and possibly other charges) and our American friends were saying how sad it was that that was happening as they envied our NHS compared to what they had! That was only the beginning. If it isn't stopped now it could be the end of the NHS before long!

I'm horrified at this gov't management of the NHS, they have deliberately run it down so people will pay to go private and its worked, not that it will necessarily help them at the next election, some people have died waiting for treatment, some have paid for it and are angry about it. At the moment we have a socialist NHS, we all get the treatment we need regardless of cost, the Tory version is each pay for his own, Tories do not believe they should contribute to some one else's care. The new bill means private healthcare providers will be able to sit on commissioning groups & decide how services are provided and funded, which we really don't want. The BBC doesn't cover these things properly and misleads us, as did the Tories at the last election when they side stepped any questions on privatisation. Channel 4 news is best, but for many the 1st they'll know of it is when a service is no longer provided or they're asked to pay

I have been telling my friends that we are being americanised for years. I for one do not see anything to recommend their way of life for the ordinary person