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

Seeing will be believing for me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Good ambition, but probably won’t happen.

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

maddyone

I hope you haven’t got a pension pot. Labour raided the private pensions in the first budget of it’s last term. That was one way they funded public spending.

Some of us are suffering now because of that, but if it didn’t affect you, you won’t remember.

GSM
👏👏👏

Rereading this thread I realised I made a mistake. When I said Gordon Brown raided the private pension pots, he did indeed do that, but it was his first budget in their first term, not their last term as I incorrectly said. I believe it was because the investments were paying very good dividends at that time, and he presumably thought it would be easy money. Unfortunately subsequently the dividends weren’t so good as they had been and consequently many people with private pensions lost a lot of money on the value of their future pensions. Those pensions never recovered as I understand it.
I hope that answers your question fancythat. I considered myself lucky because I didn’t have a private pension, I had a professional teacher’s pension, so it wasn’t affected. I think Brown thought it would be an easy hit because the dividends would soon mount up again, but they didn’t. I’m not an economist but that’s a simple explanation. Even now, people have to put enormous amounts into their private pension pots to get anything like a decent return, and there are many people who simply can’t afford to do that. They will have to rely totally on the state in their retirement, and we all know that the state pension is not generous, even with pension credit.

maddyone

Germanshepherdsmum

Starmer and Streeting said today they will all be happy to do lots of paid overtime. Yeah, right …

Many of them already do lots of overtime. It’s unpaid overtime. I expect they’d quite like to be paid, but it won’t improve things because they already work a lot of hours.

Exactly. Perhaps Labour have a secret plan to increase the number of hours in a day, and the number of days in a week. Given that appointments and procedures are already taking place in the evening and at the weekend, I cannot see how 40,000 more appointments per week can be created.

Whitewavemark2

Labour are responding to the country’s fears, that the NHS will be degraded even more if the Tories return to power, to such an extent that it becomes like the dental service.

It is an extremely demanding target, but the health professionals have agreed it is doable.

Streeting - the shadow health minister, has said that as someone whose life was saved by the NHS, owes everything to the NHS.

If it’s doable why aren’t they doing it now?
Pardon me for being a sceptic.

Germanshepherdsmum

Starmer and Streeting said today they will all be happy to do lots of paid overtime. Yeah, right …

Many of them already do lots of overtime. It’s unpaid overtime. I expect they’d quite like to be paid, but it won’t improve things because they already work a lot of hours.

I'm not keen for the NHS to get any more money without them making huge efforts to stop wasting it and start being more efficient. I've had lots of experience of medical treatment over the past 5 years and the inefficiency and subsequent waste of money has been appalling

It scares me too. What they say is not what they will do. The other day a poster said ‘better the devil you know’.

Pantglas2

And pigs might fly! Check out Wales stats under Labour over the last 25 years and see how 18 MONTHS would’ve been optimistic in most instances!

Labour in Wales scares the pants off me to be honest. It’s what I fear next for England. It’s already in London with Khan who is Labour.

Labour are telling the electorate what they think will get them elected, and it probably will.

I doubt very much if they have a magic wand to find the extra wom/man power to put their NHS policies in place in the first 100 days as is their mantra

Starmer and Streeting said today they will all be happy to do lots of paid overtime. Yeah, right …

NHS staff are leaving in their droves so where will the fully qualified staff come from to run extra clinics and man the extra equipment that Labour is promising?

As a long serving NHS professional.. How?.... How will they do it?
You can't just keep throwing money at it. We are working flat out in our working week, we all do extra overtime /24 hr on call but there is a limit.
To implement more changes in shift patterns you need more staff, we are guided by the Universities who do these course, they limit the numbers.
Why do they think qualified Staff grow on trees , once you get your degree you have to find a job, with someone who can do your further training.
From the Labs, to the Wards, you also need the support teams /staff, that includes Cleaning team, Admin and Managers etc

It's not all about Doctors and Nurses, which people think is a quick fix.

Everyone who comes into Hospital, has something done by a Health care Scientist/Professional. This team covers 24/7, no idea how we can even think about changing this?

ronib

Tell it to the fairies Wwm2

What a charmer🙄

Tell it to the fairies Wwm2

ronib

Whitewavemark2

Oh sorry ronib I meant for that quote to be on top of this post.

So Reeves and Truss are so far apart in the way they view economics that they have zero in common.

Think Truss- = neo-liberalism on stilts

Reeves =Keynesianism

Keynesianism as in spend money we don’t have.

No Keynesian as in fiscal stimulus.

If you want to see how labour run a health service look at Wales , the waiting times for treatment are far worse than here.

Tony Blair’s use of private health sector happened years ago. Given current waiting lists, some bright spark needs to do a quick rethink.
How about one State run health care with no private sector? To match the Socialist dream of one State run education system again with no private schools? Is this in line with the way Cuba runs?