Magic Bullet

I've kept resisting saying it but really the only Magic Bullet that would do any good would be the one aimed at Jeremy Hunt.

Apparently the latest brainwave is closing a whole lot of A&E departments and magically reducing demand by 30%. Presumably they are expecting a third of the people to either die or get better while they're searching for a hospital.

Fitzy54, thanks for he reference

Monica there is a view that it's pretty much impossible to collect much more than 35% of GDP however the tax system is arranged and whatever tax rates apply, and that the current tax take is close to the maximum. The article linked below explains this view.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f83a5c3e-f21b-11e6-a45f-cc1b99ad256c

Yorkshiregel your 'observations' are so succinct and absolutely on the button. Wish you could somehow get this practical list in front of those with the power to do something with it. Mind you that makes me the eternal optimist!!! Anyway, well done you. I love practicality. Your list is so simple, straightforward and, I do believe, achievable. Maybe we could both dream on.........

I recently had an appointment for an echocariogram at 7.30 in the evening. It was a bit of a hike because it wasn't the nearest hospital, but the car park was nearly empty and I was in and out in about 20 minutes. Apparently they were trying to catch up with the backlog but it would be could if they could always stagger these things a bit.

Undoubtedly we do need extra medical facilities and there is only one way to get it and that is to increase tax levels.

Most of the reduction of services we are seeing everywhere from the NHS, Social care, education, to road repairs arise because over the last 20 years governments of all complexions have had an obsession with making us a low tax country because it will attract international business and the economy will grow and increase tax revenues. So far I have seen little evidence for this.

If we want a high level of services then we need to pay higher levels of tax. Not return to the 33p in the £ of the 50s and 70s, but certainly more than we are paying now.

Britain is by no means the only country to be struggling with the financing of its health services. In the last few days I have read stories about the problems facing both France and Germany over funding its health service and references that suggest Sweden too is having problems.

Oooops, continued.
We need more hospitals or services to be available at evenings and weekends. Usage of the NHS is a problem..services cannot cope with numbers.

I fully agree with those who've mentioned budgeting too. Civil servants in various government departments are guilty of wasting billions of pounds of tax payers money. I was appalled to learn how much is claimed for jollies and inflated expenses. We need scrutiny and accountability in both central and local government and, given the NHS is in such poor shape, perhaps a rethink as to where our spending priorities should lie.

Monica, who blamed the patients??? I didn't.

I commented on obvious over crowding - standing room only - and the lack of resources/new hospitals to cater for the increased demand.

Yes, many people come to the country with skills needed for various occupations. Whilst you might like to think the NHS is held together because of immigration it was pretty obvious that many immigrants were, like me, needing and waiting ( for a very long time) for medical intervention.

My point is, that population increase, however boosted, calls for more loical GP surgeries and services and more hospitals...If services are straining at the seams because of usage we need our surgeries and hospitals to maybe remain open for longer and for services to be available at evenings and weekends. This will call for more doictors and nurses and ancillary staff, but it has to be the way forward.

My recent experience of waiting over 90 minutes to be seen by a doctor, even though I'd arrived in good time for my appointment, and then hanging around for over an hour for blood to be taken, wasn't pleasant. Many people looked very poorly, and they had the same waiting times.

We need more hospitals or services to be avzailable

I cannot understand why we apparently need so many overseas workers. In the 50 and sixties we welcome Commonwealth citizens to help run our mills, these have all gone now, most of our manufacturing and industry has gone now and yes even though we appear to have negligible manufacturing and an increase in robotic production processes, we still need more people?
For all those who arrive we need more nurses and doctors and teachers to deal with them. This is a self perpetuating need.

I can see where you are coming from SheilaClare, but sometimes people are driven to using these escape routes by poverty, loss of hope, loss of self-respect because they cannot get a job, loss of confidence because they have been out of work for so long. Some end up on the streets because of ill health, or because they cannot pay their rent, or because they have run away from something horrible in their lives. It doesn't do to condemn people for sleeping rough. After all 'There but for the grace of God go I'. You do not know what has happened to them in their lives. OK maybe some have brought themselves to that state, but after all the policies Mr Osborne forced upon people some people just had no-where to turn and ended up on the streets. I try not to judge myself.

In Mr Cameron's government what we saw was the rich rewarding the rich and the poor being left to flounder. As long as they worked from dawn to dusk and made the rich richer who cared about their health? Not Mr Cameron and certainly not Mr Osborne. If they had given more money to the NHS, which they had gleaned from their rich mates in tax, the NHS would be in a much better state than it is now. But no, they could afford private health care so why should they care?

Day6, overweight people can help themselves by watching what they eat. Smaller portions, cutting out sugar, watching those carbs and taking exercise, even as I do with my peddle exerciser helps, in other words eating and exercising sensibly.

Well said MOnica!

I agree with you Day6. It stands to reason that when immigrants come to this country they will be ill the same as everyone else. The Government is turning a blind eye to how these numbers affect our schools and hospitals/doctors dentists. You cannot make the same money for X to stretch to treat XX can you?

Whenever Mr Corbyn tackles Mrs May on ths issue she always goes back to when the Labour Government was in power and how they ran this country down. Yes, they did, but how many years now have this Tory Government been in power (counting the coalition in that)? Isn't it about time they started taking some responsibility too, after all it is their policies that the NHS is governed by.

But surely Day 6 what you are saying about the people in outpatients is irrelevant. People have moved to the UK from other countries because we do not have enough people in this country to do all the work available. When here nearly all of them work, many in professional high paid jobs, like those you no doubt saw working as doctors and nurses when you were in outpatients.

All these extra workers are earning money and doing jobs that contribute to the growth of the economy and paying tax and national insurance, which helps to swell the tax revenue the government has at its disposal to spend on health care. That the government chooses not to spend any of this extra income on health care is entirely the government's responsibility.

Similarly these new workers have not arrived all of a sudden in the last year they have been coming in, mostly legally, over several decades. The government have been doing planning on the provision of health services based on current and future population estimates. They have chosen to continue to close hospitals and not build new ones, knowing what the population count is. Do not blame the patients, regardless of nationality, for the Government#s failure in planning

I firmly believe that this Government is deliberately running down the NHS so that they can introduce an American Health System. Some old people living in UK are being let down. They have paid in to the NHS all their lives via National Insurance contributions and now that they need help they are being denied the care they have paid for.

Totally WRONG imo.

Observations:

The NHS needs to manage its money more effectively. There is too much waste ie pills having to be thrown away once they have been dispensed to someone. Imo they should be re-cycled as sometimes packets have not even been opened.

Health tourism should be banned. If tourists need medical help it should be provided upon receipt of health insurance. This is what we have to do when we go abroad after all. This is costing the NHS £Millions!

Consultants should not be allowed to work both in the NHS and in Private hospitals.

Nurses should not be allowed to take leave from the NHS so that they can work as an agency nurse. Also nurses should be trained on the job and not in Universities.

The ambulance system is crazy. Ambulances are sent out of their own county to another county because of finding a specialist hospital to treat the patient in. This means they leave the county short of ambulances. They sometimes are away for hours on end and petrol is not cheap.

Jnr doctors are made to work too many hours. How can anyone make life and death decisions when they are half asleep?

There is too much wastage in hospital catering. Food is left out of reach of some patients and it is then thrown away. Too many hospitals are providing food that is expensive to produce. Basic menus should be introduced. It is not necessary to have so much choice as long as the food is nourishing. What is left at the end of the day is thrown away.

Too many people do not turn up for appointments. This costs the NHS money which could be spent elsewhere.

Too many old people are left in hospital when they do not need to be. This causes bed blockage (no fault of their own) so more should be done to provide care in the community.

The Government should stop giving with one hand and secretly taking away with the other.

Just a few examples of where money could be saved imo.

I have to add, and I dare say I'll be criticized for mentioning a truth, but I'll go ahead anyway.

Anyone had to visit their local hospital outpatient's department recently? I have to go for check-ups quite frequently and there is no denying that the hall in which patients sit as they wait to be called is absolutely packed to the rafters of late.

It was never like this a few years ago. That's an honest observation. We are trying to fit a quart into a pint pot. Are new hospitals being built? No.

I'll also be slammed for observing a huge cultural shift as well. It has to be said that the hall was full of people of Asian and Eastern European backgrounds. I watched advocates helping them and translators at work.

If this is the face of modern Britain so be it, but those who say the service isn't suffering from a greater number of people using it need to check out their local outpatients departments.

Sick people, wherever they come from need care. It would seem blindingly obvious to me that the NHS is struggling to cater for the numbers using it, and anyone who waves aside that notion has to be blinkered.

I do agree that everyone has a responsibility to care for themselves and to try and have a healthy lifestyle, but am I the only one who is beginning to dislike the way the overweight are being vilified?

Yes, bad diets and lack of exercise isn't good but please remember many overweight people are stuck in a cycle of illness, medication and enforced sedentary lifestyle.

As a woman who was active all her life I was felled in my early fifties by ill health. Resulting operations and an incredible amount of prescription meds, including painkillers saw me gain weight very quickly. A fat person in pain can't do an awful lot to help themselves, except make good dietary choices.

One thing that rankled too was the way this professional business woman was treated by doctors and the general public when she became fat and slow. I was tempted to hang a placard around my neck stating " five years ago I was playing tennis and abseiling."

Trying to justify becoming overweight and out of shape still seems like an excuse. It is interesting to note how some GNetters view the overweight.

I am lucky in that I have become slightly more mobile, due to my own efforts. I still have to take fifteen tablets every single day, and the side effects of many are lethargy and weight gain. Getting my fitness back is a real struggle, but I value my mobility and want my life to be active. There are no NHS rehab programs for the likes of me alas.

I see the stares and hate what I see in the mirror. Gaining weight can lead to misery and self- loathing, both feelings which can trap the overweight in a miserable cycle of despair.

Not all weighty people are lazy, gluttonous couch potatoes.

And what would happen to those who were deemed to have 'brought it on themselves'? Would they be turned away from A&E and dumped on the street - some possibly dying?

That cannot be the way forward.

Good post supersonic . I agree with you re; the new high speed rail link, that typically will only benefit the South of the Country anyway. Why not spend that money on "saving" the NHS, then the UK will benefit as a whole.

I also agree with most of your post SheilaClare Especially We live in a nation where the rich pay little or no tax, where average earnings are not only pityfull but result in little tax revenue for the state. Rather than increase the tax revenue by actually taxing the better-off and closing all the (largely government-designed) tax loopholes

I don't however agree with your last paragraph As for the NHS, they could save millions by refusing to treat the A&E patients whose conditions are entirely voluntary: the drunks and the drug addicts

IMHO people who drink too much and/or take drugs are often victims themselves. Victims of poverty, abuse, or just life itself. I try not to judge how people got themselves into these sad circumstances and again IMHO, I feel we should concentrate on understanding how we can prevent such things from happening not refusing treatment.

Good post Joel

SheilaClare
As for the NHS, they could save millions by refusing to treat the A&E patients whose conditions are entirely voluntary: the drunks and drug addicts

I wonder what allows some people to become drunks and drug addicts and others not. The same as those who chug their way through mounds of unhealthy food without getting fat whilst others become obese. These conditions are far too complex to generalise.
Additionally, in most cases pregnancy is a life choice, should we charge for obstetric care?
The point of the NHS at the outset was that it was available for all who needed it, free at the point of service and paid for through taxation.
I think society should take some responsibility for the overuse of the service by creating an entitlement mindset and this may take some effort to reverse this if it can be, but I dont think targeting specific groups is the answer when there their condition cannot truly be attributable to choice. I would imagine nearly 100% would not wish to be as they are. Those blessed with strong wills and good metabolism may find this difficult to comprehend.

The 'huge increase in the elderly' has obviously been entirely foreseeable for decades and should have been better planned for. The Conservative government, deep down, cares not a jot for the welfare state which they have always opposed. Their joint paymasters, the banks, were allowed to bankrupt the country at no great loss to themselves. We live in a nation where the rich pay little or no tax, where average earnings are not only pityfull but result in little tax revenue for the state. Rather than increase the tax revenue by actually taxing the better-off and closing all the (largely government-designed) tax loopholes, as well as forcing banks to repay the money they were lent, the Tories prefer to wind down all aspects of the welfare state regardless of the pain it causes. As for the NHS, they could save millions by refusing to treat the A&E patients whose conditions are entirely voluntary: the drunks and the drug addicts.

We have been paying to have our green waste collected for years, it is £60 !
We compost as much as possible but only have a small garden so the rest has to be collected, don't begrudge it as otherwise what would we do with it?