People would be happy to pay more tax if it went directly to the NHS

[Blackcats7]

I think people would be happy to pay more tax if it was guaranteed to go to the NHS.

Thanks for the 'education', but I have had first hand experience (which is why I said 'experience' in my post!) of private healthcare (inpatient for 5 weeks) in an emergency when, frankly, the NHS wasn't there for me. The treatment I received - for the monthly payment of £70 - saved my life. I'd use it again in a heartbeat.

That's ridiculous. I'm sure that many people were waiting on the list who could have been contacted if hospital had been advised unable to attend. It demoralising for staff and potentially life threatening for other patients, whose appointments will be pushed back to accommodate another appointment for these time wasters

I would love to know peoples solution to this, but I suspect it will be some vague comments about the NHS and the Tories rather than about people taking responsibility for their own actions.

The whole thing isn’t “a complete fucking shambles”. I’ve had three outpatient appointments this year to investigate chest pain. Every one of them has been on time, efficient and friendly. The drawback was having to wait six months for the first appointment but it’s the only thing I could fault. My Echocardiogram was over so quickly I qualified for 30 minutes free parking.

The DNA rate across the NHS is 10%, NOT 60%.

People don't turn up for a variety of reasons, missed the bus/public transport failures, traffic jams, couldn't park, illness, hospital transport let them down.....forgot..... or couldn't get through to cancel appoint.

Its obviously not the Tories fault though.

I thought 1 in 10 is quite low.

No junior doctors do want to be GPs. The training places are not available. There is only training for one in four junior doctors who apply.

So our young doctors have to go to Australia if they want to work in medicine. Whilst we import trained specialists from abroad. Go figure.

"the whole thing is a complete fucking shambles and I would deeply resent paying a single penny more towards it until its systemic problems are seriously looked at and addressed.

If this is not done it's just throwing good money after bad."

Can you link me to the evidence you've seen from healthcare research that you've looked at showing that the NHS is specifically more wasteful of its resources than other healthcare systems? Also explain your awareness of current schemes working to improve procurement.

Because the evidence from healthcare research that I've seen suggests that refusing to address the fallout of a decades worth of under funding is contributing to a ballooning public health catastrophe that's not only damaging to the future functioning of the NHS, but to UK productivity and the economy. For the want of a nail etc.

Suggest you look at this article about a 2011 study about how the NHS was functioning under New Labour and ask what's changed between then and now, other than 14 years of increasing private sector involvement in delivering NHS healthcare and in running the service.

www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most-efficient-health-services#:~:text=The%20NHS%20is%20one%20of,the%20Royal%20Society%20of%20Medicine.

@Alexandra2001

I can assure you that I am genuinely posting in good faith.

Spending more money on the NHS on the face of it looks like a solution except there isn't any more money available unless of course you cut spending in other areas such as education.

Labour increased NI to 12% in 2010 to fix the NHS but it clearly hasn't. Yes more money does increase supply of healthcare services but whilst it remains free at the point of use this does nothing to manage demand.

"the whole thing is a complete fucking shambles and I would deeply resent paying a single penny more towards it until its systemic problems are seriously looked at and addressed."

My 19 year old had grossly abnormal results on a routine blood test in January last year. Within a week he was sitting in front of a consultant haematologist getting a diagnosis of chronic myeloid leukaemia, and a week on from that was under the care of a top consultant at the Royal Marsden specialising in leukaemia. His cancer care has been absolutely outstanding and I can't fault it.

If you were in my son's or my situation I guarantee you wouldn't be arguing against continuing to underfund the NHS on the grounds that it's 'inefficient'.

Gah , should have read 'you wouldn't be arguing for the continued under funding of the NHS'.

@Papyrophile

That's a 60% no-show rate. If that does not indicate a lack of respect for other people's time and taxes, then I don't know where you'd draw the line.

You can't say it's "lack of respect" unless you've analysed the reasons. Some hospital appointments are virtually impossible to cancel because the phone number on the letter is never answered or always diverts to answerphone or is out of service. Some people may be too ill to attend. Some may be elderly who simply forget. Until we have a streamlined and easy to use appointment booking/cancellation service, you can't say it's lack of respect.

I know that I've cancelled appointments in the past and then subsequently been subject to the third degree about why I failed to attend - the receptionist had simply not cancelled the appointment properly. At one, the doctor clearly didn't believe I'd cancelled until I asked her to check the system to see a new date had been booked for the same procedure - which couldn't have happened if I hadn't cancelled the first one - the new booking was done at the same time in the same phone call with the same person!

Of course there is money, NI has been cut from 12% to 8%, that will cost the Govt 20 billion.

The NHS was was in a far better state in 2010 than it is now (or even pre pandemic)

I don't agree with just handing out more and more money with zero idea how to spend it or, most importantly, how long will it be available for.

But money buys scanners, trains more staff..... it pays social care workers more, it fixes leaky buildings but atm the GOvt is throwing £500m at winter AE pressures without addressing the underlying causes - medically fit people still taking up bed spaces on the ward.

I think the NHS needs more than just "more money", but I agree with the general idea that I'm happy to pay more tax if it improves services (including education, police etc).

Those that cancel due to illness, are a little late arent in these figures.

Interesting that 10% DNA rate feels low - thats 700,000 appts missed per month. Over 7 million people per year who then have to wait longer to be seen because other people haven't shown up

And I take on point of struggling to get through to cancel, that is an issue. In my service its really easy, we have a direct number and an email address to cancel. Many patients have my own email address and work mobile. But still do not cancel

@taxguru "The private firms have obviously decided that the investment produces a large enough payback. If a private firm can do it, why can't the NHS do it and make a profit to re-invest in other NHS services? It's just political dogma holding it back."

The private companies cherrypick the profitable services - they have no interest in anything or anyone who is not a source of profit.

Why can't the NHS charge and make a profit? - because that is not the purpose of a taxation-funded service that is supposed to provide a universal service to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. Despite what the Free Market Conservatives will have people believe, "profit" is not the only measure of success - and in many cases it is an entirely inappropriate measure.

Anyway, your proposal that people pay a little more for a better service is actually the point of the original question. The difference is that you seem to be willing to pay more, but only if it benefits you personally - you don't want to share the burden of increased investment in healthcare with everyone else by paying a bit more in tax (or into a ringfenced fund as is usual in Europe).

You might want to ponder that the direction that the UK is taking is away from universal healthcare to a two-tier system akin to the American system. This is no coincidence - American interests see the provision of private healthcare in the UK as a huge goldmine waiting to be exploited and have spent millions trying to influence politicians. A quarter of Americans owe over €10,000 in medical debt - this is after their insurance policies have paid for some of the treatments. 55% of Americans have medical debt - the average is well over €2,000. These are just the people who have actually decided to have treatment. There are millions who have decided not to be treated at all simply because they cannot afford the cost.

Think about this when Hunt tells you that he's "given" the average person £450 in NI reductions - the price of which is longer waiting lists, crumbling hospitals, outdated equipment, hundreds of thousands of unfilled vacancies in healthcare and social care etc. (But it was nice of him to reduce CGT on second homes, given that he owns so many that he forgot to declare them all).

The NHS doesn’t need more money, it needs a complete overhaul to bring it up to the modern age. Proper completely linked computer systems across all departments in all areas of the country, efficient patient led care. It needs streamlining.

The NHS doesn't have sufficient money for day to day operations - i.e just to keep functioning.

Where do you propose that the millions needed for "Proper completely linked computer systems..." should come from? By the way, this has been proposed on multiple occasions - years ago the government spaffed millions on NPFIT, which all of the major suppliers ran away from and which collapsed under the weight of the disagreements between the NHS, Ministers, medical professionals, numerous lobby groups and the IT companies and business consultants as to what such a system should be capable of and who should "own" it and the information contained in it.

Agreed, the NHS does need to be improved, particularly in the use of IT and a change in some of the working practices where in many cases it is still rooted in the 1940's. Buildings, facilities and equipment also need to be improved, but this too requires money. Money that various governments have put off spending, forgetting that the time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining and hoping against hope that these capital assets will keep going "just a little bit longer" - which is OK until the day arrives when the equipment is beyond repair, the buildings no longer suitable for modern equipment or the roof quite literally crumbles and falls down onto the heads of the staff and patients.

Yes, happy to pay more for the NHS.

It's wrong it just goes to the NHS first. I think with an aging population, we cannot ask the working population to fully fund it. Look at the numbers coming up. It wil have to be a partially private system. Look at Australia and Germany. (And possibly many other co-funding models)

The issue I have with this, as someone coming up to 60, is that I have been contributing to a system for the last 44 years, since starting work, that has been free at the point of contact including for older people.
Are you suggesting that those of us who have continuously contributed (I have never not worked) have to pay more now because we are older even though we have been funding it for others before us?
No sireee, I cannot agree with that model.

And how do you think that’s going to happen without investment?

I’m just trying to imagine the labyrinthine bureaucracy the NHS would put in place if the decision was made to charge for eg GP appointments & how much it would cost. I’d be amazed if administering a charge like that didn’t end up costing more than the money it brought in

As long as it's cost neutral, it doesn't need to show a profit. If it means fewer people miss appointments, that's a big win on it's own. It's similar to why an improved appointment booking/cancelling system is needed. The fewer missed appointments means more patients being seen/treated quicker.

Bitter experience of working with the NHS on projects suggests it wouldn’t be cost neutral partly because their IT system are antiquated and don’t talk to each other

its symptomatic of the wider problems around an IT infrastructure that is utterly unfit for purpose combined with total aversion to risk meaning everything comes with massive unnecessary layers of activity

There’s no way it would be cost neutral.

But how much of an improvement would it really mean? its 90% attendance as it is, 100% would be impossible, 95% would be great.

But in terms of maternity care, slow cancer diags, lack of staff, lack of equipment, crumbling buildings, poor IT, random social care & an increasingly older population... what material difference would it make?

Isn’t this the problem also. It’s always been free so everyone who’s ever paid it wants it to remain free because I paid for those before me. Bit like the rise in pension age pisses everyone off.

But that’s still very much of well as long as I get it screw Those behind me too.

With a few tweaks the nhs could be better. Even if that is charging nominal amounts for certain things or as someone else has posted offering as such upgraded so those who can and want it.

The other option is eventually those paying now or in 10 years time or whatever has still eventually paid for those above for it to end up not existing for them.

We don’t pay for our use my Ni pays for those using it and we hope it still exists when we need it, but with a smaller population of those working vs the elderly needing more and there’s a big problem unless there is change.