AIBU to be scared stuff about what will happen to the NHS if the Tories get in?

[BatleyTownswomensGuild]

Just that really, things are bad enough as they are.... My Mum died in an under-resourced NHS hospital. I have a friend battling cancer at the moment, FIL is waiting for surgery, SALT support for DS (who is ASD) is almost non-existent already.

I can't believe after 10 years of austerity the Tories are going to get another chance. I'm at the point that I'm lying awake at night worrying about this? AIBU?

John Major initiated PFIs, but yes, Labour followed it up.

Why should I be scared of someone who wants to increase business by providing free broadband. Who wants to improve the health of all by providing free dentistry, who wants to pay reasonable wages so that in work poverty no longer exists? Why should I be afraid of a party that doesn't want to kill me, a disabled person off?

Yes YABU.

I am far more scared by people who go to A&E for minor ailments, who share how to get stuff sold in supermarkets on free prescriptions, who demand antibiotics for viral illnesses.....

Then I am more scared by Labour economic policies. By a party that seeks to gain power by setting one part of the population against the other.

The NHS has to change, it cannot provide all services free of charge as medical science develops and grows. We need to be more responsible as to how we use it.

I am also scared about leaving the EU and I hate the Tories for that - but economically, they are the more competent party.

Sorry but
By a party that seeks to gain power by setting one part of the population against the other.
Made me smile.
Boris has made Brexit and the GE the most devisive, nasty political event ever.
He's not acting alone but compare this GE to TM one?
The figure head is Boris and this is how he will govern.

The issue with the NHS is that no government is prepared to take it in hand and change how it works. It grinds on as it has done since it started. There is lots that can be done from inside, so reduce management, increase technology so notes are stored and sent electronically, I visit numerous hospitals for numerous reasons, the amount of paper notes for people are unbelievable. They can rework hours to get more out of theatres to do more operations. From my own experience I attended a appointment after a eye operation, for two minutes to be told nothing wrong, they could have sent a letter as they do for mammograms. They absolutely need to start checking at point of entrance about residential status and if in fact you should be laying. Millions each year is lost by overseas visitors using the nhs for free

They need to go back to a central procurement place to get supplies, including* medications, as they could then get much better deals. At the moment it’s cheaper for them to buy paracetamol from a supermarket than direct from the supplier They need to listen to the nurses and doctors who work there about improvements, they need to listen to the patients who use it to improve but they don’t mainly, in my opinion, as they are all scared of the unions who wont agree to chance

The fact remains that as a country, regardless of who is leading it, we simply cant afford to continue as we are

Paying not laying

I gave birth when Labour was last in power in a shitty, dirty hospital with not enough staff. Those that were there were focussed on targets that didn't relate to me. Happy days, eh?
There is no fucking golden era. Stop kidding yourself.

The NHS can have more and more money thrown at it but it will fail because of obesity. People who work in the hospitals know this. When people barely out of their teens are 20 plus stone you know they will have multiple expensive problems by the time they are 40.

The NHS are already paying private hospitals to undertake bariatric surgery on obese people. It is insanity.

The answer is to ban fast food, takeaways and fizzy drinks but it won’t happen

You realise one of the worse performing NHS groups is the LABOUR run ones in Wales

It's not quite as straightforward as you've made out with that statement.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35533172
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42655140

On some things we're worse, on others we're better. We've also not had funding for social care slashed as severely as in England.

For all the talk about how the Tories want to get rid of the NHS, they’ve had 70 years and haven’t managed it yet so they can’t be very good at it.

I don’t think many people are aware of how much the NHS pay private companies for contracts

We are flogging a dead horse we need to look at other systems like the French/German that provide better overall care that will mean many of us will pay more. It’s just not sustainable (been in deficit for years) and now with the costs rising far beyond any expectation in 1948 (aging population and the advancement of medical science)

Our system will never become like America’s because any party that tried to introduce that would be out of power for a very long time plus we have very different attitudes in this country towards social and health care.

Political parties need to stop using the NHS to score points. There needs to be some honesty maybe cross parties working together on a new system before it is totally broken

I don’t think many people are aware of how much the NHS pay private companies for contracts

But to win them they have to prove that they can supply the service for cheaper, which isn't really hard given how wasteful and inefficient the NHS is. The real issue is that in competing between themselves for contracts they go woefully low in order to win, and find that they cannot provide the service to a high standard. If properly evaluated ie just as much important given to proven ability rather than just cost it would be a lot more successful, and the quality of care would likely increase.

It is a myth that the NHS is being privatised. it is no more being privatised than was under the previous Labour government. fullfact.org/health/how-much-more-nhs-spending-private-providers/

I wish people would do a little research before blindly accepting scaremongering headlines trotted out on all sides. Tbe Tories are not and never have been privatising the NHS. It would be their death knell.

@TheNewSchmoo I hope they wouldn't be that stupid. No-one should have to die because they can't afford healthcare.

The NHS will be the least of your worries in the event that Corbyn becomes PM.

I really do wonder if OP is actually "scared stuff" or merely promoting misleading Labour propaganda.

I find the concept of Corbyn leading the country much more scary.

YANBU OP.

Please forgive me for pasting my response to a similar thread below. I’m just tired of seeing the same defeatist arguments about how the NHS is a wasteful, inefficient black hole that doesn’t deserve more funding.

The reason the US healthcare system keeps being mentioned is that the proposed US-UK trade deal would move the NHS closer to the US healthcare model.

The UK spends less per capita on healthcare than most other developed countries. According to OECD data from 2016 (the most recent year available), the UK spent $4,192 USD per capita that year.

Let’s compare that to some of the other countries mentioned on this thread. France spent $4,600 on healthcare per capita. Australia spent $4,708, Belgium $4,840, the Netherlands $5,385, Germany $5,551 and Switzerland $7,919. The bloated US system spent $9,892 per capita and the USA still manages to have a significantly lower average life expectancy than the UK.

Other countries spending more per capita on healthcare than the UK are Luxembourg, Norway, Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Canada, Japan and Iceland.

You can see more data at stats.oecd.org. I’d have liked to post a table, but the formatting went awry.

Why should I be scared of someone who wants to increase business by providing free broadband. Who wants to improve the health of all by providing free dentistry, who wants to pay reasonable wages so that in work poverty no longer exists?

If all that actually happened in the real world, hospitals would be swamped with people having heart attacks at the shock of it all.

Pie in the sky is great for soundbites but its ridiculously unrealistic, however "costed" they say it is.

you may not be old enough to remember the NHS in the 70s or earlier.

I am. The service was 1000 times better than now. Easy to get GP appointments home visits not uncommon.

My father spent a lot of time in and out of hospital in the 1970s, the service was superb.

Yes you should be scared, we should all be. I've worked in the NHS for nearly 20 years and it has got worse and worse under Tory rule. It cannot continue like this.

Those who are saying it won't be privatised are wrong- it's already being sold off bit by bit on the quiet. No one is brazen enough to announce it will be sold off openly.

I despair at poorer people in this country who refuse to vote Labour due to corbyn. Conservatives do not give a same about the average British citizen.

Arthurthecats please tell me where you live. I can't even get a GP appointment. Phone on the day and by the time you get through they're all gone. Pre booking is almost non existent. I live in East Anglia.

Right, Starbucks, that might have been your personal experience but you also need to correct for various other variables within that too - the population wasn't increasing by a city the size of Manchester every year, for example, so you had a higher GP to population ratio, premature babies couldn't survive at such young ages, life expectancy was lower, there was no CAMHS and only the most severe of MH problems were treated medically, no IVF etc etc. And yet, there were still multi-year waiting lists for non-urgent operations. Limited visiting hours even for children, certainly no staying over night for parents, or out of hours. I could go on... (but won't, as it's my day job and this is a Sunday)

Really - the nostalgia for the glory days of the NHS is as misplaced as nostalgia for the Empire. It never - except for possibly a few years in the late 40s- lived up to people's expectations of what it should be. It is a sacred cow in the UK, and the assumption is that more money will solve its problems, but as a health economist, I can assure you that money is only a very small part of the equation.

I love the NHS - but I am under no illusions about how it works, how it doesn't, and its evolution over history.

There never has been the mythical time people invoke for nostalgia or party political reasons

Yes there has. The NHS performed very well 1997-2010 because it was properly resourced and held to account.

No. I'm lying awake too. I have friends in the US who have very little money. One has cancer; one has a number of other health problems. Their access to healthcare is severely limited - no preventative options, prohibitively expensive drugs, basic treatment only.
The impact on them is serious and worrying. I think we'd be foolish to imagine that the same wouldn't happen here if the Tories are elected.

Whilst I totally get the point you’re making about the Tories, it is a common misconception that the only alternative to the NHS is the US system, when in reality UK and US healthcare are two extreme ends of a spectrum. No European countries have an NHS but none of them have the US system either!