Health Secretary says no more money for NHS

Then if we are that cashed strapped how about returning the millions of money spent on equipment that was no use in the last 3 years, how about cutting the payments to the rich, how about a fair taxation system. So many ways to save money for the vulnerable and needy.

Brexit comes home to roost! The pandemic created golden opportunities for various profiteers and fraudsters. Johnson couldn't care less so long as his wife is happy with the gold-plated wallpaper. And most Tory MPs are solely concerned to continue in their well-paid jobs. The Labour Party must pull its socks up. Starmer may be worthy but he's as dull as ditchwater.

What about all the money that was supposed to go to the NHS when we left brexit. What happened to all of that

The problem with the cost cutting or efficiency measures is they are largely implemented by people who don’t have to work under them. One example from my long time in the NHS-‘efficiencies’ in the laundry service resulted in shortages in the maternity unit I was working in with babies in j cloth gowns and mums on paper sheets. I was searching the linen cupboard in the hope of finding a proper cot sheet when some bod with a clipboard gave me a proper telling off for putting the light on during the day! Priorities???

If the NHS employed fewer ‘inclusion and diversity’ managers and stopped hiring so many admin/ managerial staff it might improve. There’s so much wrong with this bloated and frequently inefficient organisation, inaugurated in 1948 by a Labour government who had altered the original private/ public partnership first mooted by the conservatives. The PFI initiative was accelerated under the Blair government at huge cost, not least in legal fees, (an under reported scandal in itself). We need a cross party committee-, yes another one!- which this time will work together to plan a way forward as this issue is too much of a hot potato to leave to one party alone, in government or not. Scaremongering about ‘privatisation’ must stop. So too our refusal to look to other excellent healthcare systems abroad from whom we may be able to actually learn something! Stop the farcical (and expensive) ‘wokery’- requiring an elderly MAN to indicate whether or not he could be pregnant before a procedure, allowing pre operative trans woman to share female only wards etc. etc. Sort out the GP mess so that patients can actually see their doctor face to face if they so wish and relieve the overburdened A&E departments. Charge non nationals for their treatment. Politicians must stop treating the public like credulous fools to be manipulated in order to gain votes. I have several relatives who work in senior clinical NHS posts; I myself used to work in finance for that organisation, so I do have some notion of its problems, many self inflicted. The NHS is not ‘free’ nor can NI contributions fund it. Taxation is the main source of revenue and that very same source is desperately needed for other essential services to society such as housing, elderly and children’s social care, education etc all of which are necessary to our well being and may improve the nation’s health. No other country obsesses over its health services like we do. The ‘sacred cow’ status of the NHS should end.

My friend's daughter is an NHS nurse in Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, she also works agency and gets paid anything between £250-650 a shift for this private work in other NHS hospitals. A woman who also makes sure that she is off with stress related illness at all the school holidays so that she doesn't need childcare. Maybe the reduction in funding is justified if there are a few more like her.

Then why is UK even CONSIDERING funding the Eurovision Song Contest next year!??? And sending migrants to Rwanda?(millions is ongoing costs) and now announcing that our troops may have to go fight for Uraiane!!! But NHS-no more money !?

I have a friend who needs a new hip. The obstacles in his way are many and because of these obstacles he is not even counted as being on the list yet - another way of keeping numbers down. His hip is actually completely 'shot' and he is considering going private... but why when he has paid in so much? Because he will become pain free far sooner whilst the NHS are passing him from pillar to post.

I'm simply irritated that so much of the budget goes towards management. The drive towards larger hospitals and away from smaller local cottage hospitals and units has meant that the establishments are too large to manage simply.
Small procedures may be carried out tens of miles from home, meaning that costly hospital transport has to be used or patients spend hours on public transport or pounds on parking. The largest building projects in many hospitals seem to be car parks.
More elderly people have to stay longer because there are no local "cottage hospitals" where they can stay until they're ready to go home.
And don't get me started on those built using PFI! I've worked in such a building where we weren't allowed to buy and change a light bulb but had to wait two weeks and pay £50 for the management company to do it. Also we weren't allowed to buy in platters of sandwiches for meetings but had to use the in-house caterers at three times the cost. Same goes for approved stationery providers. I'm assuming that supplies in the NHS are also bought in this way; it's certainly not true that centralised buying is always the best way to go about these things.
I'm not convinced that such money as there is is being spent sensibly.

Ladyinspain

Then why is UK even CONSIDERING funding the Eurovision Song Contest next year!??? And sending migrants to Rwanda?(millions is ongoing costs) and now announcing that our troops may have to go fight for Uraiane!!! But NHS-no more money !?

Our troops are not going to fight for Ukraine, there is a proposal for training Ukrainian fighters.

the reason the NHS is costing more at the moment is because each of the services they use are increasingly run by a private company and private companies require profits to give shareholders. The nhs needs to go back to employing people directly like it always had until the Torys took control

What about the money Sir Tom raised during the pandemic. Wasn't that for the NHS?

I know several people who have opted to pay for their treatment than to stay in pain for months/years.
This is what the Tories want for us all to pay for our treatment.
It's the poor who lose out again as they can't afford to pay but it's clear this government doesn't care about the poor.

I thought the increase in NI contributions was to fund the NHS & Social Care!!! Does this government think we are so stupid and have such short term memories that we’ve forgotten this? We all know their plan is to run the NHS into the ground so they can privatise it. If the higher NI payments aren’t going to NHS & Social Care what are they funding - empty planes destined for Rwanda standing on runways perhaps???

As regards private companies doing NHS work, I've had two cataracts done under the NHS in private facilities. I understand that it is cheaper to do it this way, and the clinics were certainly very well organised and ran to time. But ALL the surgeons involved were from the local NHS department, leading me to wonder why they have the time off?
I also had a recent recall after a mammogram. There were two of us attending the clinic and at least eight staff present.

I forgot to add that neither of us attending the clinic had received our appointment letters. I went because I received a reminder text the day before, the other woman had missed her first appointment and received her second letter mentioning that she had missed her first appointment.

Coastal gran: I'm sure HR would pick up a pattern of school holiday absences if it was an ongoing occurrence.
Perhaps "Dishy Rishi" should reverse his decision to ignore the billions that were wasted or obtained fraudulently during the early days of covid and get it back with interest.
The Tory party should read Gransnet as the vast majority of contributors can see right through them having lived their blatent lies for so long now. Obviously there are still some fans, but you only have to raise the name Johnson for practically 100% agreement and it's not saying anything good.
Our media is almost 100% owned by the right wing many non dom. So inspite of this relentless attempt to tell us black is white the oldies, the Tory bread and butter voter, are seeing them for what they really are.
Remember the NHS every time you vote. You never know when you may need it. People are now dieing in the back of ambulances due to lack of them. Dial 999 even if your life is in peril, now it could be hours before you get treated.

I had to have a CT scan last week, and the nurse said they are working 18 months behind...apart from urgent cases like me. They were allowed to hire 2 CT wagons run by agency staff, and set up a hired CT and MRI at a hospital unit opened for Covid. The rental costs must be horrendous- but they are allowed to rent, not hire. She said 'The Conservatives haven't killed the NHS off yet, but they're nearly there, another successful election should do it'.

Sorry, hire not buy! Argh!

There is no doubt that all health care systems are struggling with the vast increase in available and costly treatments that were unimaginable in 1948. So it is a challenge.

But tackling this requires the motivation to do so. This government do not have that motivation because their political dogma favours a different profit-led system with private companies reaping the benefits.

There are of course savings to be made and inefficiencies to be tackled, but the basis of the problem is a desire by the government to solve it.

Only 5 years ago, social media sites like this were not full of tales of long waiting lists, hours on end waiting in A&E, ambulances stacking up outside, and people unable to gain access to a GP. This drip feed of failure to tackle the needs of the NHS has crept up on us and now we are well and truly in the mire.

The only answer is to ditch the guys at he top who are steeped in their dogma and get ourselves a government who actually grasps the the meaning of the word SERVICE.

Ahhh the old divide and conquer.
We are paying for the previous generation now, they previously paid for the one in front of them. That is how it works.
Unfortunately, drip feeding the elite agenda is working via social media, the new social control.

songstress60

What about the money Sir Tom raised during the pandemic. Wasn't that for the NHS?

A tiny drop in the ocean.

It the 50s and 60s we had convalescent hospitals which looked after the elderly and people recovering from serious operations this stopped bed blocking but they were closed down by the labour party to make the NHS more effective and created more and more administrative jobs

Annewilko

songstress60

What about the money Sir Tom raised during the pandemic. Wasn't that for the NHS?

A tiny drop in the ocean.

The money he raised was for NHS charities, not for funding the NHS.

For all those saying there should be fewer managers. Who do you think it going to run it? Who do you think is going to put in place all these wonderful ideas you have for how the NHS should improve?

And after a quick Google. The Eurovision Song content costs about £15million. The NHS in England costs £330million a day. I think we can afford a Song Contest.

Whilst we have cause to be very grateful to the NHS for life saving treatment, they need to work smarter before receiving yet more funding! It is wasteful and inefficient. As an example, my husband does not drive and the hospital he needs to visit is not on a bus/train route, so the only option is for me to drive him.
They will not make appointments by telephone or online, the only option is to wait for an appointments letter, by which time, we/I may have made other arrangements. Yesterday, I changed my longstanding hair appointment and a meeting in order to get hubby to an 11am appointment, only to find that a doctor had not turned up an there was a 2 hour wait. There had made no attempt to contact us yet they must have known there would be a problem from the beginning of the day. We elected not to wait for 2 hours but they would not rearrange the appointment there and then ... we have to wait for another letter! There is no consideration for the patient only their system.
We also were told to empty 60 boxes of unused, untouched, in date, double plastic wrapped dialysis fluids down the drain as they would not take them back. We also had to put boxes of unused plastic wrapped tubes, dressings, etc into medical waste disposal. What a waste of NHS funds!
I also had a small op which they brought forward. BUT, they insisted on doing another pre-op visit/tests etc, even though they had only done exactly the same tests 2 days before (for the later op!) No common sense, just tick-box mentality!
Just what are the managers managing? If any private enterprise used the same methodology they would be out of business in a flash!