Will Boris now fund the NHS properly?

[Moominmammaatsea]

Today’s papers are reporting that Boris can’t thank his doctors and nurses enough and that he is crediting the NHS with saving his life. AIBU to wonder if the PM will now have a change of heart and fund the NHS properly and reward all its workers with the pay rise he voted down before?

The problems with inefficiency in the NHS arose at the start due to compromises necessary to bring private doctors and their private hospitals on board. The consultants contracts for a start which were designed to allow them to continue to make money from private work. There is too much empire building going on, not enough cross departmental working.

In terms of ‘efficiency’ one thing that makes the NHS much more efficient than other health systems is the fact that there isn’t such a bureaucratic burden imposed upon it by various insurance schemes. Another thing would be utilising certain resources to the maximum - such as ventilator which also means no spare capacity in times like this.

Nothing will change.
Thw givernment has already accepted the last recommendation of LOWERING the number of bed in ICU.
Yep. Lowering the beds they are desperatly short of just right now.

Just wait a few more months and we will see even MORE degradation of the NHS....

eg I had an appointment with a consultant in June. One that I have been waiting for 9 months. It has plainly been cancelled. That's it. I mean usually, when you are referred to a neurologist its because you are well arent you? So we will have a huge backlog, doctors and nurses taking time off due to sickness and hols (not just the CV, but PTSD, stress and the like) and the continuation of the dowgrading of the services.....

I am glad he is recovering. I did not want him to win the election or become PM. I hope this experience will have made him seriously reflect upon what and whom to value.

But there also needs to be a fundamental shift in how we as the public, use the NHS. As a nurse, the amount of misuse, abuse and wastage I see is unbelievable.

@Mlou32, Id like to challenge that idea.
Yep that's what every governmnet has been telling us, putting the blame on the users rather than the funding (see at the moment, the idea that the lack of PPE is due to nurses using too much of them - similar idea).
But if it was just about people over using the system, why is that other countries have a system with more doctors, more nurses, more ICU beds etc.... Surely if it was about the public not using the NHS well, in other countries, they would have doctors doing nothing at all day all day long? As this is NOT the case, I would suggest that the UK as a whole under treat people.

I think that the PPE situation was unavoidable.
PPE has an expiration date. It is not reasonable to spend a hundred million on stuff that will in all probability be thrown away. Imagine the outcry if the NHS had been doing this for the last fifty years. It would be cited as yet another example of waste and inefficient procurement. Money that could have funded an extra 1000 nurses etc.

But we do need to make changes to the NHS. It cannot carry on in its current format. Money is not the only answer to improving it and making it the best it can be.

I think small charges need to come in for certain procedures and certain call outs.

Other countries have co-sharing of costs. I spoke to a couple of paramedics when my DM went into hospital last year. They were very vocal that they were being abused and used by the public.

I have attended many many meetings over the years with NHS trusts as a supplier.

The waste of resources, the endless people trying to justify their jobs by attending meetings, the lack of decision making, and the sheer waste of money. Most government depts are scared to look at their contracts even though they clearly need a review because they don’t want to change the status quo.

With regard to nurses and doctors who are the most important element. Bring back nursing bursaries, don’t make the entry requirements for medical schools so tough that you end up recruiting from abroad with all the issues for both the UK and the country they are leaving.

When you are trained by the NHS you have to stay xxx years before you are allowed to leave the profession,

@Laaf80... OMG! I’d forgotten all about the Carillion debacle. Disgrace.

Doubt it

Perhaps everyone should have some private insurance that helps the cost of the NHS. This is what is done in much of the EU, Germany for example. It is stupid that someone actually pay for things from the NHS, apart from prescriptions.

No, of course not, he's a Tory. He doesn't need it & doesn't give a fuck.

@QuestionMarkNow Well to start off, I think we should put my whole quote, rather than just the part where I stated we, the public, need to look at the way we use (and misuse) the NHS. I stated that us being careful in our use of the health service was in addition to the government putting in funding.

My quote was:

I don't think its solely about funding the NHS more. I mean of course, it does need more funding, no question about that. But there also needs to be a fundamental shift in how we as the public, use the NHS. As a nurse, the amount of misuse, abuse and wastage I see is unbelievable.

I have acknowledged that more funding needs to be put in to the NHS. I don't think anyone would argue against that. However the fact of the matter that the public also need to mind how we utilise the NHS. For example, going by figures that granted, are 2-3 years old, the NHS spent approximately £4.5 million pounds on dandruff medication, shampoo which can be bought in any high street chemist. £5.5 million on mouth ulcer prescriptions, ulcers which in the majority of cases would heal themselves; in any case, such medications could be bought over the counter. £7.5 million on heartburn and indigestion remedies, again medication which can be purchased OTC. Medicines for cradle cap, diarrohea, travel sickness. The list goes on. Now in some cases, a small percentage, there will be clinical need for some of these. But in a majority of cases, folk are going to the GP and asking for these types of medications to be prescribed because they do not want to spend the money on it OTC. Yes, the GP does have a duty to say no when they don't think this is necasseary however the public also have a duty to practice self care when they can and consult a pharmacist of even one of the counter assistants who have training on which OTC medication is appropriate.

The three aforementioned prescriptions which I gave costings of have cost the NHS a combined total of £17.5 million pounds per year. Let's be very generous and say that 50% of those are prescribed to fulfil genuine clinical need and that the patient couldn't get these OTC. As I say, I'm being very generous, in reality the percentage is a lot lower. That is still almost £9 million points of unwarranted medications. That would pay 360 nurses salaries per year. 1384 knee replacements. 327 junior doctors. This isn't including the cost of providing the hundreds of thousands of GP appointments to fulfil these prescriptions. Also the cost of people subsequently turning up at A&E because they can't get a GP appointment because said appointments have been filled up unnessesarily.

You also stated in your reply to me "Yep that's what every governmnet has been telling us, putting the blame on the users rather than the funding (see at the moment, the idea that the lack of PPE is due to nurses using too much of them - similar idea)."

Well, no. It is not a similar idea. The nurses (and doctors and healthcare assistants and other AHP's and support staff) are using PPE in a way that they genuinely see fit, to protect their health, their lives, their patients and their loved ones who they come home to every night. They are using what they are using out of genuine clinical need. They are not asking for something which they shouldn't be asking for. It's not a case of they are asking for PPE willy nilly because it's free so they can use it unneccesarily. I have seen first hand that PPE is generally used appropriately. Sorry, but that is very much a false comparison to the whole public misuse of services.

I do think that there are many cases where people are undertreated in the NHS. I've experienced it myself. But I think there is a relationship between that and misuse. Perhaps medics do try and not give the most clinically appropriate treatment due to costing; in part due to the fact that gthe NHS is on the bones of its arse financially; which again is linked to my previous points.

I assume you work in frontline healthcare? Genuine question; do you honestly not think that there needs to be changes in the NHS and some of these changes (in addition to management structures, innefficient procurement etc) to include the way that we as the public use the NHS?

Improving the NHS is multi-faceted. Most of the arguments/suggestions here could be actioned simultaneously, but who would do it? Who would lead on it?

Things were about to get worse anyway, the govt had started cutting targets hadn’t they? Rather than investigate and improve to allow trusts to meet them.

I wonder if the requested 20% dept cuts will go ahead now?

the NHS spent approximately £4.5 million pounds on dandruff medication, shampoo which can be bought in any high street chemist.

My sister works in a dentists - she was always amazed at how many prescriptions are given out for flouride toothpaste - there are so many, they actually had rubber stamps made to print on the prescription pads to save them writing it down - she said they'd sit there stamping entire pads of prescription forms.

There desperately needs to be some control imposed on what the NHS are prescribing - the abuse of free prescriptions has to stop.

Perhaps everyone should have some private insurance that helps the cost of the NHS. This is what is done in much of the EU, Germany for example. It is stupid that someone actually pay for things from the NHS, apart from prescriptions
I assume you mean that it is stupid that someone actually pays nothing for things from the NHS?
I disagree. We do pay for it, in our taxes.
In your insurance model, what happens if pre-existing conditions are excluded? What happens about excesses?
Will our NI contributions or taxes be reduced to pay the insurance premiums?
Fuck to hell with that model - insurance companies are not set up for the pastoral care of its customers.
The NHS is only free at the point of use - it is not free - we pay for it.

Too many people abuse the NHS. Perhaps if everyone turning up was in true need of help then the funding may be adequate.

The NHS is unstable and has been for years thankfully the debt that was caused by increasing the huge investment under Labour has now been written off

We need to look at other countries and how they manage the superior healthcare

People claim they are happy to pay more 1p or 2p increase will do very little

My friends in Germany pay a lot lot more towards healthcare than we do but you get what you pay for

It’s unbelievable how much money is wasted, how it’s abused by patients and staff it needs to be more efficient in so many aspects

My friend sent me a message asking if I had watched Boris’s message and did it make me proud or angry. Neither it good he thanked staff and showed what I felt was genuine gratitude but it’s political waffle

Also there’s a private health care option in St Thomas hospital... I think we all know where Boris would have been.

Also there’s a private health care option in St Thomas hospital... I think we all know where Boris would have been.

No, they don't have private healthcare provision in ICU. It's fairly limited what they offer at St Thomas, but it's reinvested into the NHS care at the hospital anyway, so

I do sincerely hope that Mr Johnson wasn’t on a similar ward to the one I visited recently. I helped my mum to the toilet and I’ve seen better, cleaner public loos on trains, circa British Rail in 1976. Excrement on the door handle and clumps of soiled toilet tissue on the floor. She died from “hospital acquired infection”.

I do wish Mr Johnson continued recovery.

I think we can safely say this was NOT the PM’s experience.

Boris will say whatever it takes to get voter approval.

Actually doing it is a different matter. Has he stuffed the Cabinet and his MP supporters with people who are in favour of good public services? Who have supported the NHS during the last ten years of Conservative governments? I think not.

Perhaps he will adopt more policies from the opposition in order to court popularity.

@PigletJohn 😊. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, following his experience, Mr Johnson had some kind of epiphany? He became a socially responsible PM who looked at distribution of wealth to enable a fairer society. Work was rewarded with fair pay. Fair pay. Not minimum wage gig economy ethics. Where he looked at things like the north south divide and the link between poverty/poor mental health and shorter life span. Where you knew, that if you voted for him he had your back.

If...

He said it’s powered by love.... and love is free so the answer is likely to be no....

Come the end of the year the NHS will be sold to the highest bidder as part of the Brexit shit storm.