To think we should all just pay 1-2% income tax to help fix the nhs

[Ieatcake]

Lots of health professionals are saying it's like a third world country. We need more beds and more money for socialcare. Not many would even notice a tiny tax rise and it would help fix it ASAP.

Sorry RavingRoo but you can't complain about Australias healthcare system if someone who lives 3.5hrs away from the nearest people let alone a hospital doesn't get quality care. It's sad and more should be done but not an accurate representation of the healthcare system.
I'm a big supporter of aboriginal rights and see it as a social failing, not a healthcare failing, when a lot of these issues aren't effectively combated.
Anyone who lives in the most rural towns (as in, hours from any other towns let alone healthcare) will likely suffer the same issues.
Housing and lifestyle is also insufficient, but if help is offered (it isn't always which is horrible) what else can anybody do? A lot of these communities can be quite isolated, remote, sometimes no one even knows they exist. It's easy to see that when they live so far out, sometimes reachable only by air.
What do you suggest?? Drag them to a new shiny house, take away their homes and identity and give them a car? That worked so well last time....
it's a really tenuous set of social issues that can't be blamed on the healthcare system.

As a practice nurse I think it would be highly unfair to charge for GP appointments and missed appointments as the same group that are the largest users of GP practices (the elderly) even if they could afford to, would probably be exempt from charges simply by virtue of age. The same 'squeezed middle' as with prescription charges, bus fares, eye tests etc, would end up subsidising the majority of offenders.

@cactus opening facilities nearer to people who need them would be a start.

The NHS doesn't need more money. It needs to be taken out of the hands of the government and the government ineffectual plonkers who have made their way up the ranks to managerial positions and turned over to private companies who understand how to run a business, which the NHS realistically is. This wouldn't mean the NHS would be privatised or we'd have to pay it would just mean it would be run cost effectively and efficiently.

Nurses/NHS do get pay rises, incrementally, for 5 years whilst they are in that band, they then have to qualify to move up to the next band and their pay rises start again so don't swallow the bullshit, we've not had a pay rise for a decade.

Staff get 6 months sick on full pay off of work if they have been there a certain amount if time and in my area there were few who hadn't taken the whole 6 months.

Our bank staff bill was horrendous, ironically rather than employ another 4 nurses on regular pay we were paying the staff who already worked for us a higher bank wage to cover hours that the same staff had booked off or called in sick for.

We had a senior member of staff who had a ridiculously high Bradford scale score. His presence often dictated when patients could be discharged but his lack of commitment and the Trusts lack of action to tackle this cost dearly, patients were not discharged and therapy sessions not undertaken. It was well known by everyone that he would come in and then say he had 'tummy issues' and off he'd pop to events he wanted to attend. He was best friend with one of the service managers so was just overlooked. This is totally normal for the NHS

The work rate by most of the staff admin and clinical who had been there for years was laughable. They didn't like change and rallied round to fight it regardless of whether it was effective or not.

All consumables are purchased from NHS supplies which is ridiculously expensive. A team of procurement staff could go through the NHS's bills and probably cut their bills by at least 30% if not more.

Stop the 4 hour waiting time in A&E I can guarantee if many if the time waters in A&E knew they'd be there for up to 12 hours they'd wait for a doctors appointment.

Have a doctor and a senior nurse in A&E waiting rooms and have them triage patients and write prescriptions there and then, none of this being triaged by a student then seeing a nurse, then a doctor before being sent for X-ray or further treatment.

This isn't a Tory plan to get rid of the NHS and the twats who say that are the reason big changes are never pushed through and will eventually be the death of the NHS. We will have to pay a certain amount either through a separate tax or at point if use for the NHS to continue as it is.

Wasn't the idea that we could all pay a bit more tax for better public services the central plank of New Labour?

Who have been the biggest privatisators of public services.

No, I'm not going to support higher taxation, because there isn't a party offering
a) a spending programme which has been reasonably well laid out and which I agree with, and
b) which I trust to do what it says it might

I think charging for missed appointments is an excellent idea. As pp said, it doesn’t have to be much to have an impact. Perhaps £5? Any less would likely cost in admin. Look what has happened now there is a 5p levy on plastic bags.

Also, Roo, what do you think the Royal Flying Doctor Service was founded for? Shits and giggles? That article doesn't even begin to touch on the cyclical social issues which Aboriginal communities face. Much of those issues are inextricably connected with health, but are not a direct result of the failure of the healthcare system.

People living in remote Australia, hours away from the nearest town is not representative of the average Australian experience. As you can read in the article you linked, 85% of Australians live within 50km of the coast. And even those living in rural communities often have a doctor, or a larger town nearby with a practice.

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/14/nhs-holds-on-to-top-spot-in-healthcare-survey?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I believe that the UK actually spends a lot less per head than many other European countries and way less than the US. So it is functioning well considering.

I know it wasn’t perfect under New Labour, but the reality is that waiting times were much shorter. Not sure that cuts down the eventual bill because people then live longer. Currently those who are poor will have gradually worsening health and their lifespans will shorten. It’s a great way for the super-rich to save money.

The problem with billing people for non-attendance is that it costs more to collect the money than you make. A small payment for every attendance with a cap so it doesn’t get too expensive for the chronically unwell might work better. People sometimes fail to value things that are completely free at the point of use.

Charging per appointment would hit the most vulnerable hardest. The elderly, the disabled, those with lots of health issues and little money. Families are having to chose between heating and food, adding health charges would mean a lot of children going without healthcare or parents not affording their own care and getting too ill to care for their children, for example.

I'm overweight, due in main to my mental health and physical disabilities. I'd give up healthcare- providing every single person who used any health service because of the results of their own actions. Anyone who ever got drunk and fell, who broke limbs doing sports, developed skin cancer in their 50s after sunbathing excessively in their teens. I had a friend who as a child was bet to jump over a chain gate, caught her foot, landed on her face breaking her jaw. That was an ambulance, x-ray, medications, all the healthcare professional's time-but she was thin so that cost nothing.

And Australia has severe health inequalities similar to the US: www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/4/08-020408/en/

That article is about Indigenous health. Indigenous people make up

Charging per appointment would hit the most vulnerable hardest. The elderly, the disabled, those with lots of health issues and little money.

No, you make it free at point of delivery to these people.

It's not money that's needed it's more efficiency.

And a bigger drive to stop the drain through people eating themselves into diabetics - 67% population overweight, costing us billions.

The whole system is antiquated, people use A&E like a GPs surgery because they don't want to wait to see a GP, they see a GP for something that will often get better on its own. Many people abuse the system because it's free.

The whole thing needs a radical shake up but people need to start taking responsibility for their own health; 70 % of conditions are purely lifestyle related and these account for nearly half of hospital care.

Nooooooo. We pay far too much tax. Operating model for NHS must change. I would like to keep more of what I earn, not puss it up the wall. We are told every year the NHS is in dire straits. It needs reform. Btw, my partner has work in the NHS for 25 years so I have sone understanding about it.

We need a full and frank national discussion about what the NHS should be.

For me...
No IVF
No surgeries for obese people
A limit on age where they stop prolonging life (my GM is 88 and my wife has three (90,90 and 95). The 95 was at death’s door two years ago and the hospital pumped her so full of drugs and time that she turned it around. Why? All she does is sit in one chair and watch cash in the attic and all that shit.
Turn people away from A&E unless it is an accident or emergency (ie stop using it as a walk in centre)
Turn drunks and drug addled people away, or charge them for the service they have used in the morning. People should be responsible for their own welfare.
Stop making nursing a degree level subject; people should be able to enter nursing from the age of 16.
Charge, in advance, those who travel here for operation etc rather than chasing payment from host countries/insurance firms afterwards.
Stop issuing paracetamol and other low cost drugs on prescription.

The NHS is a marvellous idea, and means that we don’t have to find the money to pay for the doctor/operation etc at times when you’ve killed re important things on your mind.

It is being abused by people, not just the government.

Personally I’d make Twinkie1 Health Secretary.

And all those people who have to use the NHS for smoking related illnesses, alcohol and drug related issues? People who have accidents due to extreme sports?

The duty on alcohol and tobacco pays for the health consequences of users several times over so that's a non-argument.

And I saw on a thread before that if you look at sports people as a bigger cohort, the health benefits of doing regular exercise saves the NHS far more than patching up the occasional injury.

Drugs obviously have no benefit to anyone...

Lots of health professionals are saying it's like a third world country. We need more beds and more money for socialcare. Not many would even notice a tiny tax rise and it would help fix it ASAP.

People have short memories. Labour raised NIC by 1% to "save the NHS" - then a few years later, they raised it again by another 1% "to save the NHS". How many more extra 1%'s will the money pit swallow?? During Labour's 3 terms, NHS spending trebled, yes, trebled, but it still wasn't enough. Another 1/2% on tax may sound good, but in reality, it would be spent in a flash and they'd come back wanting another 1/2%. Waste and inefficiency is endemic as is wasting money on initiatives and other gimmicks . The NHS needs to get it's house in order before it gets more money thrown at it, otherwise it will just get wasted like last time.

The NHS doesn't need more money. It needs to be taken out of the hands of the government and the government ineffectual plonkers who have made their way up the ranks to managerial positions and turned over to private companies who understand how to run a business, which the NHS realistically is. This wouldn't mean the NHS would be privatised or we'd have to pay it would just mean it would be run cost effectively and efficiently.

^^ THis

My elderly father has been ill a lot recently. Although the front line care has been good, the sheer inefficiency of the admin behind it all , the lack of a one-stop shop for care, resulting in wasted time for doctors and patients is shocking.

One example is when a test is ordered in a hospital. The results - even though they could be read by a nurse at the time before he'd even got dressed- were not sent to GP for 8 weeks, took 3 phone calls by us the family, he was then sent a letter to see the consultant - so 10 weeks later- all to be told everything was ok. And without family transport he'd have been given an ambulance to take him there and back.

We declined the appt on the basis it was too stressful for him to attend - he needs a wheelchair- and the appt could go to someone who needed it.

This must be replicated time and time again. Patients clogging up the system, because they can't be given results on the day of a test, or they are summoned back only to be told all is ok (when the GP could tell them) .

The Tories seem to be winning the propaganda battle by trying to blame the NHS chaos on ageing, missed GP appointments, ‘red tape’ etc ... all the while the actual experts, the people running and working in the NHS beg for resources.

Come on. Stop swallowing this nonsense and hold these people to account. People are dying while they make excuses. It does need more money and those of us who earn more need to accept that we need to pay more tax for a really good service. We need our governments to be honest about this. Promising low taxes and a world class service is just dishonest.

No, you make it free at point of delivery to these people.

So "these people" will continue to abuse the system by making appointments they don't attend, and by using GP's time to get prescriptions for paracetamol. If you're going to start charging for GP appts and missed appts, then EVERYONE needs to pay. It won't work if you have exemptions for certain groups as people in those groups won't have any incentive to modify their behaviour.

No way! We pay enough tax already. How about stopping all the health tourists who haven't paid anything yet get free treatment. How about stopping free prescriptions and getting all those who pay nothing to pay a bit more so that the burden is not just on taxpayers (an ever shrinking pool!). Also, there is loads of waste and inefficiency in the NHS and any new money will just go into the pockets of overpaid managers and pen pushers rather than nurses or where it is really needed.

Twinkle, I was a band 5 registered nurse not getting any more incremental increases, there where no band 6 vacancies in my trust so yes I have not had a pay rise in years.

Although have retired now as a nurse because of shit working conditions.

It does need more money

So trebling the funding in a decade under Labour wasn't enough?