AIBU to be furious that in 24hrs the NHS as we know it will be gone? (England)

[Leaningtoweroflisa]

Yes I know orangerevel has beaten me to it and this is her thread to push for our responses on the extraordinarily poorly handled consultation on the NHS mandate, which closes tomorrow and which is a transparent move towards privitisation.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2512051-To-ask-how-you-feel-about-the-NHS

But this is sooo urgent that I fel justified in making a TAAT to continue to raise awareness. The consultation document links are in the link above. I will put them in at the end of this post for those who CBA to click through.

The consultation document is very very poorly written. Completely in political spin management type speak that is meaningless when you parse through it to work out what is actually being said. As a senior clinician in the NHS it made me so furious that I felt sick, because I have the joy of dealing with this sort of bullshit day in and day out.

It promises nothing and threatens to further reduce what services are provided by the NHS. There is no mention of restoring the secretary of states for health's legal duty to provide services (removed in the 2012 Act). There is no mention of maintaining safe staffing levels (and there are hints of further plans that will further impact on frontline staff's time to do their job of caring for patients). There is bare faced hypocrisy as public health funding has been slashed.

Please take 30 mins out of your day to respond, even just to put n the forms that this is not acceptable - NHS England need to extend the consultation period and adequately publicise the process; that they need to write the document in meaningful English and aims and objectives that are real and measurable and anything that indicates your feelings about keeping the NHS from being sold off and degraded into a USA model based insurance system? Because that's the model that's coming - not any of the European insurance based models that can and do deliver a part-private service with good health outcomes in an affordable way...

consultation page

our NHS sample response

French system

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_France

Uk spends around 8.5% (I think GDP) on healthcare, France close to 11%, Germany 11%. So we get very good health outcomes in UK despite a) underfunding, b) 'efficiency savings' ie deliberate cuts to funding that have nothing to do with efficiency, c) money being poured down the drain that is the internal market in the NHS (hey politicians, this does not work) as well as the recent impact of the 2012 NHS Act where we all get to 'tender' for services ie bid against private providers, hint not BUPA or similar but Circle (who are one of the few proper private attempts at private sector providing full range of NHS services who totally fucked up and backed out of their contract). Etc etc etc.

Without outing myself, over past 8 months, I have been involved in tendering for an NHS service that I am a core part of and that NHS England had told us had >20yr contract. This is on top of a busy and very stressful senior NHS clinical job. It has been extremely, horribly stressful. A the start of this year, I had about 7 grey hairs tops. I am now noticeable greying and have put on the stone I had lost and heading for another stone on. Guess what, no one was bidding against us but we still have to go through it all with no guarantee we will get the contract as at any point, they might decide to shelve the bid and tender it again in a year or whenever they feel like it. Also, our service is by no means crap - excellent write ups from independent sources in past year.

This is just a pointless waste of time, it eats senior staffs' time and hearts. Non-managerial staff are so stressed by it too. And it's happening throughout the NHS in England because the coalition gov decided to throw the doors open to private providers and make it law.

Unfortunately Dh could not book me pottery lessons for Xmas (booked up) or I would possibly discover I am a pottery genius, topple Grayson Perry from his pottery throne and say farewell to a job that I love but which will either put me in the cardiac ward in my 40s or just break me.

Just in case anybody is still daft enough to think that a privatised system is

• cheaper
• delivers better outcomes

www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/11/daily-chart-16

Done. The questions alone wound me up!

Remember a large proportion of community health services is already provided by private companies and has been since 2011. Many of them are community interest companies (social enterprises) that have been established by ex nhs staff. These organisations are set up with core values to deliver exemplary patient care and to invest in their communities. They do not and cannot make a profit. Any surplus goes into the community.

orangenodle
Which would be fine but when you have three companies operating out of the same building and none of them will talk to each other
it is a guarantee of wasted appointments and delays and duplication
am going through it at the moment

Yes that's pants. But that happens in nhs too. Organisations can work together, I am witnessing it happening locally with great success.

one of the three is the NHS
another is Care UK
another is Alliance
and I'm sorry but the multiple sets of paperwork are NOT adding to efficiency

oranenoodle can you give some examples of these in real,life please? Whereabouts are they in England? I am all too aware of these being proposed but not actually seen any... Happy to be corrected but where I am, we don't seem to have em - if the cut past the bone NHS can't help, that's it. Even big charity service providers are closing to new patients.

"The NHS is a bottomless pit. The entire budget can be thrown at it and it wouldn't be enough. It needs overhauling and we need to accept it needs part privatising"

This is jut crap. The leap from "not enough money" to "needs to be privatised" is utterly specious

Just look at it for 30 seconds. The difference between private and not for profit medicine is that... someone is making a profit. Of course it is going to cost us more!

However you do health care, someone has to pay. You have to pay for buildings and salaries and equipment and maintenance and drugs and pens and heating and cleaning and so on and so on. Let's just pay for that - which is bloody well worth it - and NOT pay for all the additional costs of making the CEOs of insurance companies rich as well. And all the other bandwagon-jumping fat cats.

Anyone who thinks privatised medicine would cost less than a decently run NHS is bonkers. Absolutely nuts.

For one thing - just one very trivial thing: in general as far as I know, NHS staff, if they have a Christmas party, pay for it themselves. I do not know a single private company that does not put on a christmas party of some sort for its staff. Thats 4 figures right there that the private sector "waste" (personally I don't think it's overkill to buy your staff a babycham at xmas, my point is that the NHS don't even do that - so once you get the private sector involved you are absolutely SHITTING money compared to the NHS)

Of course leaning.

There's Sirona, Locala Care Partnerships, City Healthcare Partnership CIC, Your Healthcare, Plymouth Community Healthcare.

You'll find many more if you google health and social care + community interest company.

Often you won't know as a patient or service user that it's a cic not nhs trust that is delivering the NHS service you are receiving. Unless you happen to google the provider's name.

I did actually respond to one question, saying a) there's a typo and b) this is gobbledygook - what is the actual question?

Suggested that a way of improving the process would be to consult properly, using people-friendly questions and plain English.

Also that an idea might be to use the in/out referendum as an opportunity to tack on appropriately plain English question about how the folk who actually use the NHS or work within it would like the future of the NHS to look.

Orangenoodle
A list of names means nothing at all
CIC is just a label.

you were asked to name some that actually work well in a joined up manner

talk why the aggressive tone?

I was answering leaning's question.

In answer to yours - Hull CIC, Your Healthcare and Plymouth Community Healthcare are receiving a lot of attention at the moment for being 'system leaders' to use a health economy term. Working efficiently with partners and creating new solutions to health and social care challenges to deliver care in more efficient and effective ways.

I could talk about this all day but it's all there for reading online if you are interested.

Thanks for flagging this up, I had no idea it was going on and I've sent a response. Not sure it was a very informed response as I don't really understand it but I thought better just to stand up and be counted as an 'I object' than not do anything.

Thanks for flagging this up, I had no idea it was going on and I've sent a response. Not sure it was a very informed response as I don't really understand it but I thought better just to stand up and be counted as an 'I object' than not do anything.

I had no idea either. Thanks very much for posting this. I've added my comments.

What comments are people putting as this is really worrying me.

This is jut crap. The leap from "not enough money" to "needs to be privatised" is utterly specious

Just look at it for 30 seconds. The difference between private and not for profit medicine is that... someone is making a profit. Of course it is going to cost us more!

However you do health care, someone has to pay. You have to pay for buildings and salaries and equipment and maintenance and drugs and pens and heating and cleaning and so on and so on. Let's just pay for that - which is bloody well worth it - and NOT pay for all the additional costs of making the CEOs of insurance companies rich as well. And all the other bandwagon-jumping fat cats.

Anyone who thinks privatised medicine would cost less than a decently run NHS is bonkers. Absolutely nuts.

Just wanted to say how completely and utterly I agree with this, TaskBar.

And thanks for the prod, OP. I knew about it but hadn't realised how close the deadline was. Comments now sent off. I wish I could believe anyone will even read them, though. Have also sent off a PMQ to Jezza. Here's hoping.

If you live in the US you will be looking at a very significant monthly 4 figure sum to insure you and your family for healthcare. My family and I are already effectively insured for a lot less than that out of my monthly pay packet, and I'm higher rate. Because I'm not paying the entrepreneurs taking their cut.

No health insurance is 1000 a month in the USA, unless you are getting some sort of unnecessary non-HMO diamond-platinum insurance. There's got to be a trade off for that price, whether it's no deductibles or something.

DH's job doesn't do more than $15 a week for the three of us. Just a few co-pays is all that's required.

But the NHS as we know it is not fit for purpose. Forgive me for not entering into the general "aren't we lucky" but it is awful in many areas. It does not have the resources to treat everyone for free. That's the reality. I worked 11 years in the NHS and had to leave because people were dying alone in corridors and not being found. And that was when Blair was throwing cash at the management.
I would prefer a choice like in Canada.

I hear Virgin have taken over running Childrens health services in I think Wiltshire? Sadly I think it won't be long before 90% of nhs services are provided by private companies.

It will mean worse care for people as the company's main priority will be profit.

For example I have a very rare and chronic condition. It's not overly serious but I'm in a lot of discomfort from it every day, often in pain. I spent years been fobbed off by Drs. I googled stuff myself and found a Dr who specialises in this on the nhs in London. I asked to be referred to this Dr and my GP agreed. But if my GP or CCG was a private company they may feel that they don't want to fund such treatment and just refuse.

I'm abroad but completed the form and sent a strongly worded letter regarding the consultation to my MP. I've also asked them, as a Tory MP, for a much more clear plan on how they plan to address the funding gap and mismanagement of the NHS.

The consultation is a joke and the more we raise it as such the better. Ive also sent a copy of my letter to my MP to the FT, Telegraph, Times, Guardian and Independent.

What does it cost to be covered for health care in the US?

I have just filled in a form for my healthy family of 4 (correct information, non smoking, no underlying conditions etc - except our zip code, which is a random place I picked in New York State) and the cheapest monthly deal I was offered was $1,029.24. There are others going up to nearly $2k. I haven't investigated the details of these policies but for many of them the top line information includes "a deductible" and " a co-pay" - which I understand to mean that when it comes to it, you will still pay out of pocket for part of the cost of health care.

"DH's job doesn't do more than $15 a week for the three of us. Just a few co-pays is all that's required." I don't know what this means ("do more?") but I think that is not the actual cost of cover. is this some kind of cost deducted from his personal salary but the company pay the actual cost, and you don't see it? Which will be closer to 4 figures (less than my quotes probably, as there are only 3 of you, but no way is it going to be $15 a week)