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.

Yes, I would be happy to make an affordable extra monthly payment that would go directly to the NHS.

I hope it would go to part of the “in-house” service, not to an area that’s been outsourced to a private healthcare company, which just happens to make a lot of money for a Tory MP and/or a Tory donor.

I seem to remember that Gordon Brown made a massive hike in tobacco tax once with the proceeds ringfenced for the NHS. I wonder what happened to that?

Same place as his extra hikes in NIC to "save the NHS"

He did save the NHS. I was musing about what the Tories are doing with that money.

In the same way he "cured" the GP crisis by offering them more money for less work. That worked well too!

He didn't "cure" anything - he just put some expensive sticking plasters over gaping wounds!

we pay so much towards the NHS as it is, its a money pit and throwing more money at it has never solved the biggest problems. I would be happy to pay more for preventative health care including a proper GP service, this is where we are supposed to catch things before they become a big problem. I think people need to take better care of themselves so we don't need to depend so much on the NHS for illness and disease that is actually preventable.

I’m not arguing with ignorance @taxguru. The stats on the waiting times 1997 to 2010 are all freely available.

@BIossomtoes

But the increase in NI by Gordon Brown to save the NHS occurred in 2010.

Needless to say your graph clearly shows that waiting times came down between 1997 and 2010 under Labour when incidentally the tax burden was a lot lower than it is now.

So in short what has changed is that taxation has gone up but public services have got worse.

The key difference between now and then are:
Social Protection (mostly state pensions) increased from 194 billion to 342
Health from 122 to 245
Education from 89 to 131
Debt interest payments from 44 to 116

My opinion is that the government needs to spend less on state pensions, reform the NHS but with no more money , spend a lot more on education and get the debt levels down.

But given that young people don't vote and reducing debt is not a voter priority I am pretty sure this is never going to happen.

So in short what has changed is that taxation has gone up but public services have got worse.

Indeed. The key difference is a change of government. What we need is a government that spends our money on public services we all use instead of pissing it away on completely pointless new railway lines and abortive attempts to ship asylum seekers off to Rwanda. I could weep at the money this lot’s wasted.

@BIossomtoes

You are right about HS2 which has cost £60 billion. However the Rwanda scheme has only cost £20 million to achieve nothing.

Not according to the National Audit Office.

As widely reported by news media, the NAO's analysis shows that the Rwanda scheme could cost well in excess of £500 million.

Far too many people think the issues with the NHS could be solved by "reforming it" without increasing spending. The UK's health system is creaking because we spend less per person on healthcare, not because of "waste". Any health system has waste. Ours is better than many (looking at you, USA). Frankly, it's a miracle things aren't even worse than they are.

To match the amount spent per person in France we'd need to spend an extra £40bn every year, an increase of 21%. To match Germany we'd have to spend an extra £73bn - a 39% increase. Imagine what that sort of money would buy. Every town and city could have an extra hospital!

https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/how-does-uk-health-spending-compare-across-europe-over-the-past-decade

I agree.
I can't believe how many people have swallowed the 'it needs reform not more money' bollocks.

I doubt many people don't think it needs reform, including those that work in the NHS. If you're happy with the level of service it provides, fair enough.

I'm not, much of it is shocking and akin to a third world country. Yes, reform costs money but I'd happily part pay to see a GP or consultant as they do in other countries.

It's not coincidental that our peers don't have the equivalent of the NHS. It's not a sustainable system with the demographic challenge of an ageing population and crippling public debt.

I work in it at present in a relatively senior position and I can tell you 100% it needs total reform having worked outside it most of my career. Anyone coming in would be shocked at the level of inefficiency and many hospitals the utterly poor state of IT, ie many still in paper files for patient records and not having a proper electronic patient record system. You would also be amazed at how many staff are utterly IT illiterate.
The Consultant contract is farcical as to how much actual clinical care they deliver.

Even considering putting money into this archaic monolith before it is reformed is I'm sad to say just throwing money down the drain. The only time I see efforts to improve efficiency is when the budgets get tight, which they have now the Covid river of cash has dried up

HS2 planning started under Labour! The Tories just rolled with it.

Lol!

Labour first suggested HS2 just months before leaving office.... "just rolled with it" FFS!
Construction didn't start until 10 years later in 2020.

The waste that is HS2 is ALL down to Tory mismanagement, £26bn poured away, then abandoned.

Even considering putting money into this archaic monolith before it is reformed is I'm sad to say just throwing money down the drain.

You can’t reform without investment. Any attempt to modernise and improve needs money. The sharpest entrepreneur will tell you that. It’s interesting that anyone who wants “reform” is in favour of a part privatised model, ie higher investment. All the countries held up as examples that do better spend much more on healthcare than we do.

Yet again...... international comparisons by the Kings fund, show the NHS to be better than most health systems in terms of efficiency....

I worked for 3 trusts across the south of England (in data installation) not one had paper records.... patient notes and charts are still often done on paper and written up later ( implement a digital solution is very expensive but it is happening) but thats NOT the records, which you re saying is still in place... i'd have thought you'd know the difference.

Yesterday, when asked by my travel insurance company to phone my GP to clarify exactly what infection i had had, i could instantly access my medical records on-line.

My last contract was with a private defence company, the waste and inefficiency is way beyond anything in the NHS, look at the 2 privately built Aircraft carriers or Trident/Lockheed and missile failures.

This! Plus reform takes time and money

simple example - falls currently cost NHS 2.3 billion. We know that targeted exercise programmes reduce Falls by 23%

however we can’t fund the targeted exercise programmes because we’re spending all the money on acute care to repair the damage caused by falls - new hips etc

in order to reduce that 2.3 billion in the long term we need to fund both the acute care and the preventative exercise programmes in parallel for a few years until the impact of the exercise programmes start to be felt and then we can gradually reduce spend in acute. That’s means more money not less in short term with a view to longer term reduced spending

real genuine reform and a shift from acute to prevention takes time & money, neither of which is popular or a quick fix

I hope Labour get at least two terms, because I think it’s unlikely they can turn the NHS round in less than ten years. Also, things might get worse before they start to improve.

In a decade 1 in 11 will be employed by the NHS, it really is massuve

I do wonder how Labour will do it with no PFi or global boom based on high risk exposure

And increasing older population with complex care needs

Labour are going to have radically change the NHS "internal markets" the amount of private sector involvement is both v costly and wasteful.... look at Frank Hesters TPP contract? £135m with a 47m return on this, he personally made over £20m.

Our trust has, for whatever reason, outsourced community healthcare and MH services to a private company, yet the same NHS staff move between this company and the trust... its pointless, just end up with duplicate HR and other management/IT structures...all costing money.

There also needs to be a long term strat on preventative care and stop this "throwing money" at an issue i.e "Winter Pressures...." bonkers the gOvt withdrew flu jabs for people in their 50s and 60s.

Without the EU's FOM, the NHS is increasingly reliant on Developing world healthcare staff, so how on earth are we going to get Nurses & other AHPs?

The 1 in 11 figure is only IF the Govt's workforce plan targets are met & given the the vacancy rate in the NHS and poor staff retention, thats hardly likely.

It took six years last time to eliminate waits of more than 12 months - and that was keeping to the Tory spending plans for the first two years. Reform of the 2012 Health Act and eliminating the costly and unnecessary tendering process and private provision of services would definitely be a good starting point.

Labour had the advantage of FOM and a ready supply of EU AHP's with good English and equivalent qualifications.

We chose to rid ourselves of this workforce.