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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

I’m very concerned about this.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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..