Can the Tories be trusted with OUR National Health Service

Just come back from my gorgeous Portuguese dentist. In Portugal since the crash they have decided to charge people a nominal sum for each time they use the service with the stated intention to get back to no charge once the country is back presumably out of deficit. I couldn't find anything else out as I didn't want to take up my gorgeous mans time.

Surely if something is broke you try and fix it and you can only do so by looking at what works well and what does not.

The problem with the NHS it is a sacred cow and it is used as a political football.

I never understand the mantra that the NHS is a 'free' service. No it's not!. I think that view is part of the problem as to why there is abuse of the system.

For the sake of argument:

Do people think the health services in other, equivalent European countries are worse than our NHS? If they are as good or better it does illustrate, does it not, that there are other good ways to provide health care than our model? And since our model seems beset with problems, perhaps it's no longer the best model.

I don't think its problems are all down to underfunding though it seems we are trying to achieve what costs more in similar countries.

Prediction: some people won't understand the phrase "for the sake of argument" and will jump to politically biassed conclusions about my views on the NHS. This will be amusing.

Does anyone know when hospital cleaning services were first contracted out? I'm asking because when my brother was in the JR in Oxford for quite a long time, my parents, who only knew very clean-looking hospitals in Lancashire at the time, commented on how dirty the stairwells were. That would be 1989.

whitewave tries to hide her bias, but it shines like a beacon.

Yes, POGS, is this supposed to be a discussion about what's wrong with the NHS and how the crisis can possibly be managed, or just another Tory-bashing fest?

It's too easy to blame the Tories and underfunding. The fact is that the number of patients has shot up, as have the available treatments and their cost, and the Tories did, of course, inherit a huge amount of debt. There are also calls for increased funding in many other areas - care for the elderly, housing, education, transport - the list goes on. As to privatisation, I don't see anything wrong with, for example, paying private firms to clean hospitals if that is more efficient, which it may well be - I'm not saying it is, but I'm sure it will be in some cases.

"We stand a better chance with the Tories than we do with labour."

OP responds with :-

'The op doesn't suggest that we will be better off under any other government - it simply poses the question as to whether our NHS is safe under the Tories.'

Hmm. I don't understand why that was said by the OP to kittylester. Unless of course the desire by the OP poster is only interested in posts that attack the present government.

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I don't think any government of any colour has been/will be
the 'Saviour' of the NHS. The old saying 'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves' does not apply to the NHS, so much waste and poor administration. The fact is we are living longer, the population has grown and the A & E units are being misused by the public.

The NHS is continually trying to get the square peg in the round hole.

The road to privatisation started many years ago with the outsourcing of cleaning services. Since then there has been the gradual back door privatisation of many services. Newer hospitals have been built using private funding which have left hospitals tied into spiralling loan interest on the debt with no get out clause. The coalition government passed a bill which removed the direct responsibility for health services from the minister of health allowing the government to say 'not our problem' as services are sold off or standards diminish, this is why many are campaigning for the NHS reinstatement bill to reverse the previous bill and make the minister of health responsible again.
The 'ageing population' is a white elephant used to cover the fact that the actual number of beds available in hospitals has been systematically reduced over the last 10 - 15 years. Truth is the older generation are fitter and healthier than ever before.
This is a fight we all must get involved with unless we want to lose this service.
It is shown that the UK has the fewest beds per capita and also the amount budgeted for NHS services is lowest in EU.
The government protestations on how much is going to NHS is also a red herring, yes it may go the NHS but it is then paid out to private for profit providers who are increasing charges whilst providing poorer services.

Accident and emergency is weighed down by a number of minor complaints.
In years gone by people would normally have been treated by a cottage hospital or nurse
Our GP practice nurses are so busy with injection blood test etc there is no time for anything else. So anyone with a minor injury is redirected to A&E.
A&E in out of hours has people waiting with headaches stomach pains ( agree these need looking at) but it is clogging the system.
At weekends there are the usual sporting / DIY injuries.
These again could be looked after in a surgery or cottage hospital.
I am pleased that our local hospital has a separate A&E for children there is nothing worse sitting in A&E with a sick child on a saturday night!

It is how & where the available money is directed that is important not just throwing money at one section & ignoring others.

A great big fat NO. They are selling bits off already. Our Wheelchair Service used to be NHS and fantastic, now it is owned by Millbrook and awful, absolutely awful.

Can Labour be trusted with OUR National Health Service?
No

No party can.

Certainly not! The evidence is all around us at the moment: BBC News at 10 p.m. 'The Hospital', for example.

Well I would answer No - I have never voted either Labour or Tory by the way.

The reason I say no is because they are ideologically opposed to the central heart of the NHS in principle.

The op doesn't suggest that we will be better off under any other government - it simply poses the question as to whether our NHS is safe under the Tories.

We stand a better chance with the Tories than we do with labour.

Department of Health figures

2009 the NHS had a SURPLUS of £1945m

2010 the NHS had a surplus of £1845

Tories took office

2011. The NHS had a surplus of £674m

2012 The NHS had a surplus of £546m

2014 The NHS had a DEFICIT of -£108m

2015 The NHS had a deficit of -£842m

We can be absolutely confident ent that these figures are even more alarming for 2016 and the future.

Kings Fund

£1.85bn deficit is the biggest in the NHS history.

Principal cause! LACK of FUNDING

The scale of this deficit, signifies a system buckling under the strain of huge financial and operational pressures.

The pace and scale of the government requirement for the NHS to deliver £22bn efficiency savings by 2020 cannot possibly achieved"

I think it is being set up to fail.

This is a strange question if I may say so WW as any poster who is a Labour voter is bound to say NO, straight away.Any Conservative voter will say YES, and anybody in between will say that they hope so but. Etc.
So, I say that I hope so, and in fact think they will do as well as they can like any government.Watching a bit of the NHS programme on tv this morning I was interested by the urgent care hospital in Rochdale, they got rid of the A&E in favour of making it more minor or lesser injuries, they use their own ambulances to go out and treat, by paramedics, patients at home, and of course treat anyone who comes to the hospital.
It looks as if this way of doing things is working well, with serious injuries going to larger hospitals elsewhere.
Perhaps this redistributing of types of patient is one area where the NHS can improve things within itself, rather than every single hospital in the land offering all types of depts.Which is probably why they are sometimes shutting depts in local hospitals which causes concerns for people, but the bigger picture isn't always shown.
Social care will have to improve for the future to avoid patients staying in hospitals longer than they need to.Whoever is in power for the next ten years will have to address that.

So what is the result of these deficits?

Sally Gainsbury Nuffield Trust 2015

"..........next years fund - £1.8bn of it - will be spent on bailing out NHS providers in deficit, leaving just £339m for fund (investment) and " transformation"

Absolutely not. Since they got into power, nearly 7 years ago now, they have been consistently and determinedly undermining it. They would prefer a system where about half of us have expensive health insurance and there is a mediocre service for the rest. It is a pro-business strategy - as in pro-healthcare-business.
This despite their assertions during two elections that they would support the NHS and not re-organise it.
Since then we have had:
Massive re-organisation of commissioning which GPs did not want - and which is now leading to a postcode lottery
Contracting out chunks of service to Virgin Healthcare etc
Deteriorating performance against targets
Pressure from the department of health to "increase bed occupancy" - thus creating a shortage of beds at peak times
insufficient GPs in many areas
Mad idea that everything in the NHS needs to be 7 days a week.
Picking a fight with junior doctors - who do, of course, work 24 hours , 7 days a week.
Removing bursaries for nurse training
Messing up social care so that wards are half-full of people who really want to go home
Failing to plan or to provide funding for increased need for social and non-hospital nursing care. In fact they've made a mess of this.
Failing to provide meet the challenge of increasing mental ill-health
And imposing "austerity" on the NHS at a time when they knew perfectly well that there would be more older adults needing more and more treatment.
All this against a background of failing to close "the deficit" and allowing the national debt rise steadily. Because they don't want to tax the rich more or really tackle people and companies that manage to avoid paying taxes here.

Funding

98.8% comes from government

The rest from patient charges

Since the Tories took office in 2010 the average annual increase after taking inflation into account is just 0.9%.

Trusts in deficit in 2010 were running at 8%

Trusts running at deficit in 2015/6 is running at 65%

Reference The Kings Fund

Perhaps we should have paid more attention to Nigel Edwards 2016 of the Nuffield Trust.

"My big worry is what happens next. I fear that in order for hospitals to eradicate these deficits NHS England want, the next steps could be a series of brutal service closure- which will shock an unprepared public.

We are aware of all the horror stories in the media at the moment and many of us have been watching and listening to the various BBC programmes with those working in the NHS indicating that the NHS is at tipping point, with the stresses and strains to the system we hope as individuals we will never have to experience. That our operation for cancer are other serious complaint won't be delayed, which if it is may mean our demise. But the truth is inevitably some of us will experience just that and very likely given our age profile within a short time.

How many if us are confident that in the event of needed 24 hour care or even just upport when needed that we can afford it or that it will be available.