Labour to get back to an 18 week waiting list within the first term

I think that it is a laudable, but unachievable goal. We need to recruit, train, and support more staff and that will take time.

Good ambition, but probably won’t happen.

Mollygo
I do remember, I remember it well. I was concerned about it for other people although I knew it wouldn’t affect me. Now both of my sons pay into private pensions and they pay a lot in but will not get a very good return, but they know it’s wise to do it anyway.
Gordon Brown obviously thought the investments would quickly recover, but unfortunately they didn’t. Millions of people now have much smaller pensions as a result of his actions.

I realise it’s difficult. We all want quicker access to the health service, but there are so many difficulties and obstacles in the way of that, so I don’t think it’ll happen quickly, if at all. I’m crossing my fingers though, because I’m waiting for spinal surgery. Even though I’m being treated through a private hospital, my consultant only works for the NHS. I can be seen slightly quicker by going to the private hospital because I’m considered healthy and therefore unlikely to need the specialist care facilities the general hospital has available.

Chocolatelovinggran

I think that it is a laudable, but unachievable goal. We need to recruit, train, and support more staff and that will take time.

It will take years.

I've often wondered, do private health companies pay better wages than the NHS? Are their working conditions and hours of work any better?

Are they in competition with the NHS for trained staff?

I can't help thinking that if NHS pay and conditions were improved it might attract some qualified staff to return to work for them while new staff are being recruited and trained.

I would think pay and conditions are much better - NHS doctors are lost to the private sector. Probably not unlike when I worked in the public sector, private practice was much better paid and held far more prospects, despite the loss of the public sector pension. I don’t think the taxpayer can afford to give private sector conditions to NHS staff. More cost effective to use private health ‘as and when’ I think. The big problem that I see with the NHS is what I call public sector mentality - the managers are not spending their own money. They have no incentive to provide value for the money the government gives them. They say they need more, are given more. In the private, profit-driven sector an eagle eye is kept on costs. Efficiency and value for money are key because a profit has to be delivered without compromising service delivery. This is alien to the public sector in my 13 years of experience.

Seeing will be believing for me.

I wish more people would say that.

Germanshepherdsmum

I would think pay and conditions are much better - NHS doctors are lost to the private sector. Probably not unlike when I worked in the public sector, private practice was much better paid and held far more prospects, despite the loss of the public sector pension. I don’t think the taxpayer can afford to give private sector conditions to NHS staff. More cost effective to use private health ‘as and when’ I think. The big problem that I see with the NHS is what I call public sector mentality - the managers are not spending their own money. They have no incentive to provide value for the money the government gives them. They say they need more, are given more. In the private, profit-driven sector an eagle eye is kept on costs. Efficiency and value for money are key because a profit has to be delivered without compromising service delivery. This is alien to the public sector in my 13 years of experience.

Yep. I’m at the point that I no longer have an NHS dentist, so I pay privately.

If I need to, I pay a private GP, and a private hospital for other stuff.

I don’t want to, I shouldn’t need to, but that’s the way it is now.🙄

The NHS needs reform. Throwing more money around never seems to change things.

I don’t think there is any more money to throw around unless the money raised from private schools and tax dodgers is far more than I think it could possibly be. And if the estimated four out of every ten private school pupils transfer to the state sector, there’ll be even less money available!

maddyone

eazybee

Well, the first thing any party needs to do is to persuade doctors to work full time, not like the six I know who prioritize work-life balance over their career. In their thirties, all refuse to work more than three days a week and all can afford to live comfortably on what they earn.

Many doctors prioritise their children over their work.
Also many doctors work in different disciplines. My daughter did, she worked one day a week in management. She was instrumental in setting up the vaccination centres across the south east corridor during Covid. I suppose her patients thought she was at home with her feet up.

Other doctors work a day a week at the hospital, three days a week as a GP. Female doctors often work two or three days a week because they’ve got a baby at home. Some doctors spend a day a week training other doctors, or doing locum services, or in management, or working at night instead of the daytime. Doctors are most certainly not lazy.

When I was a child in the 50’s, most doctors were men. These days women are in the workplace, despite which they tend to carry the bulk of the emotional and practical life of their families.
I find it offensive to dismiss our female doctors who work part time as ‘prioritising work life balance over their career’

I wasn’t a GP but I made a choice not to progress up my career ladder because I wanted work-life balance. I know I’m not alone -

My doctor (male) only works 3 days, as does my dentist (female). I don’t begrudge them their work life balance if they can afford to do that. I do wonder where all these extra doctors, practice nurses, nurse practitioners etc are going to come from though, especially if they don't get their pay rise and when nurses can earn a good living with a choice of hours, doing supply cover.

Pay them enough!

You’re getting more and more like the Australian system with private medical care alongside public. It doesn’t particularly improve waiting lists. BUPA have moved in here in a big way with constant annoying tv adverts. I think the rates of pay for nurses and medical staff are low over there so that doesn’t help because other countries attract them. You train, we get the benefit really. I would be very surprised if a change of government makes any difference at all.

MaizieD

I've often wondered, do private health companies pay better wages than the NHS? Are their working conditions and hours of work any better?

Are they in competition with the NHS for trained staff?

I can't help thinking that if NHS pay and conditions were improved it might attract some qualified staff to return to work for them while new staff are being recruited and trained.

I am not sure about private health companies but in my time working for the NHS the agencies paid nurses and midwives huge sums to cover staff shortages at local hospitals. An agency midwife would earn 3 times what a contracted midwife would earn. The hospital I was at only had itself to blame for busting it's budget employing agency staff because it would pay its own staff a grade lower than their status for overtime so the take up was small and left wards dangerously understaffed.

Wales is far below us for waiting times etc.
The doctors strike impacts the waiting list every time, so what do you do, you try and talk but stalemate, unless you give in to their demands it goes round and round.
The NHS is coping for a vastly different range of illness’s and preventative medicine unthought of fifty years ago and a massive amount of people. Fewer paying in too.
I was surprised that pupils learnt anything really with shorter working days and very long holidays. Perhaps it’s because the teachers there are not coping with children with all sorts if problems which they are not trained for, Every child at school should be able to go to the lavatory on their own, wash and dry their hands but so many mothers think it’s the teachers job thus taking teaching time away from those that can.

.

War is - it’s the same in social work. Recruiting and retaining staff, especially in Children and Families is a challenge . Agency staff are paid much more than l.a. employed staff. They also walk if they don’t want to work some complex cases. Of course, they don’t get the job security or pensions la staff get but they get life-work balance

I think the thing to bear in mind is this

IFS report.

Substantial improvements to NHS waiting times were achieved by the last Labour government. For example, from 1997, the New Labour governments almost eliminated waits for inpatient treatment of more than twelve months in around six years, and waits of more than six months in around eight years.

Whereas

IFS

The waiting list doubled in a decade from 2.3 million 'incomplete pathways' (where the patient has been referred but is waiting for treatment) in January 2010 to 4.6 million in December 2019. Waiting times also increased over this period, particularly the longest waits.

Of course it has skyrocketed since covid, but had the Tories resourced the NHS as they should have done the waiting lists, whilst no doubt not good would be nowhere near what they are now.

So all you doomsters (to borrow a phrase) compare one government to another and then consider Labours intentions. I know who I would put my trust in.

Hospitals have been working in the evenings and weekends for years now, nothing new in that. My DH had both his hip ops and cancer op (12 years ago) on a Saturday with treatment and appointments on Sunday. This has been going on for ages.

Wwm2Oh for goodness sake- the population of the Uk has risen alarmingly especially in the South East since the Blair era and it’s no wonder that essential services are collapsing.

Whoever gets the keys to No.10 on 5th July hasn’t a cat in hells chance of reducing NHS wait times whilst the Junior doctors continue with their strike action.

On the breakfast news they are now asking for a restorative increase of over 35%. They have been offered 10% but have walked away from discussions.

Latest strike days 07.00 26/96/2024 until 07.00 02/07/2024

ronib

*Wwm2*Oh for goodness sake- the population of the Uk has risen alarmingly especially in the South East since the Blair era and it’s no wonder that essential services are collapsing.

You need to look at the data.

Throughout the Labour years the annual % change in population rose year on year and yet Labourstill reduced waiting times.

Since the Tories took office the annual % change in population had reduced year on year.

So I am afraid you are incorrect in your assertion.

GrannyGravy13

Whoever gets the keys to No.10 on 5th July hasn’t a cat in hells chance of reducing NHS wait times whilst the Junior doctors continue with their strike action.

On the breakfast news they are now asking for a restorative increase of over 35%. They have been offered 10% but have walked away from discussions.

Well I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but I agree that the strikes need sorting as do the doctors.

Streeting has already said that he is not willing to pay the full amount to the doctors and that as he (Streeting) is acting on behalf of NHS patients, he wants the impasse to end asap, but a 35% immediate increase is out if the question, but he is open to discussion.

The hospitals have working evenings and weekends for donkeys years. We still have insufficient doctors and other staff, and we have ongoing junior doctor strikes which in my opinion are fully justified, and if you don’t actually know any doctors, you are unlikely to understand why we have arrived at this point. Doctors are fleeing the country at an alarming rate. It takes a minimum of five years to train a doctor just to F1 level, and many, many more years before they are fully qualified as consultants. The NHS have been using the private sector to get patients through the system since the Blair years.
So where are the extra doctors going to come from?
How can the NHS use the facilities it already has at weekends and evenings when it already does that?
How can the NHS use the private facilities when it already does that?
Can we pay the junior doctors a reasonable raise which they well deserve because their pay has fallen radically behind in the last fifteen years?