To wonder why the government don't increase taxes to fund the NHS better?

[Smolgoose]

From a lot of threads on here recently about lack of being able to access healthcare, and my own anecdotal experiences, it seems like the NHS is in a worse crisis than ever, and not able to cope with the demands upon it.

This thread is definately not about individual NHS staff, but about the whole system generally.

Why don't the government increase taxation to increase NHS funding? It wouldn't solve some issues such as the shortage of staff, but funding could be also funneled into increasing the number of people trained.

A lot of people think we are heading down a privitisation route, but as far as I know the government have not yet floated the idea of changing free at the point of service.

The track record is that the last time the NHS had a meaningful increase in funding around 2000 it improved exponentially. I’m not buying the “It’s shit” argument. Undoubtedly some people have poor experiences but that’s essentially because there are staff shortages - there are 40,000 nurse vacancies alone. How do you train and employ more staff unless you put more money in?

I would just get private care thanks. so happy to have my taxes reduced in this case.

If we signed up to Biden’s global tax plan we could use the extra money gleaned from the big corporation for the NHS.

Don’t think the gov will have the guts to do it though.

*corporations

I would be willing to pay more in taxes to fund the NHS specifically but only when big corporations like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Vodafone blah blah blah pay fairer taxes. The expectation that they can have an educated, healthy workforce, a police service, roads and infrastructure etc but pay as little as they can get away 'legally' with is disgusting.

When they pay more I will happily pay more.

And when Labour were in power they overspent on other areas rather than choosing to fund the NHS properly so it is not only a Tory issue

You are wrong, the tories have been in power for the last 11 years, wtf has Labour got to do with it now?

But Labour doubled spending on NHS for 5 straight years, to make up for the under funding by the tories in the previous 18 years.
By 2007, waiting lists had all but disappeared.

@Sirius99

nocoolnamesleft We’re would the government get the extra money from to fund the NHS (140 billion and rising) what other service would suffer to fund the NHS, How much money Pa does the NHS need ?

Tighten loopholes on tax avoidance, increase tax for big corporations, stop funding HS2 and the new London transport initiative, get money back that was wasted on track and trace and all the money they handed to their mates for COVID contracts. Stop PM pay rises and claims for expenses.

I agree, they need to make the NHS more efficient. I would pay more tax if I thought it was going directly into the NHS or on pay rises for staff on the ground.

Also agree, we seem to have enough money for other things when we need it. Ie the billions spent on covid shows that.

@imforourfreedomback

I would just get private care thanks. so happy to have my taxes reduced in this case.

Which would be all fine and dandy until your health needs were too complex for the private sector. I imagine you’d want the NHS to swoop to your rescue then.

I would happily pay more taxes for funding the NHS, but also for improved and more subsidised early years provision.

People are selfish. They don’t want to pay more tax.
Quite frankly I think the NHS needs to re think in who gets what. There seem to be people who abuse the system and others who can’t get treatment.

@Onlinedilema

People are selfish. They don’t want to pay more tax. Quite frankly I think the NHS needs to re think in who gets what. There seem to be people who abuse the system and others who can’t get treatment.

I wouldn't mind paying more tax but I only earn £9 an hour, it's a struggle for a lot of people on minimum wage, they can't really afford to pay more tax. That's not selfish.

Not wanting to pay more tax isn’t selfish, it’s sensible. We’re paying tax into a system that isn’t working, paying more won’t fix that!

I wouldn't mind paying more tax but I only earn £9 an hour, it's a struggle for a lot of people on minimum wage, they can't really afford to pay more tax. That's not selfish.

This.

@TheWordWomanIsTaken

I would be willing to pay more in taxes to fund the NHS specifically but only when big corporations like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Vodafone blah blah blah pay fairer taxes. The expectation that they can have an educated, healthy workforce, a police service, roads and infrastructure etc but pay as little as they can get away 'legally' with is disgusting.

When they pay more I will happily pay more.

This. Plus I'd pay more tax if they actually get spent correctly and not on crony contracts and MP's lunches!

@RattlesnakesUnfold

Not wanting to pay more tax isn’t selfish, it’s sensible. We’re paying tax into a system that isn’t working, paying more won’t fix that!

What will then? And if radical change is made, how will it be done without money?

@RattlesnakesUnfold

Not wanting to pay more tax isn’t selfish, it’s sensible. We’re paying tax into a system that isn’t working, paying more won’t fix that!

My in-laws are life long tories.

Now in their 70s, they need the NHS but its not there for them, so they have so far paid out £17k on 3 elective surgical procedure's.

Funnily enough they are quite so Tory now..

In the 80s and 90s the UK spent around 3% less on health than the European 15 average, that adds up to 50 to 60% less on health than our competitors.
Blair reversed some of that, the Tories cut it again over the last 11 years.

As in life, when it comes to health, spending matters, you want scanners, theatres, wards, nurses, doctors, efficient spending... all costs money, investments in training, buildings, equipment, systems and management.

I wouldn’t opt to pay more. I really hate the NHS. There’s hardly any choice of doctors, appointments or medicines. We opt out for everything we possibly can. Why pay for a service that you can’t chose who treats you?

I don't hate the NHS
They saved DD's life when she was a few weeks old, and carried out life saving cancer surgery on DH.

It is underfunded and badly run. With better funding and management it would be something to be proud of.

Why pay for a service that you can’t chose who treats you?

Maybe because when your life’s hanging in the balance you don’t care. You just want someone competent. The NHS has given me (so far) an extra 44 years of life. It’s far from perfect but there are a lot of people with reason to be very grateful for it.

We already pay around 50% on some of our income and 40% on most of our income - how much more would you like us to pay?!

@Onlinedilema

People are selfish. They don’t want to pay more tax. Quite frankly I think the NHS needs to re think in who gets what. There seem to be people who abuse the system and others who can’t get treatment.

We pay FUCK loads of tax already. And we pay NI on top of that.

@84wood

I wouldn’t opt to pay more. I really hate the NHS. There’s hardly any choice of doctors, appointments or medicines. We opt out for everything we possibly can. Why pay for a service that you can’t chose who treats you?

I think it has its good points, acute care being one of them, but for nearly everything else it's well past its sell by date. We go private as much as possible. So much that can be OTC and is in other countries is still not here, which means wasting more NHS time sourcing it.

But people worship it here like a sacred cow and even try to guilt trip and shame others into living their lives so as not to be a 'burden' on the NHS.

It’s not just about funding, it’s about it being a gigantic behemoth that is run very inefficiently.

It’s so big and clunky, too many manager who know nothing about medicine and try and fit it into a budget, rather than fitting the budget to the medicine.

Millions of reorganisations, decentralisations and privatisation that uses money for managing rather than medicine.

IT is shit, they’ve thrown so much money at it.

I worked in nhs management in the last labour government. Their actual plan was to throw loads of money at it, and prove it couldn’t improve even with increased funding. And they were right, as the excess money went to managers, new It, not to the wards and staff.

They’ve been privatising it for years. I was there in 2004-ish? - even then they were encouraging staff to form “social enterprises”, basically take themselves outside the nhs and rehire themselves back as private contractors. They ran many courses on this.

The NHS is an uncontrollable behemoth. It is the third largest employer in the WORLD, only just behind the Chinses Red Army and the Indian Railway Network. It has the second largest governmental budget, running a close second to Social Security and Pensions.

The last Labour government doubled the DHSC budget with very little effect to frontline heathcare, most was gobbled-up by simply increasing the salary of existing staff.

Subsequent re-organisations and refinancing of Health Care has been equally beneficial to those who work in the NHS - my GP drives a Maserati, not that I can make an appointment to see him !!!!.

Just inceasing the NHS budget doesn't actually achieve anything other than to swallow-up more and more mountains of cash. And that means it can't be spent elsewhere, housing for instance.

Maybe it's too big to be controlled efficiently but it would take a brave Government to even suggest putting that sacred cow out to grass !.

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