to be worried about "4% tax rises every year for 15 years just to keep the nhs functioning at its current level"

[traciebanbanjo]

According to a think tank. But even if it's only 1/4 of that it's still a huge amount. I don't know how I would ever affod that much.

And they say that's just to keep it at its current level. It's the main headline on LBC and in all the papers.

I'm very worried about coming tax rises

The NHS is being systematically destroyed by a political party with a vested interest in privatisation. They’ll raise taxes whilst simultaneously continuing to run the service into the ground so that eventually privatisation will not only seem like the only alternative, it’ll be welcomed by the electorate.

We already have high enough tax to make it work. The issue is what the government do with our taxes and the taxes they choose not to enforce payment of.

pigmc, i am not sure I will get much back even when old actually as my parents died in their 70s so I don't think I'm likely to have those 20 years of decline other people have. However we shall see. At 56 I am very lucky indeed to have no health issues at all and a totally easy age 55 menopause too which is probably something of a record. In part of course the luck comes through not drinking or smoking and not being obese and drinking water and trying to avoid junk food but there we are.

GFd's 90 year old mother illustrates one important issue - older people occupy beds in hospitals because there is nowhere to release them. If we could solve that one problem that would be a massive improvement.Secondly some GPs employ someone to talk to their regular visitors who come more for a chat than anything else because they are old and lonely and that has worked out cheaper than the person seeing the doctor - they are often not really ill at all but want to talk to someone. that sounded like a good system to me.

What I'd like to know is where does most of the NHS money get spent/ have we got a good chart showing the % because there is no point picking one tiny issue where the cost is minimal and say we will cut that - whatever it might be if the impact is tiny. We need instead to find areas where there is massive waste and it involves a huge % of the budget.

@MyOtherProfile; sadly, we don't already have 'high enough taxes', hence the fact that the National debt continues to grow by billions every month. If we paid enough taxes, the Government would be in surplus. The last decade of 'austerity' has done nothing but inhibit growth and - therefore - tax receipts.

Why, oh why are people unable to accept that they will have to pay European-level taxes if they want European-level services?!

I haven't found a nice little pie chart yet
www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/pub-scheme/spend/#payments

The best proxy for the true overall tax burden is probably government expediture as a percentage of GDP. Bearing in mind the UK's figures include health (many other countries don't), we are lower than every other comparable advanced economy in Europe; data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm

"NHS spending 2015/16
£118bn total health budget

£58bn - Hospitals and ambulances
£25bn - Other (inc. public health, buildings and clinical negligence)
£14bn - GPs and community
£11bn - Mental health
£10bn - Central administration, regulation and training"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37715399

Bit general though. If litigaiton is so expensive we could change the rules fo you cannot sue the NHS or doctor if something goes wrong but if you want that right then you pay for an insurance policy up front.

@Xenia, not sure what you're linking to there. What are you suggesting? That the quasi-market in health is hugely wasteful? You'd be right.

Quite a bit of NHS money goes on management consultancies:

www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7243

@Xenia, sadly the litigation figures are partly a function of our legal system, rather than widespread negligence or malpractice. However, look at the US if you want to see really eye-watering amounts (and that's after the fact that they pay twice as much as us, for worse outcomes).

Sadly, a huge amount does go on management consultancies (albeit comparable to that spent in Australia, NZ and Canada on the same and - obviously - much less than the US).

I challenge you to find a business or an industry that doesn't spend comparable proportions or turnover on consultancy support though.

No argument from me there, Babycham. I am a management consultant, so I know precisely why I'm brought in (both good and bad). No illusions on this side of the table, believe me.

They need to invest to make a more cost effective system. I think they also need to think about who really needs treatment, lastly I think more services should be means tested.

I spend alot of time in hospitals. They are full of old people that would be better caterered for in minor illness and injuries centres (which have all been shut down). It costs a lot to have someone in a hospital bed just because they had a fall, or cut themselves, or flu, or nowhere else to go. Kids a&e is also full of kids feeling unwell, or banged head, or sprained limb. These kids don't need to be in a state of the art hospital.

We are keeping people alive (mainly very sick babies and old people) who have no prospect of recovery or treatment.

People are getting treatments on the NHS (ivf, gastric bands, cosmetic surgery) that they could easily afford themselves. I know someone who was about to be given ivf who earns very good money, has a rolex, diamonds and goes on multiple holiday per year. None medically necessary treatments should be means tested - other benefits are.

I'd be more than happy for some kind of property tax being introduced to help fund the NHS given that most of these "vulnerable"old people requiring this additional health care expenditure are sat on billions of pounds worth of unearned property wealth.

It still won’t work properly even with an extra few billion.

I don't understand how (some) posters can moan that the NHS has enough money already, when international comparisons show it's probably the most efficient health service in the world (£ spent per patient or per service).

2/3 of NHS staff aren't clinical, which seems mind-boggling in a health service.

It is about the fifth largest employer in the world.

Our population rises by approximately 300 000 people every year and has been for the last 20 years.

These all impact on the cost. But it does seem, however much we pour in, it's never enough. I find the think tank report very believable, tbh. (I'm a health economist, but not really of the NHS)

Personally, I'd back a Royal Commission to look into the future of the NHS - what's going on is unsustainable atm. And we're already going to be monumentally fucked in the coming recession, given that there's no way to cut interest rates as they've never raised them, coupled with unrestrained QE - I think a 4-5% increase on the income tax every year for years will just be completely unsustainable in the coming financial climate. And people bleat on about the "Scandinavian model" without understanding that they have smaller populations, much lower population density and, in Norway's case, a sovereign wealth fund that EU rules prevented the UK from establishing.

At the end of the day, if it was that easy to fix the NHS, successive governments would have done it already, instead of the tinkering and messing we've had since the 60s. But no government is prepared to be the one who is going to have to take what are going to be - frankly - unpalatable decisions to make it fit for 21st century Britain: so I suspect it will continue to be an underperforming money pit for generations to come.

sall74 don't fall for the myth that every older person has large, valuable house. They don't.

sall74 so the property tax would only fall on the older generation
as yorkshire said not all in the older generation are in large valuable houses - we don't all live in London and the SE
If you think back to the last GE - the Conservatives proposed that the value of a person's house would be considered in assessing social care costs (necessary to keep beds free in hospitals) - and you know how that went down.

They were attacked for the so-called 'dementia tax' when it was not a tax and not just to do with 'dementia' - it was to cover the cost of social care in the person's home for any disease.

Always seemed fair enough to me.

I don't understand how (some) posters can moan that the NHS has enough money already, when international comparisons show it's probably the most efficient health service in the world (£ spent per patient or per service

Agree, I posted the same this morning. NHS ranked top in a study of healthcare systems in 11 of the wealthiest countries in the world, largely because of how efficient it is.

When it comes to the NHS, everyone thinks they're an expert because they've all sat for a few hours in A&E. Look at the people moaning that many of the lower paid NHS staff aren't medical professionals, for example. Apparently doctors should spend hours shuffling paperwork, nurses have nothing better to do but bleach floors, and anyone with a health qualification should do hospital accounting in their spare time.

Unless they fix the inefficiencies more money won't help.

roses, we've just posted above that the NHS is considered the most efficient health care system in the world!