Sick of Starmer relentlessly using the words"difficult " & "painful"

I also think the internal market hasn't worked how it might have. It has probably driven improvements in efficiency in many areas, but payments for services can be politically skewed & not enough notice is taken of the clinical leaders within those services when these "incentives" to do things a certain way are devised. It's a good idea on paper but healthcare is so complex & does not equate to manufacturing & selling baked beans. There's a lot of data but not enough care in interpreting it (or the analysts interpreting it don't understand the clinical factors or even the admin factors sometimes, that can affect it)

Freya5

Dickens

MaizieD

I don't see how it would be possible to get any cross party agreement on running the NHS as at least one party is ideologically opposed to it and has been ever since its inception.

But the NHS is a reality, it exists, regardless of the opposition to it.

Cross-party agreement would be difficult, but those on the 'board' or 'committee' or whatever it might be called, would have to accept the principle of the NHS surely in order to be part of the set-up?

Are all Tories opposed to it?

If the Tories had been "idealogically opposed" the NHS, they would have rid us of it over the last 14 years. Don't forget Blair , still paying for his part in PFI, fully sanctioned private input, as do most countries in Europe, and I will say, because of separate insurances, used in Europe, my family are able to access Dr's and Dentists at a better rate than we can ever wish for .

I think Freya5 that those Tories who are ideologically opposed to the NHS in principle would find it near impossible to get rid of it.

Why? Because so many people - those who support the Tories included - need it and rely on it.

Such a move would be a huge constitutional change - any government would probably have to 'go to the people' to get a mandate for its removal.

Destroying it by stealth though is a different matter.

Am sure there are many tories in agreement with having a NHS.It takes a bold government to suggest a cross-party approach to running it and I wish this new government would do it, but until the next government who maybe won’t have a large majority in the HOC I can’t see it happening.

because the best thing for the NHS would be to depoliticise it.

I just can't see how that could be done.

Look at the BBC. It's supposed to be non political, but is it? With its key positions stuffed with tory appointments and the potential, no, the reality, of it being blackmailed by governments threatening to withhold funding if it doesn't toe the political line. And the BBC is a far smaller and less complex institution than the NHS. Which is a leviathan...

Even if the NHS were completely politically independent it would still be dependent on state funding (if it weren't it would no longer be the NHS) and so open to 'pressure' from the party that controls the funding.

I don’t think most Tories are against the NHS the issue is how to fund it, we are not paying enough into health services. My own opinion is, subject to a means test, SOME services need to be paid for, I would be against privatization, a system where there was a choice between direct payment and insurance to pay part or fully pay for treatment.

Oreo

MaizieD

I don't see how it would be possible to get any cross party agreement on running the NHS as at least one party is ideologically opposed to it and has been ever since its inception.

I really don’t believe this is true, there may be disagreements as to how things should be done but I think all parties are in agreement that the NHS as a body should stay.

I think - IIRC - that even Boris Johnson was banging on about increasing public spending on the NHS for years prior to becoming PM. However, he might have had 'alternative' reasons for doing so...

There are some Tories, obviously, totally opposed to the whole principle of the NHS. But surely there are also those who accept its existence and want to see it function - even if their ideas and those of other parties as to what might be required to make it function differ?

Dickens

MaizieD

I don't see how it would be possible to get any cross party agreement on running the NHS as at least one party is ideologically opposed to it and has been ever since its inception.

But the NHS is a reality, it exists, regardless of the opposition to it.

Cross-party agreement would be difficult, but those on the 'board' or 'committee' or whatever it might be called, would have to accept the principle of the NHS surely in order to be part of the set-up?

Are all Tories opposed to it?

If the Tories had been "idealogically opposed" the NHS, they would have rid us of it over the last 14 years. Don't forget Blair , still paying for his part in PFI, fully sanctioned private input, as do most countries in Europe, and I will say, because of separate insurances, used in Europe, my family are able to access Dr's and Dentists at a better rate than we can ever wish for .

The terms of reference would be written before it started meeting though, I just don’t think all parties would agree to even that. I’d like to be proved wrong though, because the best thing for the NHS would be to depoliticise it.

We’ll never know until a cross-party group tries it.

Oreo

MaizieD

I don't see how it would be possible to get any cross party agreement on running the NHS as at least one party is ideologically opposed to it and has been ever since its inception.

I really don’t believe this is true, there may be disagreements as to how things should be done but I think all parties are in agreement that the NHS as a body should stay.

I agree MaizieD. I don’t believe there’s enough consensus about what the NHS should provide to make it feasible to have all party working about anything other than core emergency services. The Tories and Reform both want to privatise non emergency and GP care, so there is no basis to work on to prioritise or reform services. Emergency services can only work efficiently and effectively when they are not the only backstop.

MaizieD

I don't see how it would be possible to get any cross party agreement on running the NHS as at least one party is ideologically opposed to it and has been ever since its inception.

I really don’t believe this is true, there may be disagreements as to how things should be done but I think all parties are in agreement that the NHS as a body should stay.

I'm inclined to agree with the BMA on that. Extra layers of admin/management at the cost of direct health worker time with patients. Thats the feedback from one person I know very well indeed in the NHS.

But tbh a lot of it, beyond what you say, is well above my pay grade too. But a committee working on the NHS needs to include those who work in it.

Wyllow3

Well, it would have to be a group committed to carrying out the general direction of a particular plan post the Darzai report. Otherwise just locked in fundamental disagreements and getting nowhere. But good ideas on specifics don't just come from one party? I cant see it usefully including Reform.

I cant see it usefully including Reform.

... was just about to say the same!

I agree with you that good ideas should not be limited to one party.

MaizieD

I don't see how it would be possible to get any cross party agreement on running the NHS as at least one party is ideologically opposed to it and has been ever since its inception.

But the NHS is a reality, it exists, regardless of the opposition to it.

Cross-party agreement would be difficult, but those on the 'board' or 'committee' or whatever it might be called, would have to accept the principle of the NHS surely in order to be part of the set-up?

Are all Tories opposed to it?

ronib

Dickens how do we achieve this? In full agreement with you?

How do we bring about such a change?

... damned if I know!

For a start, vested interests would have to be consulted, the BMA, etc...

And - among the electorate, is there even the will for such a change? Should there be a referendum? What do we want / expect from the NHS?

It would be a mammoth exercise - well above my pay-grade to fathom.

All I know is that the NHS and other healthcare systems used as political 'footballs' is probably not the best way to run these services... the constant re-organisations and changes that different governments - or even the same government under a different leader - enforce doesn't seem to work well.

Perhaps the internal market - Ken Clarke's idea to increase efficiency... the purchaser / provider split, was a good idea on paper? I dunno - it created layers and layers more admin, and, according to the BMJ...

The internal market has turned our public hospitals into businesses in which, when there is a conflict between financial health and patients' health, financial health trumps. The Mid Staffs scandal was only the tip of the iceberg. All NHS hospitals are affected, as can be seen with increasing clarity in today's austerity climate, in which quality of care is sacrificed across the board on the altar of 'efficiency savings' – all too often a euphemism for budget cuts.

The internal market has resulted in high regulatory and transaction costs, health service fragmentation and bureaucracy, and opening the door to privatisation. Yet it has not demonstrably improved NHS performance and has thus not worked in its own terms.

Of course, some will suggest "well, they would say that wouldn't they". But, are they right?

What do you think?

Well, it would have to be a group committed to carrying out the general direction of a particular plan post the Darzai report. Otherwise just locked in fundamental disagreements and getting nowhere. But good ideas on specifics don't just come from one party? I cant see it usefully including Reform.

I don't see how it would be possible to get any cross party agreement on running the NHS as at least one party is ideologically opposed to it and has been ever since its inception.

The government commissioned the Darzai review for pinpointing problems and moving forward which was released 11th September .

Summary

news.sky.com/story/darzai-review-key-points-from-damning-new-report-into-state-of-nhs-13213159#:~:text=The%20rapid%20review%20by%20Lord,the%20NHS%20can%20be%20fixed.

Rightly or wrongly, a ten year reform programme is to be set out as opposed to a 5 year one. Not at all sure a 5 year one is possible with the task in hand, especially working without short or medium term access to substantially increased budgets

I'd welcome cross party discussions too, we need a national plan

Oreo

I agree on a cross-party management on the NHS Dickens we might start getting somewhere with that approach.

It doesn’t need cross party agreement pthe Labour government can change what it wants, as for the longterm that is a very long time, nobody is going to get tied down to commitments 10yrs the future.
The can’t keep promises for 6 months.

I agree on a cross-party management on the NHS Dickens we might start getting somewhere with that approach.

Dickens how do we achieve this? In full agreement with you?

ronib

Dickens but the Conservatives also kicked social care into the long grass. At what point does the 10 year plan start? Is it in year 8? Starmer needs to realise that he has a 5 year window. Any credible leader would plan for that. What happens to the bed blocking in the NHS then over the next 10 years? There needs to be a sense of urgency which just isn’t happening under any government. Crazy times.

Dickens but the Conservatives also kicked social care into the long grass

I am only too well aware of that fact - having criticised them on here more than once for that very reason.

I agree about the 5-year window - because I think the public will expect to see at least, some improvement by then. People are fed-up to the back teeth with not only the state of the whole healthcare system - frequently unable to make an appointment with a GP; waiting months, even years, for surgery; too few hospital beds available; ambulances queuing for hours outside A&E departments; the quantity, and sometimes quality, of Community Care; the young unable to access mental-health care from under-resourced and overstretched mental-health services; health-care workers themselves who are de-motivated, depressed, stressed... the list, the whole litany of the system and its problems is endless.

Personally, I don't hold on to much hope. How can any 'system' function properly when we have governments who are polar opposites working to completely different ideologies every xx-number of years?

IMO, the NHS and other healthcare and welfare systems, should be taken out of the political arena and controlled / directed by an all-party governance, one which is able to focus entirely on long-term planning that isn't interrupted or altered by incoming new governments every 5 years.

I also believe - although I realise the problems are not all about funding - that as long as the wealth of the nation is held in the hands of the few at the expense of the many - there are limited options to deal with the current state of the health service.

The problem is the status-quo. Until or unless we change that, there will be very little that any well-meaning government can do. But that of course is simply my view.

Under Ed Millibands registered interests reported:

“Name of donor: Green Finance Institute Ltd
Address of donor: International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London, EC1A 2BN

Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind:

Providing policy support on the Labour Party's National Wealth Fund, with a taskforce reporting jointly to me and another MP, value £99,000

Donor status: company, registration 11963728
(Registered 24 April 2024) “

www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/09/rachel-reeves-national-wealth-fund-labour

Wyllow3 prove it?