To wonder what the NHS will be like in 10 years?

Every new election there is it's like a new discovery for NHS a discovery of the same old conditions that needed treating in the same old ways .Then there's discoveries of the same old diseases that we thought we had sorted years ago . Polio , Whooping Cough ,Measles and here we ago again .Why do have to keep repeating it all over again .Yes I know the public are at fault for a lot of it . We can't keep passing off the blame of what we cause . We at least need to take some of the blame .

Exactly this it's ridiculous.

I moved from one trust to another and before I left I requested for all of my hospital notes from when I had cancer. I have a big wad of paperwork securely filed at home as I am terrified of it coming back and nobody having any information on it. I can now throw the paper notes at whoever but really it should be all there on a giant accessible database. All because the NHS is decades behind technology to not be able to share information between hospital trusts.

I absolutely applaud your post. I am sick of this phenomenon. Trained nurses are doing everything from ADHD Assessments to online weight management groups, often getting paid at higher bands than actual frontline staff. It is an total disgrace.

Editing to add: these roles are important BUT they don't require a trained nurse. A trained chimpanzee could do many of them ffs!

Is see the private school VAT moaning Tory cunts are out in force again on here wanting the healthcare equivalent of the school system.

Not even the blessed Margaret fucking Thatcher dared touch the underlying concept of the NHS.

It'll still be here in 10 years from now but it'll be the usual mixed bag some bits good, others bits absolutely terrible.

The British public like universal healthcare and generally will not vote for any political party that wants to get rid of it with a user pay or insurance model.

I work in the NHS (I'm a physio). I actually do clinical work, unlike SO many colleagues who are trained physios/OTs/SLTs but wfh doing constant teams calls talking about God knows what. Seriously we have a band 7 physio who wfh and has a role to recruit more teams to take students.....what a criminal waste of money. This goes on through the whole of the NHS. We could literally wipe out this whole layer of people and roles and not notice a single difference.

It's political Will just be run down as politicians afraid to lose votes

My DM lives on the old (lower) rate pension and pension credit plus about £400 pa from the NHS pension scheme. Unless these stupid catchpoints in our tax codes are eliminated, it's not long before she will be a tax payer again. For the record, her income is only from the state pension, pension credit + a tiny NHS pension. Plus the winter fuel/heating allowance, council tax at single occupancy and anything else allowable to a person of 89.

DH opened a letter from HMRC today informing him that his state pension (as the higher earner) takes him over the £12570 limit, so his tax code starts negative. Am I alone in thinking that the basic state pension should be the same as the start point for taxation simply because it's the government paying out and then reclaiming the money?

It would be clawed back regardless because we also have pension savings but sending it the long way around the block is just daft.

A single pensioner in the Netherlands got €1334.94 per month in 2022; pensioner couples got €1828. France is lower at c €1200; Spain it's €2500 and Belgium and Luxembourg the level is around €3000.

The UK state pension is considerably lower at £880, and yet is still nearing the income tax threshold of £12,570, BECAUSE NI contributions were paid during the years of employment to cover health and retirement costs.

It's clear why it was set up this way in 1947, but then, on average, most people only lived three/five years after retiring and medicine couldn't treat many of the conditions that it can now, and everyone takes today's treatments for granted.

Absolutely agree

it will have always had to go this way now politicians need to stop thinking about losing voters and work on providing a healthcare system than we should have

Sorry to post on multiple threads but imo the current failures are deliberate and ideological.

Youcannotbeseriousreally, yes it's called privatisation.

Good. Needs a massive overhaul.

Sadly,I don't think the NHS will exist in 10 years time.

@theresnolimits Thats what I would like to see here. Hopefully Wes Steeting gets the message. We cannot keep putting money in with poor results. We need far more accountability and better productivity and value for money.

@tiggergoesbounce

I think it was the envy of the rest of the world in the fact that you were not turned away for treatment because you are poor.

It may have been that for developing/third world countries, but it certainly wasn't like that for most of Europe, Canada, Australia, etc., who have a health system for all, but not a "free at point of use" system like the UK. I think most people in Europe, Canada and Australia are pretty happy with their systems which are usually as good, if not better, than the UK, and include "safeguards" for the poor etc.

In the Netherlands about 15 (?) years ago they looked at the free universal healthcare system and realised it was unaffordable. So they changed to an insurance based system which costs on average £250 pp per month.

There’s a co-pay system but it has an annual limit. So the more you use the system, the more you pay but only up to a limit so it won’t bankrupt you like in the US.

Low earners and those on benefits pay much less. But crucially pensioners have to pay and it’s about £350 pm for a pensioner couple. And before anyone chips in, their state pension is roughly the same as ours. It’s viewed as a cost like food/heat/water.

It has been accepted across society as the reality of good health care. So there you have it. It costs much much more, there’s a safety net but people have to pay. This is the Scandi/German model.

Personally I’d pay but many people wouldn’t. Are there any politicians who would be prepared to raise our taxes by so much when people are already groaning about the high tax burden?

This is the reality.

How much more tax are you willing to pay for that Utopia?

Or do you want "someone else" to pay for it!

That's already the situation. Doctors work within guidelines as to who to treat and what treatment to provide, backed up by committees, statistics, etc.

When my OH was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, we had to wait for a committee to decide whether his treatment would be funded by the NHS! Thankfully, they said yes! But he's now on a long term course of chemotherapy drugs and the oncologist has said they can't change the drugs package, even though he could do with lower dose of some due to the side effects - apparently any "change request" would have to go back to committee and now as he's a few years older, there's every chance they wouldn't agree to continuation, so it's a "let sleeping dogs lie" matter - and he's stuck on the current drugs package for as long as possible, to avoid the risk of them deciding not to continue the authorisation!

Many years before, he went to the GP to ask for drugs for ED. GP explained that he had to meet specific criteria for them to be prescribed due to cost. At that time, he didn't meet the criteria, so they were refused. A few years later, he developed another health condition, and that meant he did meet the criteria, so he got prescriptions for drugs both for the "new" condition and also for the ED!

Hopefully, 24hr 7 day a week access to gp and dentists, social,care funded nursing homes, more contributions from the public, open more mental health, elderly, rehab units. Main Hospitals only for operations, acute illness, emergencies and trauma. Gp surgery, walk in, community hospitals open 24/7 for all non emergency procedures and day surgery,

Sadly, it will be gone as we know it and it will be an accountant at a private medical insurance company deciding whether we can get treatment rather than an actual doctor.

As someone with a chronic life limiting disease, I'm terrified.

I think it was the envy of the rest of the world in the fact that you were not turned away for treatment because you are poor. It doesn't cost £1000's to have a baby, it is obviously very very far away from being a service which is effective to all. But im glad we have it.

It does need a massive reshuffle and more funding.

I think as it deteriorates more, people who need urgent treatment and can afford it, will go private and the ones left will be those the poorer who dont have a choice but to wait and accept the only service that can be provided.

I hope it is still here in 10years, I hope it becomes a priority for the next government and they give it the shake it needs.

This with bells on!

That depends entirely on who wins the next election.

We will get what we tolerate. Now more than ever we need politicians to be honest with the population and tell the hard of thinking the difficult truths: either we need to start euthanising sick, elderly people who have no family to care for them OR we need to accept that we ALL have to pay to have a decent, functional health and social care service that benefits the whole population, not just the rich.

To be clear - I WANT THE LATTER!!!