If everyone was taxed an extra pound, would that save the NHS?

[EddyF]

Might be a silly question but if you don’t ask, you don’t learn!

I have just a post elsewhere (not MN) where people are discussing their wait time to be seen at A&E and it’s quite shocking.

I think people would be In favour of paying a slight tax increase of a minimal amount such as £1/1.50 from tax to try and fix the NHS. Is this unrealistic?

I have attended a hospital in the US, and the experience was such a stark contrast to the feel of hospitals here. I know obviously because the US is not ‘free’ like the NHS. I just remember it being like a spa service.

Ok thanks for breakdown

If most is picked up by insurer would you say you’re paying in more overall than in U.K.? For similar income level (no need to disclose obvs)

Probably hard to compare.

I’m wondering when people say French system is better wjo is paying more generally to make it so. I’m assuming those on higher income pay more than we do? Maybe middle income too.

It also might be possible to make changes to same fee level without structure change to insurance system etc

But people need to know fee changes. It’s a bit opaque - what would be required

www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-nhs

It costs 192 billion to run the nhs (and this is 2019 data so it is likely more now)

If this 2019 figure was split equally between the 32million tax payers then it would be £6000 a year each.

On charges generally, I’m not sure. The points below make sense but other countries do have them.

Many posts praising other systems but often the thing they have in common is a charge.

But we get what we vote for.
The people who voted for this can own it, 100% their fault, they 'knew what they voted for'.

But the problem appears to be, they can't.

"It's just as bad in other countries!" (not)

"It was just as bad under Labour!" (not)

"It can never work because it never has!" (not)

The NHS needs reform. Endlessly chucking money at it never has improved much over many decades.

Ideally, a cross party reform.

Many complain about inefficiencies in the NHS, so we have a £xx charge for various services, then claim it back - how admin heavy (costly) is that?
Or we operate an exemptions system but that hits people just above the cut offs.

We need a long term fully funded plan, on equipment buildings and staff - can't happen though because one party wants rid and the other doesn't.

But until we get this, we will be forever throwing money at firefighting short term fixes and Cons under funding when they are in and Labour trying to fix the issues when they get in.

Tories also need to own the mess the NHS is in, they have been in power for much of the last 75 years and gave us Brexit which has led directly to less care and health staff.

@helford

Many complain about inefficiencies in the NHS, so we have a £xx charge for various services, then claim it back - how admin heavy (costly) is that?

Each NHS trust already has an army of pen pushers doing exactly that. It's the "internal market" where everything is "charged" for by the provider to the trust and the trust claims (or uses grants) from the Govt to pay them.

It's also exactly like that for dentists, pharmacists, opticians, etc., who charge the patient £x and the NHS £y for NHS services/items.

Our local NHS trust has an office block called the "business centre" where all this happens.

Extending it to patients paying for more things really shouldn't be much of an issue as the infrastructure etc is already in place and has been for decades now.

You'd just be basically extending the existing systems used by dentists, opticians and pharmacies to other areas of the NHS.

Cross party reform will never happen. Both main parties use the NHS for political purposes at every General Election, arguable Labour are worse, so Labour will never give up the NHS as an electioneering bargaining chip.

Compared to where? Not the rest of the continent we live on, that's for sure.

Labour aren't worse, whatever that means, they just recognise the NHS is popular and seems to strain under long tory governments. Of course it's political, how could it not be.

But we don't pay up front and then claim back do we?

On labour and the NHS, well Labour did form the NHS and they seem to genuinely value it, i ve yet to find books written by Labour MPs wanting to get rid of it.

The Cons on the other hand say they value it but do the opposite, as you say large parts are privatised via the internal market which seems to get bigger and bigger, even our local trust uses a privatised company to "sell" them medical aids such as wheelchairs and crutches.

Perhaps the private servicing companies are quicker and more responsive to requests for equipment. I realise that it's anathema to anyone under 40, but there were reasons that whole industries were privatised in the 80s and 90s. I see posters seeking the renationalisation of the railways, and I know they are under 35. British Rail managed demand for services by pricing demand off the railway. I was explicitly told this by a senior British Rail executive. I probably still have the taped recording.

@MarshaBradyo

Hi

If most is picked up by insurer would you say you’re paying in more overall than in U.K.? For similar income level (no need to disclose obvs)
Probably hard to compare.

I had seen your question, gave it some thought and you are right, it's hard to objectively compare so I might have to "pass"..sorry.

90% of people claim free prescriptions, including some people who have paracetamol or ibuprofen on prescription.

Maybe if more people paid for them, and didn't claim what are very cheap drugs, then that might be a start.

But tbh the whole system is a bureaucratic mess.

Most people who have paracetamol in prescription do so because they can’t buy it from shops in high enough amounts.

What gets me is that supermarkets are so organised and efficient. Everything just works, even the on line. There is so much the NHS could learn from them.

So change the system for this that need it. Just don't give it away at taxpayer expense.

Yet europe did not privatise whole industries as the UK did and they have cheaper and better services. ... 78% UK beaches fail WQ standards, 13% French ones (these are channel coast beaches)

The only industry i can see that benefited (the consumer) from privatisation was telecoms but even that is misleading, we already had a vibrant private telecoms manufacturing sector, GEC, Plessey, Racal, Cable&Wireless, Marconi/GEC.... World leading, allowed to be sold off (i worked for Plessey & GEC) now after 35 years of privatisation... what have we got left?

The GPO was not a manufacturer and anyone who thinks OpenReach is better than what we had is living in another world..... they are terrible.... operate a monopoly and do nothing on preventative measures.... every tried ringing them? or asking them to move a line or cut a dangerous tree?

ALL the equipment used to get on line or in data centres is provided by foreign suppliers.

On BR... talk about missing the point, it was a state owned industry IF a senior executive (did they even have them) told you that, it was the govt's policy to do so

BTW have you seen the price of a rail journey now in the UK ? now subject to another 6% increase.

Its 90% of prescriptions issued NOT 90% of people exempt.

Thats because most people getting drugs are over 65, you'd need to remove free prescriptions from the elderly.

Don't know how you would allow people safely to get large amounts of paracetamol from a supermarket etc.

You can buy packs of a hundred from the pharmacist.

Same difference on the 90%.

And @Lorrymum has addressed your supermarket issue...

As far as i'm aware, most prescriptions for paracetamol are written up by doctors who give them to patients in hospital, which is what they did for me when i reacted badly to oramorph.

Do you really think GPs stopping paracetamol prescriptions will save the NHS ?

@Alexandra2001 Europe chose to subsidise rail travel, and the main idea of UK privatisation was to make the users pay the costs rather than the taxpayer, who might not use trains at all. I was working for Network Rail, who ran the physical assets, stations, rails, bridges and tunnels, and the CEO, who had been a big cheese in BR infrastructure for 30 odd years told me that with a completely straight face.

I do agree that water privatisation has been a total f*ckup, and that the rules about acquiring utility companies technically their income streams were badly framed. But governments, not just Tory ones, allowed overseas companies who were mostly heavily regulated in their domestic market to buy them to profit from better margins in the UK. I saw BAA sold to the Spanish under a Labour government, as an example.

You may question my credentials for my opinions: in those days my job was mostly writing their annual reports, to shareholders and everyone else with an interest in the subject. Every word I wrote was approved and signed off by lawyers and accountants. I interviewed the people I ghosted statements for right up to Rupert Murdoch.

Nope, butvas you say 90% of prescriptions are free. That adds up.

@XingMing No i'm not questioning your credentials, i was questioning that you had a taped recording.,.. from a BR executive... not a NR one... maybe you do but the fact remains is that BR's pricing for fares would have been a Govt decision and we also subsidise railways, £billions but still have europes most expensive rail.

BA was privatised in 1987, under Thatcher, as you'd know... but as with most industries, once privatised, no Govt has the means to re nationalise or dictate who goes on to own them unless national security is at risk, not that that has stopped the Tories.

An airline however is one of the things that should not be state owned... it matters little who owns it, there is huge competition and they don't get subsidy, not so in water, rail, electricity/gas, council services.. etc

We have allowed it to go on for too long and too far at the expense of a secure manufacturing base and now as we all realise in controlling pricing.... produce 50% of our own gas but its totally priced by an external market.