Dessimation of the NHS

Regarding all aspects of the NHS remember Mrs. Thatcher as she was then,saying on a TV programme - to a Cabinet member, she intended the NHS "Wither on the vine." Cameron and Co are accelerating its demise.

I've found today's ambulances seem to be staffed by individuals who have no tact or empathy One if them sitting with me and my husband, made a thoughtless observation, which could have exacerbated his condition.

For me, the EU is anything but clear about how much they all get. As the UK MPs have voted themselves a 10% increase, I wonder how much the MEPs salt away. Anyone know? Anyone know how much the top MEP gets? Guess their salaries wing their way to Jersey or the Caymans :-(

Only thing I do know, is the their Lordships are only paid when they're in sitting in the House.

(Please excuse any/all mistakes,I've been up all night).

MEPs have nothing to do with the NHS. Hopefully they never will, providing it stays national.

Thatcher didn't actually say that, LuckyDucky.

Lucky there is nothing new in that. The ambulance came when I was in a heap at the bottom of the stairs and they asked me to walk to the ambulance. Of course I couldn't. No sympathy, no understanding. Same at A & E, DH kept asking if someone could see me because I was in so much pain but got nowhere. Eventually DS grabbed a doctor and more or less insisted they did something as the paracetamol wasn't helping. X-ray treated me like a time waster until they saw the light shining through three of my ribs. Suddenly everyone cared. So if I had been yelling and shouting would it have helped? No, you can't do that with broken ribs.

I hate to disillusion you all but not all medics are angels.

Sorry about that, Nonnie, but would you get any better treatment in a privatised system where they would want to see your money before they took you in the ambulance?

Thanks Alea Although the verb decimate (sorry I spelled it wrongly in the header) technically does mean to reduce by ten, more modern definitions state: To drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something),
Or: To kill, destroy or remove a large proportion of.
I do think therefore that the verb was used in the correct context within this post.

Joelsnan, there was a thread asking for HQ to correct obvious spelling mistakes in thread titles. They appear not to have taken any notice of it.
I agree with your definition. I think most of us understood what you meant.

I think it would be presumptious of GNHQ to 'correct' any misspellings in thread titles. For a start, a new thread is immediately there on the Active list for anyone to see - they'd have to do it later when and if they'd noticed. Also, OPs occasionally deliberately insert a misspelt word to illustrate their point.

We just caught this last night for some reason instead of our usual news.

Re Wales and Scotland being better and not having the same problems:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35364644

The health service will be available to all and financed entirely from taxation, which means that people pay into it according to their means

That doesn't appear to have changed actually (as yet), unless you have been asked to pay when attending A&E?
Paying the hospital trust directly or paying a firm to carry out the service on behalf of the taxpayer - it still comes out of taxation surely?

I am not supporting the action btw, just asking whether the founding principles have in fact been disregarded if the service is still being provided by whatever means out of taxation.
Although, of course, you would not appear to be getting such a good service if your nearest A&E has closed, which has happened elsewhere too.

Jalima At the moment the service is 'free' at point of delivery, however most of the infrastructure is funded by private funding with exorbitant repayment terms (PFIs) plus many of the ancillary services are undertaken by private firms often eventually costing more than if they were undertaken in-house and with little or no accountability. In my area, the Trust HAS to pay the 22million pound annual repayment on its PFI loan BEFORE anything else. Additionally the hospital cost 68million to build, at the end of the contract term they will have repaid 770 million! Can you believe that...it's true.

And until it is all paid, the hospital is owned by the PFI company, not by the NHS.

What do you think she did say ana? Not one of the men with her perused that line, or so I think I remember

Do you think my memory is at fault?

Yes, I can and do believe it and know about PFIs Joelsnan

I was just being rather pedantic and pointing out that they could actually argue that, whoever delivers it, it is still being paid for out of taxation iyswim
(paid again and again in fact).

IT would appear to have been said by Bruce Keogh

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/29/hospitals-told-cut-staff-nhs-cash-crisis

Some time ago I saw a petition about something that mattered to me and since then I've been kept up to date on many important matters. The NHS is one, people power does work it's just that, as so many people have pointed out, they do it behind our backs! Seek out these petitions, tell your friends, sign and make a difference. You will see some petitions that you may not think worthwhile, be selective, the NHS is being sold off to the Conservatives and their mates. I don't do much but if I think my signature will help I'm right there signing, adding my name, I ask you all to do the same, these things affect us all. I believe the Labour Party started off with their grand plans of building new hospitals but we are now paying, with exorbitant interest, and cannot afford to treat patients, what's the point of that!

Quote from above article."The spiralling cost of employing expensive agency staff, which is set to cost the NHS £4bn this year, is the single biggest reason for the £2.2bn overspend."
Government has pegged pay increases for nurses. Do agency staff individually get more pay than NHS staff which may encourage latter to leave NHS & join agencies?

Article quoted by durhamjen

If a and e closed Hudd there will be no a/e in Kirklees these people who decide these things don't seem to think about the people with no transport or money how do they think for eg a non car owner with 2or3little ones is going to get one of the kids to a and e in my area a taxi one way would cost at least £15 it's crazy

I am fed up with the NHS being a sacred cow.

PFI was a disgrace in education and health. Any sensible person knew that at the time, but it didn't stop the Blair government from doing it anyway.

However, something radical has to be done. People are living longer and medical science is advancing, so of course, everything costs more and more. People will just have to accept that hospitals will close and services will get worse, or we have to get smarter at the provision of the services.

The NHS is one of the biggest employers in the world!!! Yet we still don't have the best health in the world. Doctors and specialists earn a fortune. How is it they are allowed to work supposedly full time for the NHS, yet run private practices? I was a civil servant but was not allowed to practice my profession in the private sector at the same time. Why is it that we pay locum doctors £1500 a night? Why do we have to visit our GP for a repeat prescription already prescribed by a specialist? Why could a specialist from one health authority not refer me to another specialist in my home authority, after I had had an accident away from home? I had to be referred by my GP! All this beggars belief.

Multiply everyone's person tales of waste and inefficiency and then you appreciate the scale of the problem to be overcome.

Some good point PPP

In the news yesterday we heard about a huge increase in A & E visits, why? The BBC had no idea. I simply wonder if people no longer know how to treat themselves or maybe so many get free prescriptions they don't want to pay a pharmacist? Is it time for medics to tell people to go away when they make inappropriate visits?

Agreed Eleothan there is a plan in place to hit the NHS in England as hard as it can while all the while pretending that it's not happening.
But when you put things together.
*Accelerating the outsourcing of chunks of the NHS under cover of legislation that brought about an unnecessary reorganisation. Parliament never voted on the privatisation bit and the medical profession didn't want any of it.
*Failing to allocate adequate funds to help hospitals cope with the rising demand for services thus putting hospitals into deficit and giving an excuse for hospital closures. (everyone has known this rise was going to happen for years),
* freezing permanent recruitment which inevitably leads to taking on more expensive agency staff
* changing the immigration rules so that recruiting doctors from outside the EU is much more difficult than it was
* picking a fight with the "junior" doctors (with more and more considering emigration)
* pretending there is a plan needed to provide a 24/7 NHS in all hospital departments and services, which is patent rubbish.
* taking away bursaries for student nurses and midwives
There are probably more that I can't recall at the moment.

A while ago when we were in A&E the nurse in charge mentioned that he had two weeks holiday coming up. I said 'going away anywhere nice?' and he replied 'Here, I'll be back in here but through the agency for two weeks'.

Further to what you posted Nonnie, in cases close to home I can imagine that one reason for the increase in visits to A&E is because not only is it impossible to see a doctor out of hours, it can be impossible to see a doctor during regular surgery hours in under 3 days, and if one is foolish enough to want to see a doctor who might be familiar with a complicated medical history, then 2 weeks can figure in the equation. What perhaps starts as a problem can quickly become an emergency.
Yes, people use A&E wrongly, but Walk-In centres are not always accessible and over-zealous receptionists could double as the Home Guard in the face of an enemy invasion"Ils ne passeront pas!"