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.

@poetryandwine the HMO model used in the US works well. I was a member of one as it was an (inexpensive) option for staff at the pension and insurance company where I worked. Israel's health system has four national HMOs which compete with one another. Their menus vary slightly, but all cover the basic stuff.

@BungleandGeorge Your right of course that the real figures are far more complex. Perhaps you could share some data that shows the average annual cost of conditions that could be privately treated?

No because it would just be wasted like all the other hundreds of millions the NHS pisses away every year; taxis to take forgotten medicines to patients after discharge anyone? Thrown out walking frames after being used once? Bank staff paid twice or three times the amount of regular nurses? The waste is eye watering

Yep, same with my OH and his cancer treatment. 3 different trusts inc the GP and two different hospitals. None of them communicate with eachother. He had to have whole body x-rays, MRI scans, CT scans, and bone marrow samples taken by each of the hospitals as they didn't "share" results between them. That's in addition to the x-rays and scans organised by the GP surgery prior to cancer diagnosis. Same with blood tests, GP wants a monthly blood test for the drugs they prescribe, hospital want a monthly one for the drugs they prescribe and a different part of the same hospital want a monthly blood test for his monthly infusion! Once he broke a bone in his foot, and had his foot x-rayed three times, once by the GP, then by the oncology dept and finally by othopaedics. Then you get them arguing between themselves as to who is responsible for prescribing, say, a supplement or vitamin - OH has had times when the oncologist has said he needed, say, iron or calcium supplement, and told him to go to his GP for them, only for the GP to do a blood test and "decide" that the levels are within tolerance and no prescription needed, so OH has to go back to oncologist, and so it goes on. They simply won't communicate and it's down to the patient to try to organise which inevitable means duplicated tests.

I remember the time he was first "referred" to the second hospital. (Our local do chemotherapy but not surgery, so referred him to one about 2 hours away for the surgery). The consultant at hospital 2 opened his file at our first appointment and there was only a one page letter basically introducing OH and confirming the diagnosis - absolutely zilch in the way of test results, x-ray/scan imaging results, not even blood tests. That first consultation was a waste of time as the consultant had nothing to work with, all he could do was order more tests at his hospital! I'd at least have thought that a referral would have included copies of test results!

Lack of funding is not crippling the NHS. The money is spent on tiers and tiers of management structure. There are so many chiefs being paid way over £150k each for stupid things whilst nurses on the front line suffer unimaginable stress and shortages. Some operations, mostly cosmetic, costing lots of money should be banned on NHS. Breast enhancement, breast reduction, breast removal, circumcision, gender reassignment should all only take place for purely medical reasons not social or cultural reasons. Patients should buy their own food. A person needs to buy food if home or in hospital so should not expect to get food provided for free. It is a National Heath Service not National cafe. Staff should be better paid but at any one time up to 1/3 of staff are off sick at any one time. Sick pay should be less because clearly some staff are constantly off on sick with out sick notes as lots of short sick time off less than a week each time so never have to produce sick note.

It might not fix everything, but that money could be ring fenced for say, A&E or maternity care

There is a lot of health tourism in A&E and in Maternity.

Maybe sort out that first?

I'm a HCP and I think the NHS is failing and it won't exist very soon for adults. The main reason is we have a massively aging population and medicine is becoming more sophisticated. When the NHS was founded people spent less time in poor health and typically died quickly. Now you might have someone needing intensive support for 10 years now before death. It wasn't designed for what it's expected to do, we are going to have to look at alternative funding models which doesn't mean the US style.

*That can't be right.

Your first grand or so a month should be subject to no tax as it's below the personal allowance. You're basically being taxed 50% on the remainder which should be basic rate*

Definitely how much my deductions are altogether!

When my Mum died in took her walking frame and 2 walking sticks back to hospital as in perfectly good condition. I was told they will be disposed of. I was shocked they won't be reissued to someone else. They could easily be sterilised. This sort of waste is rife in NHS.

A doctors view on whther the nhs had too many manager A doctors view on nhs management

Yep, OH is the same, he jokes it's almost a full time job to organise his almost weekly blood tests, arrange drugs to be issued/collected (both hospital and GP), arrange infusion/treatment appointments, etc, and then chase up when things aren't done properly, re-arrange cancelled appointments, etc. He really can't see how confused/elderly patients manage. Basically he has to arrange it all himself because no one else within the NHS will do it. When it's something really important like long term cancer and lifetime chemotherapy, you'd think it would all be done automatically within the NHS as literally every 4 week cycle is the same, but he has to phone to organise everything and often has to explain to them what he needs and why it needs to be specific dates etc. To make things worse, they won't allow him to make regular bookings and he can only ever book "the next" date so that just means multiple phone calls to various depts every 4 weeks, taking up their time too, when the simpler option would be a recurring appointment, same place, same time, every 4 weeks, but apparently the NHS "diary" can't do that!

Over 500 managers earn over £100k each year.

Precisely the situation I'm in, but with a different diagnosis. It's just unbelievable.

The only way I could describe is if you went into a shoe shop and you had to have you feet measured for every different shoe in the shop! It's fucking ridiculous. The scans, the mris, the echos, the ct scans, the bloods, the ecgs, NONE OF THEM are shared. So I now have 3 hospital trusts addressing the same issue, with only the information gleaned from their individual trusts at their disposal.

I'm now having to carry every test result with me everywhere. It's utterly ridiculous. It's a duplication and triplication of services. FFS. One test is enough! I don't need three!

The poster said "deductions", but you started talking about tax. I merely pointed out that "deductions" are more than just tax.

I reckon we'd need to double the overall NHS budget to get it to a standard our population would be happy with. It's currently around £200 billion. To double it, all 32 million taxpayers would need to pay an extra £52 a month tax.

I moved abroad to an EU country over 20 years ago. When I first moved I felt that the NHS was far better than in my new country but in the last two decades, the health service where I live has innovated a lot. It's still far from perfect (and I'm not bashing the UK, I love the UK!) but certain aspects work far better here. My parents are in England and they still get appointments sent by post, often they arrive too late. The other day my dad got an appointment he wasn't expecting with a consultant he saw 5 years ago. After numerous phone calls, nobody could tell him what it was for. He turned up as he didn't want to be counted as absent only for the consultant to berate him for wasting his time! Apparently it was an admin error (how??) Here I have an electronic medical folder on my phone and I can book my own appointments directly once my GP has approved/recommended them. My prescriptions are sent directly there too. Unfortunately the NHS needs,a massive overhaul. I just hope the next government will make it a priority.

There is an alternative and many countries work with a different system. Not the US system. A system that is tiered where the basic level of care is free and is on a par with the NHS and then if you can afford private healthcare, you pay for it and you take the pressure off the NHS.

Nothing will save the NHS, its all part of the plan. The NHS doesn't have a budget, it IS the budget- it is designed to make you all sick (by lying to you about what you should eat and by piling medication on you,meds which cause new diseases) so that the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies are lined.

If you really want to 'save the NHS' or even your own health you should switch off the TV and media and do some research into whats going on around you. Stop eating carbs and processed food. Stop drinking tap water unless you've filtered it, stop running to the doctor everytime your nose runs. Stop believing the 'virus' and contagion lies and start taking responsibility for your own health.

"The Contagion Myth" book is a good place to start.

If you're doing what the NHS or government are telling you, you're a hypocrite.

Not in other countries it's not! Stop peddling this nonsense!

What models do you have in mind, @Fifi00 ? I am no fan of the traditional American insurance model, but what I described is, as @XingMing said, an HMO. It has much in common with the very successful French and German systems.

Very interested in your thoughts

No, I mention what I imagine are several million £1 letters every year. And it's just one example of one inefficiency. Plus, it's not £1, it's £1 plus the staff costs of sending them out
But £1 per patient say is much less than the cost of 1 missed appointment. If out of 100 patients, 2 will not missed their appointment because they got a letter, than it's a cost benefit.

Still 1 million compared to 1 billion is not very comparable.

@Hereeverysaturdaynight - it is extremely expensive in the UK and the US.

Ten years ago, 44000 spent in London. Insurance paid.

Please tell my colleagues in the US private medicine is cheap. They will laugh at you.

They should make rich pensioners pay NI. They probably haven't contributed enough for their care especially if they develop Dementia. Theresa May did try but the press started shouting Dementia tax. I work in an organic ward for complex dementias , brain injury one of our beds costs the NHS at least 10,000 a week. It's far from cheap.

Australian which is a mixed system of state and private and Singapore.

Or better still, scrap NIC and increase income tax so everyone pays based on income, not where that income comes from, nor their age. OAPS with low incomes probably won't pay any more, but an OAP with an income of £50k would pay the same as a worker with an income of £50k which is only fair - why should a pensioner with high income pay less tax than a worker on a lower income?