So let's talk about the NHS....it is ****ed..thats the truth
Discussion
bloomen said:
A nominal ish fee for much of the typical usages would clear a vast amount of the time wasting going on. The French system of private insurance topping up state care seems to work well.
Ultimately though I think it's now too far gone. Medicine is so much more advanced since the NHS was founded that the exotic options can't be paid for in every case.
People have so little respect for public money, even though ultimately it's their own money and their own necks on the line, that it's going to go up in smoke.
You have suppliers charging thousands for a pile of toilet paper and no one caring enough to question it because it's not their problem.
The NHS is like an elephant slowly being nipped to death by an army of hyenas.
It would be fascinating to see how much lower tax was if people treated public money like their own.
Agreed. There should be a nominal charge for an initial consultation with your GP, and a bigger charge for A&E. It would make a massive difference to waste.Ultimately though I think it's now too far gone. Medicine is so much more advanced since the NHS was founded that the exotic options can't be paid for in every case.
People have so little respect for public money, even though ultimately it's their own money and their own necks on the line, that it's going to go up in smoke.
You have suppliers charging thousands for a pile of toilet paper and no one caring enough to question it because it's not their problem.
The NHS is like an elephant slowly being nipped to death by an army of hyenas.
It would be fascinating to see how much lower tax was if people treated public money like their own.
The Government should also be encouraging private health insurance provided by employers. Stop taxing it as a benefit, and start giving tax breaks for companies that give it to the majority of staff.
My last company not only provided medical insurance, but they had a consultancy room on site, and bought a private doc in once a week. Seemed like a brilliant idea to me.
bloomen said:
Sheepshanks said:
Most people wouldn't be asked to pay though. Only 10% of prescriptions are paid for.
GP visits, outpatient stuff. And I never seem to pay enough attention so wind up paying £8 whatever for 10p's worth of Ibuprofen. A friend of mine broke his ankle. I didn't have a car to hand that day so had to call an ambulance to come and get him.
When I carried him out to the ambulance the paramedics were absolutely ecstatic to be dealing with a real injury. I got the impression most of the time they were called out to rewire kettles or deal with the sniffles.
This is the country though.
If I'd been on A&E that evening, I'd have told him to take paracetamol , go see his GP if not sorted in two days, and to stop wasting A&E time.
But so long as A&E allow the piss-takers to take the piss, the piss-takers will take the piss.
Roofless Toothless said:
The BBC and the press seem to be fixated on problems in A&E. There's lots of emotive footage to be found there. And for lots of people, especially the younger ones, that's the only contact they have with the NHS.
However, the NHS is much more than that. I don't recommend it, but if you have cause to rely on the NHS for major and life saving treatment after contracting serious illness, you realise that it is very far from broken. Both myself and my wife have had this experience at different stages of our lives, and our treatment was world class, prompt and professionally delivered.
I couldn't agree more with respect to your comments about major or life saving treatment. They really excel at this. My son had an accident last Sunday and was seriously injured. The treatment he got from A+E, ICU, Paramedics, HART teams could not be faulted.However, the NHS is much more than that. I don't recommend it, but if you have cause to rely on the NHS for major and life saving treatment after contracting serious illness, you realise that it is very far from broken. Both myself and my wife have had this experience at different stages of our lives, and our treatment was world class, prompt and professionally delivered.
There is another side however. There were thirty patients on trolleys on corridors in A+E when we arrived with walk in patients being told to expect a 5 hour wait. This surely is unacceptable. I am not sure that throwing more money at it will provide a solution.
There are only two issues with the NHS that need to be addressed.
Firstly, it needs to become a National Health Service. It's currently an International Health Service.
Secondly, it's currently demand let, and it needs to become supply led. Instead of the NHS meeting the demands of the public, the public need to work within what the NHS will supply. The NHS needs to set out what it will do, and do it well. Anything else doesn't get done, unless you can afford to go private.
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Firstly, it needs to become a National Health Service. It's currently an International Health Service.
Secondly, it's currently demand let, and it needs to become supply led. Instead of the NHS meeting the demands of the public, the public need to work within what the NHS will supply. The NHS needs to set out what it will do, and do it well. Anything else doesn't get done, unless you can afford to go private.
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I have had better service from the NHS that private medical insurance, I had an appointment at the Alexandra in Cheadle in December and was told I would be contacted with a date in the first week of January, second week of Feb and hadnt heard anything, rang to enquire and got a call back off the consultant asking me to ring his secretary when she is back in work after her holiday, they took £340 from my account as they didnt contact my insurance company so trying to get that back and every time you go it is all centered around getting paid first and foremost, terrified you get so much as a cup of water without a charge.
Same last time I used it, same consultants in private hospitals that are actually no better than NHS ones really.
We need to cherish, protect and nurture the NHS, not slag it off, it isnt there for the rest of the world, it isnt free, it is for the use of UK citizens, the majority of which pay in, or have paid in to use it. If people stopped doing some of the negative and stupid s
t they do and stopped demanding a cure for a cold via antibiotics then we may be better off.
Same last time I used it, same consultants in private hospitals that are actually no better than NHS ones really.
We need to cherish, protect and nurture the NHS, not slag it off, it isnt there for the rest of the world, it isnt free, it is for the use of UK citizens, the majority of which pay in, or have paid in to use it. If people stopped doing some of the negative and stupid s
t they do and stopped demanding a cure for a cold via antibiotics then we may be better off.Problem is everyone wants A1 service for free on the assumption somebody else pays for it. Right now, the IT contractors on the IR35 thread are working out how they can avoid paying tax when the reality is public services need more funding. People need to get over the sense of entitlement and deal with the reality.
wormus said:
Problem is everyone wants A1 service for free on the assumption somebody else pays for it. Right now, the IT contractors on the IR35 thread are working out how they can avoid paying tax when the reality is public services need more funding. People need to get over the sense of entitlement and deal with the reality.
I'm a private contractor. IR35 is a compete joke and its failed in the public sector.... Look at the risk it has generated. And to put into the private sector? Companies are really going to absorb the admin overhead of this idiotic farce of a tax rule?
I don't get sick pay, holidays paid for, I spend time on the bench, get dividend tax to high hell.
Don't even get time started and thats another thread. Go after the rich companies and get those guys to pay up on the taxes they owe.
Not to mention the lazy work and skill shy permies I see day in day out.
Edited by HannsG on Friday 9th February 22:39
Piersman2 said:
RichB said:
And some are suggesting the NHS should provide hipster smokers with their vape pipe stuff free of charge. Tell me why I should pay for someone to smoke - oops sorry "vape". 
Way to go to pick one of the things actually likely to help save the NHS money if it can get smokers off smoking and onto the much healthier option of vaping..
HannsG said:
I'm a private contractor. IR35 is a compete joke and its failed din the public sector.... Look at the risk it has generated. And to pit into the private sector?
I don't get sick pay, holidays paid for, I spend time on the bench, get dividend tax to high hell.
Don't even get time started and thats another thread. Go after the rich companies and get those guys to pay up.
And why should you avoid paying tax because of a lifestyle choice? As I said above, to some it’s always somebody else’s problem.I don't get sick pay, holidays paid for, I spend time on the bench, get dividend tax to high hell.
Don't even get time started and thats another thread. Go after the rich companies and get those guys to pay up.
I see a lot of this is down to GP's. In the old days GP's worked weekends and evenings and were on call overnight.
Then a Blair government I think renegotiated the GP's contract - GP's pay went up, but suddenly they could use a company for out of hours support - not that you'll see a doctor without being very nearly dead.
Now A&E appears to be swamped with people who should be at the GP - but they have to wait for a week to get an appointment.
Now I'm a bad example - I hate going to any sort of medical facility. It's close to a phobia. I have to be feeling pretty awful to consider it. I think the last time was a cough that developed everytime I went to sleep. After 3 days of no real sleep I had to give in... But we have friends who are literally in the surgery every week for something. Nice people, but totally bizarre. And they don't get that they are part of the problem.
Having said all of that...
About 9 years ago daughter was struggling to get her breath. NHS direct said it was an emergency and called 999. We lived in the middle of nowhere and it was about midnight. Within 7 minutes a first responder turned up, and 15 minutes later an ambulance (and Christ knows how they did it in that time). They got it all sorted - into A&E, and back out within 90 minutes - and only that long as the doctor was waiting for a specific cough from my daughter.
And equally, my wife had a routine test last year, and was called back for more investigation the day after the letter. I though it was pretty routine - then realised actually there were some frighting statistics. Luckily all resolved that day, and the all clear - but there was some real competency involved.
I do think A&E must be the hardest department to run.
Then a Blair government I think renegotiated the GP's contract - GP's pay went up, but suddenly they could use a company for out of hours support - not that you'll see a doctor without being very nearly dead.
Now A&E appears to be swamped with people who should be at the GP - but they have to wait for a week to get an appointment.
Now I'm a bad example - I hate going to any sort of medical facility. It's close to a phobia. I have to be feeling pretty awful to consider it. I think the last time was a cough that developed everytime I went to sleep. After 3 days of no real sleep I had to give in... But we have friends who are literally in the surgery every week for something. Nice people, but totally bizarre. And they don't get that they are part of the problem.
Having said all of that...
About 9 years ago daughter was struggling to get her breath. NHS direct said it was an emergency and called 999. We lived in the middle of nowhere and it was about midnight. Within 7 minutes a first responder turned up, and 15 minutes later an ambulance (and Christ knows how they did it in that time). They got it all sorted - into A&E, and back out within 90 minutes - and only that long as the doctor was waiting for a specific cough from my daughter.
And equally, my wife had a routine test last year, and was called back for more investigation the day after the letter. I though it was pretty routine - then realised actually there were some frighting statistics. Luckily all resolved that day, and the all clear - but there was some real competency involved.
I do think A&E must be the hardest department to run.
The trouble isn't the NHS, it's the users.
I've recently moved jobs into working indirectly for the NHS, and the assumptions from the great unwashed that I have to speak to is frankly ridiculous. I mean, 80% of them are deserving of the service we supply them assuming they're not lying their arses off to me, but then the other 20% are absolutely indignant if you even dare suggest that they might actually be able to sort themselves out. It's utterly ridiculous, and has certainly opened my eyes as to the actual problems the NHS faces on a daily basis.
I agree, it's f*cked beyond use and needs someone to step in and stop offering everyone everything all the time.
I've recently moved jobs into working indirectly for the NHS, and the assumptions from the great unwashed that I have to speak to is frankly ridiculous. I mean, 80% of them are deserving of the service we supply them assuming they're not lying their arses off to me, but then the other 20% are absolutely indignant if you even dare suggest that they might actually be able to sort themselves out. It's utterly ridiculous, and has certainly opened my eyes as to the actual problems the NHS faces on a daily basis.
I agree, it's f*cked beyond use and needs someone to step in and stop offering everyone everything all the time.
The NHS is a communist relic run by communist militant staff on go-slow policies with communist levels of productivity and endlessly whipping itself into a needy frenzy of manufactured crisis.
The whole country needs to calm the f*ck down.
The NHS needs a Thatcher-type leader who will send in the police and army and weed out the militant communist shirkers and replace them with proper workers on good wages who deliver high productivity.
Get rid of the lazy, gloomy, depressive, militant executives, docs and nurses.
Give them an ultimatum -- you are either with the NHS, or against the NHS.
The whole country needs to calm the f*ck down.
The NHS needs a Thatcher-type leader who will send in the police and army and weed out the militant communist shirkers and replace them with proper workers on good wages who deliver high productivity.
Get rid of the lazy, gloomy, depressive, militant executives, docs and nurses.
Give them an ultimatum -- you are either with the NHS, or against the NHS.
Yipper said:
The NHS is a communist relic run by communist militant staff on go-slow policies with communist levels of productivity and endlessly whipping itself into a needy frenzy of manufactured crisis.
The whole country needs to calm the f*ck down.
The NHS needs a Thatcher-type leader who will send in the police and army and weed out the militant communist shirkers and replace them with proper workers on good wages who deliver high productivity.
Get rid of the lazy, gloomy, depressive, militant executives, docs and nurses.
Give them an ultimatum -- you are either with the NHS, or against the NHS.
You seem to have conflated the NHS and government into one. They're not.The whole country needs to calm the f*ck down.
The NHS needs a Thatcher-type leader who will send in the police and army and weed out the militant communist shirkers and replace them with proper workers on good wages who deliver high productivity.
Get rid of the lazy, gloomy, depressive, militant executives, docs and nurses.
Give them an ultimatum -- you are either with the NHS, or against the NHS.
And for all the NHS weaknesses and table positions, it is nearly always near the top of any efficiency measures. Pretty good for a bunch of communist shirkers.
Yipper said:
The NHS is a communist relic run by communist militant staff on go-slow policies with communist levels of productivity and endlessly whipping itself into a needy frenzy of manufactured crisis.
The whole country needs to calm the f*ck down.
The NHS needs a Thatcher-type leader who will send in the police and army and weed out the militant communist shirkers and replace them with proper workers on good wages who deliver high productivity.
Get rid of the lazy, gloomy, depressive, militant executives, docs and nurses.
Give them an ultimatum -- you are either with the NHS, or against the NHS.
Just snuck in before midnight but there it is, Yipper potwThe whole country needs to calm the f*ck down.
The NHS needs a Thatcher-type leader who will send in the police and army and weed out the militant communist shirkers and replace them with proper workers on good wages who deliver high productivity.
Get rid of the lazy, gloomy, depressive, militant executives, docs and nurses.
Give them an ultimatum -- you are either with the NHS, or against the NHS.
I'm not going to wade into how to fix the NHS, but one thing I cannot understand is this-
A relative of mine is a nurse. When she trained, she went to a local college which was a few months of study followed by a mont of on-ward work experience, repeated for a few years.
Because we wanted nurses, and because student nurses were actually being dumped on to do lots of *actual* work, as opposed to standing around watching, the £5k/year bursary (<£100/week) they received struck me as rather sensible- it makes nursing an easier career path than, say, playwriting with a defined end-goal and they're actually being paid sub-minimum wage for working on wards. Fast forward a few years and she's now a nurse, up to her elbows in grief but working away with the best of them.
But if she were to embark on the same career now, she'd invoke £9k/year student debt for three years, plus maintainence loans. On what planet does that make sense!?
A relative of mine is a nurse. When she trained, she went to a local college which was a few months of study followed by a mont of on-ward work experience, repeated for a few years.
Because we wanted nurses, and because student nurses were actually being dumped on to do lots of *actual* work, as opposed to standing around watching, the £5k/year bursary (<£100/week) they received struck me as rather sensible- it makes nursing an easier career path than, say, playwriting with a defined end-goal and they're actually being paid sub-minimum wage for working on wards. Fast forward a few years and she's now a nurse, up to her elbows in grief but working away with the best of them.
But if she were to embark on the same career now, she'd invoke £9k/year student debt for three years, plus maintainence loans. On what planet does that make sense!?
The downfall of the NHS was when they replaced the heirachy of Nurse-Sister-Matron with frigging pen pushing middle management who are the equivalent of Wasp drones .
Who then go out and spend money on bloody statues
Plus the present state of firms of all kinds who are royally financial shagging the systrem with inflated charged for bog rolls/asprins/light bulb changing etc
Sort that out and we might be on the way to geeting it back to how it should be
( i have nothing but admiration for the actual front line people having gone through two MCI and a quad bypass, and Mrs Fox having had her breast cancer sorted.. They gave her 5yrs back in 1990
Who then go out and spend money on bloody statues
Plus the present state of firms of all kinds who are royally financial shagging the systrem with inflated charged for bog rolls/asprins/light bulb changing etc
Sort that out and we might be on the way to geeting it back to how it should be
( i have nothing but admiration for the actual front line people having gone through two MCI and a quad bypass, and Mrs Fox having had her breast cancer sorted.. They gave her 5yrs back in 1990
glazbagun said:
But if she were to embark on the same career now, she'd invoke £9k/year student debt for three years, plus maintainence loans. On what planet does that make sense!?
It's beyond crazy. The student nurses I knew were on shift patterns and all sorts whilst the rest of us were doing normal student stuff. How can you even get a part time job when that is happening?Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff