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.

Sorry but you don't know what your talking about, hence your "Get Stuffed Comment"

You think a private company, lets say Bupa with 2m policy holders, is comparable to the NHS with 70m "customers" thousands of sites, a million staff and integrates with 1000s of GP surgeries, MIU's & numerous private out sourced companies is comparable?

I get letters from also sorts of companies, from utilities to insurance, non of which have the issues to "upgrade" as you so simplistically put it.... remember TSB tried fairly recently and it was a total mess, what would that mean for the NHS ???

You want investment? but not right now, so when?

Wales ... with its finances and laws basically controlled by London and an very poor unhealthy population base which means it's needs more than other regions to look after it's population

@SlowlyLurking you do know that most managers are clinicians ?
So when people talk about a health insurance scheme what about those who can’t afford it ? As a nurse I earn about £32k. Will this health insurance come out of my NI or what ? There’ll be many of us on ‘average’ wages who’ll end up paying this and very worse off because we won’t be counted as ‘truly’ poor.

Not until it undergoes reform. There is far too much waste. If I need to pay more tax for the NHS I want that money ring fenced for boots on the ground staffing (nurses, drs, porters, cleaners, midwives ect) and equipment (scanners, beds, incubators, dialysis machines ect), not spent on LGBTQ+ alphabet spaghetti nonsense (our trust has just spent lots of money on leaflets about chest feeding and people with cervixes) and ridiculous management positions.

Dozens of critics of the NHS all chanting the same "waste, waste, waste" mantra - all of them up and awake at 3 in the morning - just before Hunt announces another reduction to NI. Hmmm 🤔

Hunt - the man who is the longest-serving Health Secretary that the country has had, and whose poor decisions, incompetence and mismanagement have resuted in the current problems facing the NHS. Too few doctors and nurses, too little equipment, crumbling hospitals, over 10% of the population waiting for hospital treatment.

Hunt - the man who will stand up in Parliament and proclaim that the country will prosper if he cuts NI by 2p - a move that will only benefit the highest earners and which will mean nothing at all to over 30% of the population.

What he won't be saying is "I've decided that since 7 million people are currently waiting for NHS treatment, increasing the waiting list to 8 million is neither here nor there. Increasing waiting times by another 6 months makes little difference to someone who has already waited for two years. These people don't vote Conservative anyway, so why should I give a fuck about them."

Like they spend billions on LBGT stuff 😂 Don’t necessarily agree with any kind of spending on ‘diversity’ issues but thinking that cutting it out will magically free up money for new dialysis machines etc is ludicrous. Most of the ‘waste’ issue seems to revolve around appointments in the post being duplicated and buying stuff from private companies who love ripping the NHS off. That’s it. None of them have a clue how to reform it and none of the ideas will magic up new staff or doctors.
Why do folk think that paying huge amounts to private probably American health insurance firms will create money for new nurses and doctors ? You can bet your bottom dollar it wouldn’t be European ones eh ?

Interestingly and apart from what TiredCatLady has pointed out re that chart Spain is listed below the UK and yet has a far superior public health service than the UK and has private health care running alongside the public system without people getting a fit of the vapours.

Tipping yet more money into the NHS will not solve the problems with it, it is an institution that is run along principles for a different time. There needs to be a change in attitude by the people who run it, work in it and use it. It is treated as a sacred cow, attitudes towards it are based on emotion rather than objective facts and it will never change and be the institution it could be and should be until that alters.

I came back to address the comment against the NHS staff going to court to fight for compensation for long covid.
How soon people forget that NHS staff risked their lives for us.
It beggars belief that anybody begrudges those who are still suffering badly anything.
I met a retired paramedic who has long covid recently. He caught covid in the second wave and spent 8 months in hospital.
His mortgage and home was saved by him being paid initially under an extended nhs sick pay rule for those who caught covid but this scheme later ended. He tried going back to work as a patient transport ambulance driver but his health could not cope.
He is now in dire straits and I firmly believe we owe him and others an enormous debt.
No amount of money will bring his health back but it’s the best we can do.
The mortgage company, energy suppliers and tesco don’t seem to accept clapping in payment and it seems that was all many in this country were prepared too offer.

Absolutely not. The NHS is an absolute black hole. How ever much money you poured into it it would always take more.

There are many things I would pay more tax for but the NHS isn’t one of them.

No

The NHS needs major reform rather than yet more money. It is incredibly inefficient and so much money is wasted. More money would just disappear into yet more bureaucracy

I would rather social care was fixed first and I believe some of the issues would then be fixed, obviously different areas vary but I’m my area we have a very high number of elderly that outstrip the young people
here, the main hospital is majority people waiting for are packages at home or residential care this obviously has a knock on effect on other areas of the hospital and getting people out of assessment areas and into wards

i also believe we need to have discussions about keeping people alive at all costs also, some one mention about Their relative Who was not treated following a stroke, this unfortunately is not true for all as there are many people kept alive with no hope of making any meaningful recovery, stuck in wheelchairs or in bed, tube fed not able to communicate etc, where is the quality of life? As a population we need to start being more realistic about health and death and shouldn’t just be keeping people alive because we can.

I don't know. I definitely would be happy to pay more for some things but I hate the wastage and I am not a fan of the effect of the NHS being heavily unionized.
I say that as someone with kids and plenty of other relatives who work for the NHS.

@Blackcats7

"Those who want to keep their money for themselves let’s hope the NHS is still functioning for you if you get cancer or have a major accident etc"

++++

But with a "free at the point of use" system demand will always outstrip supply. Just look at the use of carrier bags where a small charge led to a 98% drop in use, when they were free people abused it by using more than they needed.

The only thing regulating NHS demand right now is queuing and how long you are prepared to wait and putting more money into the NHS without reform will do nothing to change this, all that will happen is demand will just increase.

I totally agree that it it would be morally wrong that those people that are financially poor cannot access healthcare such as in Victorian times but equally it is morally wrong that those people that are time poor cannot access NHS healthcare today.

They really do need to address the appointments in the post thing. Our post is currently 3 weeks behind. I'm just recieving letters with February 13th -17th dates on them. Appointments via text and email would be better. Most elderly people are able to use a basic smart phone that receives texts. I also think there needs to be an introduction of an automated text reminder system for hospital appointments so people get a reminder the day before and on the day. However I also support a fine system for missed GP appointments.

Social care is another black hole. We really are going to have to get more comfortable with having to actually pay for care and not squirrelling money away in trusts and the like for inheritance purposes. There also needs to be a very frank conversation with everyone about continuing treatment of very frail, very elderly people who have poor quality of life. There needs to be much more push for palliative care when someone gets to a certain level of fragility. I say this as someone whose grandmother had very advanced dementia, in a home for 3 years and was sedated daily as she just curled in a ball screaming otherwise. She had 2 serious infections, 2 strokes and a bout of pneumonia. She had 4 lengthy hospital visits with very very strong antibiotics. She was ressusitated 2x with the bout of pneumonia. They should have stopped treatment but the care home said they had to admit her to hospital and get treatment for her. One of the consultants said, had she been in her own home, she would have died.

I’m also in Scotland with higher taxes and my health board has just put out a notice to everyone about how massively over spent they are and how they need to save X amount of money, guess where the first place they are trying to save money from? Staff, so not advertising posts that need filled etc 🙄

@Caffeineislife yep but be careful saying that I was accused of being heartless and shouldn’t be a nurse if that’s what I though when in the real world it is working with those that are suffering day in and day out that makes you think why are we doing this?

Alexandea 2001 there's a place for assisted dying, yes.
And over 34 years of nursing has shown me that in many many cases very old frail people with a poor prognosis are treated to the ninth degree. I've seen it in care homes, in acute and primary care settings. I've seen it in my own family this last year. Many oncologists admit they wouldn't put their own family through many of the treatments some people expect.
Hip replacements of course, are a different matter.

As a nurse working in the NHS I would like to see a top down reform of the services. The amount of private services, be it agencies, building services, or general procurement, who are creaming huge amounts of money off the top of the NHS is disgusting. There needs to be complete transparency re budgets and service provision scaled back so that upper management are able to keep on top of how the services are working / not working. Oh and ditch all but essential paperwork for clinicians.....I can see a patient for an hours assessment currently and it takes me up to 2 hours to complete all of the utterly pointless and repetitive paperwork .

@MindHowYouGoes , but surely there could be reform without privatisation?

Everybody I’ve known who’s worked for the NHS (from admin to doctors) has complained about waste - and too many managers!

@AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii

Until measures are introduced to manage demand then the resulting queues and criticism negatively impact NHS staff morale.

Add in "savings" from Staff through a recruitment freeze and it's no surprise so many staff want to leave.

I'd like to see the NHS reduce waste and use the money it does get much better before more and more being thrown at it.

Yes, if it went on doctors, nurses, cleaners, equipment, building improvements, accountants and good project managers to improve systems. No, if it went on D& I managers and pointless posters/ branding.

Staff is the main area where there just isn’t enough money. Trying to get an appointment for gynae outpatients scan etc in my hospital, the wait is around a year…not enough staff or equipment.

I want money to go to the places where it’s really needed. I’d like clean, fully staffed hospitals with the latest equipment, rather than the crumbling, eastern bloc looking, dirty, depressing places we have, staffed by exhausted skeleton crews.

Oh, I would also like real investment in adult social care ( care homes, home care for elderly and disabled people) and investment in children’s and maternity services that keep families healthy in the community. District nurses. Children’s centres. Sure Start.
There no preventative measure taken anymore, in society in general. People with serious mental health problems wind up in prison, people with chronic, manageable health conditions wind up in A &E. The cracks people fall through have just been left to widen over the past 14 years, and therein lies the crisis. And it is a crisis.

Utter nonsense. Might as well flush money down the toilet.

That's a very left wing approach to simply chick money at a problem as if it will somehow magically make it better.

There needs to be major reform within the NHS first. Throwing money at the problem won't help, it needs restructuring and to reallocate existing funds from erroneous managers and waste into necessities.
Reform COSTS MONEY! It really does.