AIBU to be terrified Trump will destroy NHS - and to wonder what to do about it

[impossible]

Just that. I feel really fearful that the NHS will up for grabs in any US/UK trade deal and I have no trust in Trump to protect it. Do you feel the same and what can we do?

Prune? Prune? It has been very well pruned over the last 9 years. Long are the days when you could call your surgery at 9 am and get the option of a day appointment or the possibility to book over the week.

If I call by 8 am nowadays, I am waiting for the call to be answered for at least 50 minutes, after that the calls gets cut and I have to ring again. By the time the call is answered there are no urgent appointments for 3 days, the receptionist decides (wrongly in a few occasions) if I am bad enough to be seen and I could be taking the morning off for a week just to wait for the call to be picked up to say they have no appointments at all.

If you've got the kind of "business mind" that thinks there's money to be made in pyramid schemes

You make no sense

There is money there. The government just chooses to waste it on other things.

Instead of paying £8 for a thread worm treatment for your kid, you may need to pay over £600 (yes £600)
hence the thriving black market for pharmaceutical products, never mind going on the dark web for drugs to get high, it'll soon be the go to place for your prescription

but hey, we're taking back control, right.

I'm a bit more concerned that trump seems happy helping to destroy the planet.

"There is never going to be enough money to pay for everything the NHS can do"

The important word is "can". We make sure that they deal with everything they should be dealing with. And we make sure they are given enough money to do so.

And we don't waste £600 million a week on Brexit as we currently are...

There is never going to be enough money to pay for everything the NHS can do

The nhs wouldn’t need to do so much if social care and prevention were properly funded.

It wouldn’t have to do so much if education was properly funded to enable children to have decent sports provision.

It wouldn’t have so much to do if government properly encouraged local economies to thrive. People with better prospects, able to lives healthier lives.

All of these things are interconnected. The government has made awful cuts and one of the symptoms is an overloaded NHS.

Unfortunately having worked as a senior manager in the NHS it is the staff and the Trusts that are the problem not the government.

Ringdonna what do you mean by this? Could you give some examples? My experience working in the NHS is that it relies a lot on the goodwill of staff to keep going and without that the situation would be a lot worse.

Can’t believe people fall for this shit. Concerns or not (and it seems most people are concerned) this post is written as if it was directly by Jezza but a lot more likely someone else from Labour HQ or from Monentum.

I'm a bit more concerned that trump seems happy helping to destroy the planet.

Who do you think is complicit with him in that? LOL. Not the elected British government who are in league with the likes of DUP, surely not? He's just making it all up on his own. I'm Indian, British and Canadian. Like father, like son. The apple never falls far from the tree. After all, Trump's mother was British and BoJo was born in America. Go figure!

Gordon Brown pissed money at it during the Blair years with little noticeable change to care quality or outcomes. Salaries got better though

Incorrect. Money had to be put into the NHS post 1997 because, funnily enough, it had been underfunded.

Now we are going back to a state of under funding which will need more money to rectify when, if investment had been kept at sensible levels, we wouldn’t have such an issue.

The biggest mistake New Labour made was continuing the PFI funding model started under Thatcher.

And, as I’ve said a few times, the NHS is under strain because other public services are also not being maintained.

I worked in the NHS in 1997 it was like a light being turned on. It was so poorly funded before that, that nothing could be achieved...sound familiar.
The same is happening in education and we know categorically that a better educated population has better health outcomes.

The biggest mistake New Labour made was continuing the PFI funding model started under Thatcher.

They expanded the PFI model, not just continued it. A contributing factor in why it needs more money now.

As always there is short term thinking going on with the NHS, people praise the european model but any talk of copying them with part privatization is met with hysterics.

Both main parties has used the NHS as a political football and neither side comes up smelling of roses with regards to longer term outcome.

@Iggly

I can think of quite a few, but take assisted conception.
That should be private only, with no NHS services at all.
Saved you a bunch there.

I think there is a load of empire building in the medical profession. Some doctors want to be in charge of their thing, and it's great if the NHS (ie the public) pick up the tab.

When Labour invested in the NHS and introduced the four hour A&E target the hospital I worked in never dropped below 99% compliance. That same hospital now has queues of ambulances outside. Speaks volumes.

Well the people wanted to have control so make sure you have insurance. Fearful for the people who voted for this thing and don't have financial stability. They will suffer if NHS is sold

Thanks for all these deeply depressing responses.

Yes I do know this is where we're headed thanks to the nightmare that is Brexit, Farage and the Tories - and of course many years of deliberate underfunding and selling off. I suspect Brexit will be the final nail in the coffin.

agree with Conks - the privatisation started when labour bought in NHS trust system . And actually an MP half apologised for that last night on question time . In theory if you can buy drugs cheaper from the USA then what is the problem? - however there are definitely things that have gone on within the trusts that are scarily inappropriate . I know someone who sells equipment to a particular trust and in his words its a licence to print money - they make huge margins .

All the Health bodies from BMA, surgeons, radiographers, midwives, GPs, think hard brexit will be catastrophic for the NHS, so do most Health charities, the TUC AND the CBI, but yeah, 'what is the problem' - Farage and his lot know better what's good for us.

@Helmetbymidnight

what they really think is it might be worse for them, They should start by ensuring people not entitled to our hospital services get them without paying. Period. Then they might have more money.

Maybe they could stop chucking stuff away with plenty more use in it. Maybe they could stop selling phone and TV services to residents at effing stupid prices. But maybe they could "charge" people for hotel services - meals and so on.

Stop brexit and it won't happen.