Can the Tories be trusted with OUR National Health Service

Whatever, Ana. You always miss the point.

An ageing population should not be blamed for problems to do with maternity units, however you look at it.

Must ask my daughter how she managed to keep her wealth a secret frm the rest of the family...two children before she was 26!

The notion of driving 40 miles from Cumbria to the northeast in the winter,when in Labour makes me very anxious. Anyone who knows the narrow, windy, unlit roads and weather conditions throughout the winter months, that is at least 6 months of the year, would be anxious about the risks to mother and baby making that kind of journey.
The NHS is a precious resource. It simply isn't true to say the UK can't afford to fund it and run it more efficiently. Germany pays a larger proportion of its national income into its health service, so has a better health service.
I went by appointment to our local hospital for a knee X-ray yesterday evening. It was a GP arranged appointment. I was seen over an hour after my allotted time because of the number of people sent from AandE who took priority, understandably. I'd expected a delay so took a book with me. The staff were, as always, kind, friendly and professional.

Sorry we need an edit button. I meant to add, one of the reasons our A&E department is so busy is because two other local towns had their A&E departments closed due to austerity, so they now travel a good distance to use the one at our hospital. Ours is under threat, if it closes, that will leave about 6 local towns going to a huge hospital a number of miles away. Nope, that hospital isn't on the tram or train line and using buses to get there doesn't bare thinking about.

The links are there Ankers. You just can't be bothered to read them

But that is my point.
No they are not/were not in some cases.

Saying, "this is from the independent" or this is from xxx", or even not saying where, means they are not there!

11 bloody links, Ankers. I counted them.
I refuse to reply to you any more.

£22 billion black hole in the NHS.
£202 billion to replace Trident.

Do we need a referendum?

HMRC said last year that the total tax gap between tax owed and tax collected was £36 billion.
If they only spend one or two billion to collect that tax, the NHS could be fully funded.

Why are people not up in arms about that?

^11 bloody links, Ankers. I counted them.
I refuse to reply to you any more.^

Up to you. No one says you have to.

And that does not actually answer my posts. Oh well.

^HMRC said last year that the total tax gap between tax owed and tax collected was £36 billion.
If they only spend one or two billion to collect that tax, the NHS could be fully funded.^

I dont get the math in that at all.

How do you know that a spend of 1 or 2 billion will get specific results of enough to spend on the NHS. And what does a fully funded NHS cost? How many more billions?

I would look back at these words too from the HMRC, but no link to get context, and check words etc.
You have just proved my point. The very next post.

How much will that train cost - about £60 billion?

Shortening the journey time for a privileged few and disrupting people's homes, villages, lives.
We need better rail links, improved services, but not that one.

There would be enough to improve rail services and have some left for the NHS.

Are you American, Ankers?

Exactly, Jalima.
It's all a question of priorities.

Jen where did you get the figures? Some BBC figures I've seen suggest around 25bn to set it up, with CND estimating 100bn (disputes) if you add in long term running costs. I haven't researched this properly at all so I have no particular confidence in the figures I've given but they did lead me to just ask the question. In any event I agree that there is a debate to be had about priorities. But a lot of people support Trident. Also, I don't know if Trident counts towards the 2% of GDP spent on defence as the commitment we have made to NATO? If so I guess any savings from scrapping it would go into alternative defence spending. But maybe Tridant is separate. I've tried to find out but so far I've failed.

What figures? If you are talking about the taxgap it's from taxresearch.
HMRC always downplay the taxgap.

25 billion to set what up?

If it's Trident you are talking about, the CND figures include the running costs over a forty year lifespan, which is what we are told it will be.
Anyway, we can cover the NHS gap by collecting all the taxes that are due, the gap between what we have collected and what we should have collected.

inews.co.uk/nhs/mobile-phone-device-helping-reduce-ae-admissions/

inews.co.uk/nhs/telehealth-will-make-prisoner-home/

Views on telehealth.

inews.co.uk/nhs/chemotherapy-home-become-reality-problems/

Please include links to where you get figures from durhamjen.

Posters sometimes like to check them, and their sources, context, and accuracy.

And interprtation etc.

Picky or what! Yes ma'am!
(I hardly think DJ needs to be told to include more links and in any case why don't you look for yourself? )

Because they are not easy to find.

And is everything she gets via her emails, even on google?

I dont think so?

I've looked up the STP plans for my area. As far as I can tell, there are no plans to shut any hospitals or major units, but there aren't any plans to restore what we've lost, despite protests.

Our STP is a strange shape - long and thin and skirting the London suburbs. The main problem is with transport. As we're not that far from London all the transport routes (roads, rail, buses) tend to radiate out of London. There are few cross country routes - especially public transport.

The idea is to have specialist centres concentrated in fewer locations. It's actually impossible for me to reach some of them by public transport without going into London and coming back out again. Goodness knows how long that would take or what the cost would be.

In this area, we have no mental health services or minor injury centre/walk in centre. The official maternity hospital is already 30 miles away. The idea, apparently, is to use tele-health and district nursing teams. Unfortunately, the district nursing team is practically non-existent and tele-health is unproven (see dj's link). In any case, tele-health doesn't actually save GP time.

The STP groups were supposed to consult with the public. I looked on the website for mine and there's a short, badly worded survey - and that's it! No meetings, no focus groups, nothing! It's a done deal.

DJ, it was the Trident figures I was asking about. Thanks. On tax collecting, I'm all for people paying their taxes, but from what I've read we will always struggle to get in the full amount which is due in line with tax law. The figures include, for example, money due from bankrupts - you can't get money from a stone. Also unpaid tax on smuggled goods. A successful crarckdown would be good, but that would stop smuggling rather than collect tax. I think 5bn or so is put down to illegal evasion and clearly needs to be addressed - but I assume that includes people paying for services in cash, untaxed criminal proceeds etc.Very hard to identify and collect. I'm not trying to make excuses for govt. or HMRC, but our "tax gap" is not out of line with other countries. In fact we seem to do quite well in comparison, and, to give credit where it's due, I understand we are quite unusual in publishing annual figures. Whether resourcing HMRC would collect more than it costs I can't say - I don't think its right to simply assume that is the case.

Why not Ankers - stop expecting to be spoon fed!

Nobody can find soemthing if it is not on google!

"Kelvin Hopkins(Luton North) (Lab): The Treasury’s problems are, above all, about income, not expenditure. There is a gap of £120 billion a year between the tax that should be paid and the tax that is actually paid. However, the Government have presided over tens of thousands of job cuts in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, where senior staff collect 20 times their own salaries and junior staff 10 times theirs. Are the Government not shooting themselves in the foot?"

This was two years ago, fitzy, on taxresearch. Of course, the government spokesperson disagreed.
However, one man who retired from HMRC said on the same thread that he had just found £400,000 of tax that had not been collected. His job was not refilled as they were making people redundant at the time.