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.

How about some of the multinational companies start paying their fair share rather than hitting the average man or woman in the street with more tax.

Can people please stopping basing arguments about the entire NHS on their personal experience? No matter how wonderful or awful, your operation or what a nurse you know has told you is not evidence. It’s anecdotal.

Zzzzz these contracts are being negotiated by the wankers who can't negotiate their way out of a paper bag. What do you expect?

No, I don’t think throwing more money at it is the answer. Some of the gaping holes need to be plugged (as others have said).

Flouncy, I’m uncomfortable with the idea that people should make judgement calls on the value of a life because of age.

There are two threads on this that have been running since last week which is covering the ground nicely. Suggest you all come over to this one rather than continually repeating same Q&As. It's a good debate

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3128835-a-question-for-nhs-staff

I agree that it's efficiency that's the issue.

I had my first baby in Canada (single payer system) - I didn't outlay a penny for anything (except blood tests- but it wasn't a lot) - I went to a midwife practice for my care, I went to an office to have blood tested (there were plenty dotted around the city), I went to the hospital for ultrasounds - ie. quite similar to the UK, BUT they'd thought things through - for example, I'd get a little card to come to a community centre for my baby's jabs - I'd join the queue, he'd be weighed measured, they'd have a chat to see that all was OK while they did that, then we'd go to the next room for jabs, and head home. 6 people, servicing a room full of mothers and babies for a day - and I just had 30mins taken to get it all done.

In the UK, I had to go to one (roving - I never had an appointment in the same place twice!) clinic for checkups, another for jabs at my local doctor, and there was a 3rd where I could go to have my child weighed if I wanted, and yet another HV to check I was doing OK. - More people, more resourses, more time wasted, for no better effect.

I was chatting with the nurse who gave me my smear about it - and she agreed - in fact, she'd switched to the practice nurse from HVing because it frustrated her so much how ridiculous all the innefficiency was.

No, those of who earn more should pay more tax. And those who avoid should be gone after with more vigour.

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.

Well, it seems to work better than the alternative, which is nobody having any incentive to ‘modify their behaviour’.

Look, you’re never going to get agreement to go from free-to-everyone to everyone-pays. And rightly so, IMO. You don’t want genuinely ill people, particularly elderly people and children, not going to the doctor because they can’t afford it.

Making health care free to the poorest in society is a compromise.

Sorry - those of us

I am struggling to see why people are not seeing the real truth of the situation.

Very few public sector run organisations are efficient. They retain their jobs whatever. The huge cock ups there have been with NHS trusts - the CEOs of these failing trusts are still there and will get a pension.

In private industry this would not happen. There is no incentive for a public organisation to save money because they don't go to the wall as they would if privately owned; they carry on building up debt and the managers stay in their roles.

The calibre of the management is usually poor; they have usually worked nowhere but the public sector or been exposed to companies where you stay in profit or you fold.

There have been reports in the media about very simple stuff like purchase of office supplies for the NHS where there is sheer extravagance and waste. So is it any wonder that they can't manage the budgets for the bigger stuff?

I have every sympathy for the drs and nurses.
But it's the management, the out dated management styles, the lack of accountability that is the issue. Their jobs do not depend on making the trusts a success; they just ask for more cash!

And then there is the perception of the public who think they can eat and drink themselves into chronic health and there will be money to bail them out. Nope. Start taking some personal responsibility.

Obesity in the majority of case is self inflicted and causes the NHS millions. Most of it in diabetes care.

Smoking also costs the NHS millions but also earns the government a lot in duties.

Obesity is and should be a number one priority.

Why blame the Tories? NuLabour are just as responsible. It was calamity Brown who went the PFI way (buy now pay later) in order to get more votes and everyone is now paying for his disastrous decision which doesn't just affect the NHS but schools as well (and blaming the Tories)!

20nil - I presume you're one of the 15 people who did pay more tax voluntarily then?

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/20/jeremy-corbyns-claim-many-people-want-pay-tax-clear-debt-fund/amp/

Can you imagine means testing paying for missed appointments? The universal credit debacle does not fill me with confidence.

How will a patient be charged if they miss an appointment?

It all needs a shake up though no doubt. My DM (80) accesses the NHS weekly at least and everything is free for her. She's got pots of cash! DH and i access the NHS less often but sometimes struggle to pay our prescription charges when we do.

I think more GP surgeries will go to the system ours has - no ore-bookable appointments. You call at 7.30 on the day and you get an appointment that day. Occasionally you have to phone back the next day. Their missed appointments issue has practically gone.

However, it's massively inconvenient for anyone who works as you've no idea what time your appointment is going to be.

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.

NHS Supply Chain is part of the NHS.

NHS Supply Chain are actually pretty good at nailing their suppliers down. I was a director of a company that supplied to the NHS on a vast scale and we eventually withdrew from some contracts as we couldn’t actually manufacture certain products at prices which were being offered in reverse auctions by some other suppliers.

What NHS Supply Chain charge the trusts is a different story but that’s nothing to do with how much money is going out of the wider NHS to buy the products in the first place.

The PFI scandal that erupted in Gordon Brown’s time is a big problem, though. Facilities and services implemented under his and Blair’s tenure are set to cost £300bn in repayments alone, never mind the ridiculous supply contracts which were welded to those contracts.

It’s PFI facilities where you’ll find the NHS paying £300 for a £30 item because they’re irrevocably tied to a punitive contract. Not because NHS Supply Chain don’t know what they’re doing.

I don't think the NHS can be fixed by throwing more money at it. Even if the budget were doubled, I think it would still be in trouble. It's a fundamentally flawed idea. No matter how much money was allocated, it would always need more.

There need to be be sweeping reforms and a complete rethink of what services the NHS is actually going to provide and what circumstances. Currently, it's breathtakingly inefficient and wasteful. If it were a private business, it would have gone bust years ago.

More people, more resourses, more time wasted, for no better effect.

When I needed a hearing aid, the sheer waste and inefficiency was unbelievable. For a start, I needed a GP appointment for them to check my ears were clear. Then the GP writes a referral letter to the ENT dept. In my case, the ENT dept lost the referral letter, which meant I had to go back to the GP for him to check my ears were clear again before he sent another referral letter. Then an appointment in a different town to have a hearing test. Then following that an appointment with a ENT consultant in a different town. Then a referral to the hearing aid dept in yet another different building for a hearing aid to be issued. Total time, just under a year!! Every appointment took admin time, postage, etc. Not to mention having to re-arrange unsuitable appointments and re-arrange 2 which were cancelled short notice by the NHS!

OH just needed a hearing aid - Specsavers do it now - Still needed a GP appt, but Specsavers didn't lose the referral letter. They phoned us to arrange an appt. Everything was done in a single appt - hearing test, consultation with a specialist and the issue/fitting/setting of the hearing aid - all within 2 hours. No wasted time, no wasted admin, no cancelled/rearranged appointments, etc. A far better, more efficient service. NHS should learn from some of the private providers.

No I already pay enough tax. If you have a bucket with holes in the bottom, you don't just keep filling it up with water in the hopes of it working; you fix the bucket, same principle works with the NHS, chucking money at it isn't working, it's need reform. When it was setup I don't think half the stuff that is currently treated or offered were ever envisioned.

Not because NHS Supply Chain don’t know what they’re doing.

Clearly, not all is as rosy! There was an article in our local press about the £50K p.a. savings made by nurses in just one ward at our local hospital who decided to source their own basic cleaning/hygiene supplies instead of using central procurement, for things like rubber gloves, aprons, paper towels, disposable sick bowls, etc. If a single ward can save £50K per year, then there must be massive savings to be made.

I agree that a political focus on the failings of the NHS is unhelpful, and that it isn't a matter simply of more money. The NHS was created to provide essential basic care, not all the add-ons that have been developed since 1947, during which the population, life expectancy and medical know-how and technology have all ballooned. PFI was a scandal, the NHS equivalent of off balance sheet finance.

A modest charge for appointments, fees for unnecessary ambulance call outs and a statement of the cost of each appointment/treatment, even if not due for payment, might make us all consider the value of the service.

And the overlap between health and social care has to be clarified. Addressing the shortage of facilities to discharge those recovering but without support at home would help a great deal. I thought the notion of using (selected and approved) DB&B accommodation was excellent as it would have been a) cheaper and b) mainly used in winter when B&Bs are under-occupied and NHS pressures are greatest, but it was shot down in a storm of vitriol.

The OP is either beyond naive; or being very disingenuous and virtue signally about it.

If money was the root cause of the issues with the NHS, it would be easily fixed. But it is far more structural than that (hence why tripling of spending under Labour didn't fix it, why we only ever get temporary reprieves).

It's a multi-headed hydra that has evolved and mutated over decades. To kill a hydra (aka fix the NHS) you need to lop it off at the neck and start over, building a system from the group up to deal with today's society and medical needs. (I also don't believe we as a country can afford the NHS based on modern needs, so I think it has to change into some form of contribution model.)

But that is a solution that only ends in political catastrophe. So unless you get a Party with that as its only ticket, and which is willing to go down in flames afterwards, never gonna happen.

The idea that the Tories want the NHS to fail is moronic. They want it to be a success as do Labour as do the Lib Dems. Only the myopically partisan think the Tories want to damage the NHS deliberately.

The problems are an aging population, mushrooming costs of care and huge but expensive leaps in medical treatment. There are differing solutions and the political parties don’t agree on how to approach it.

We need a Royal Commision. Cross-party and wide remit. And users should pay for more.

Paying more tax would be a damn sight cheaper than paying insurance like the US. I'd be happy to pay. I also want rid of PFI deals as I don't want tax money going to the likes of Richard Branson. You shouldn't be able to make a private profit on NHS healthcare.