Hospitals critical incidents

[Spottyphonecase24]

I have seen a number of hospital trusts have declared this today. What does this actually mean and how does it affect us? Boris didn’t seem to be bothered by this should we be?

Anyway age is irrelevant because Long Covid means everybody is at risk.

The ratio of working folks to retired folks used to be 12:1 because life expectancy back then (1950s) was only a few years over the retirement age.

If you don't want people to live longer, don't tell them to stop smoking and give up sugar and junk food. Oh, and let's legalise all narcotics.

We simply cannot afford to keep taking resources from the young & working folks and giving it to the old.

The old have paid their dues. Decades of income taxes - much longer than many young today, because most of today's old left school at 15/16 and went straight into work (sixth form, let alone university, was for the minority).

And like I said, everyone pays tax. Including retired people and those who are young but too ill and disabled to work. VAT, for example.

Human lives have value beyond how much money can be made out of them.

We have 1% of the population making billions - trillions - and paying proportionally less tax than poorer people. The money is out there to care for the elderly, the poor, and the disabled. Eugenics isn't necessary.

As for care work? Well the robots will be doing that soon enough. There's definitely going to be a need for Universal Basic Income in the future.... because it's not the old who won't be paying income tax. It's the young - who will be losing their jobs will be replaced by robot labour. I agree with the views expressed some experts. We'll have to tax the robots.

@Tealightsandd

The ratio of working folks to retired folks used to be 12:1 because life expectancy back then (1950s) was only a few years over the retirement age.

If you don't want people to live longer, don't tell them to stop smoking and give up sugar and junk food. Oh, and let's legalise all narcotics.

We simply cannot afford to keep taking resources from the young & working folks and giving it to the old.

The old have paid their dues. Decades of income taxes - much longer than many young today, because most of today's old left school at 15/16 and went straight into work (sixth form, let alone university, was for the minority).

And like I said, everyone pays tax. Including retired people and those who are young but too ill and disabled to work. VAT, for example.

Human lives have value beyond how much money can be made out of them.

We have 1% of the population making billions - trillions - and paying proportionally less tax than poorer people. The money is out there to care for the elderly, the poor, and the disabled. Eugenics isn't necessary.

As for care work? Well the robots will be doing that soon enough. There's definitely going to be a need for Universal Basic Income in the future.... because it's not the old who won't be paying income tax. It's the young - who will be losing their jobs will be replaced by robot labour. I agree with the views expressed some experts. We'll have to tax the robots.

The "old" as you have defined them have not even come close to paying their "dues".

They will end up extracting far more net benefits from the UK economy than they ever paid for.

The reason for this is that their taxes were set up based on them having: much lower life expectancy, using the healthcare system less, and having social care provided by family.

The difference is actually immense in the financial sense.

I have honestly not met more entitled older retired folks anywhere else. Not in Spain, Italy, US, Canada, Norway etc..

What is happening right now in the UK is unique.

In most other societies, you will see society care about its older members, but NEVER at the expense of the younger folks (like small children).

I have never seen that line crossed anywhere except in the UK. England to be precise, as Scotland and Wales have a very different culture about this sort of thing.

The"old" as you have defined them

Luckily I'm up late (late shift, then chatting to family in Australia) and around to correct your mistake. Not my definition. I was quoting and responding to a previous poster.

As for the rest of your frankly deeply unpleasant ageist attempt to stir generational division and hate, what a load of rot.

The UK has one of the lowest pension rates in Europe. Far higher levels of pensioner poverty than other western countries. In apparently the world's fifth largest economy.

Your rhetoric is nasty but also a slippery slope. You judge people's value only on if they're currently paying income tax? (VAT apparently doesn't exist in your world). So who will you pick on next? Those too disabled to work? Refugees? Students?

Talking of students, the vast majority of the older generation, like I said, went straight out to work at 15/16. You talk of costing the taxpayer? Billions and billions of student loans will never be repaid, because Tony Blair's 'education, education, education' hasn't magically created more graduate jobs. It simply led to non graduate jobs asking for a piece of paper that said degree - at great cost to both student and taxpayer.

So anyway. What's your request? Eugenics? Plunge already poor pensioners into further poverty (whilst the billionaires of all ages do just fine)? Or what?

What's your view on the anti smoking and junk food crusades btw? Presumably you're against that, because afterall win win. 'Sin' tax winfall and shorter life expectancy.

Anyone saying the elderly haven't paid their dues, the base rate for income tax in the 1950's was 41 25% with no free pay,, imagine if you were working now in a NMW job & had nearly half your money taken in tax & then had to pay your NIC on top of that? Also many of todays retired men had to serve 2 years national service or 2 years down the mines, what right have we to object to pay for their retirement, they paid for our parents & lots of us when they were working & towards building the welfare state that we are happy to rely on if we are sick, disabled or out of work. There were no in work benefits like there are now, a standard working week was 45 hours 5.5 days a week. Never say that, our grandparents had fought & lived through a world war, the people at home worked & then served by working again to protect people, businesses & homes against bombing, hoping for a brighter future for their children.

@justasking111

We live in a retirement area. Folks sell up the family home in their home towns, cities, to live the dream of hills, mountains and beaches, lower crime rates. It's great for a time, family love visiting it's a holiday.

Fast forward grandchildren grow up, less visits, their health issues increase, bereavement, their own child are many miles away trying to organise care packages,

Ten houses in our cul-de-sac three of them have elderly people widowed now. None of them have children locally they're in London, France, USA.

They do have some lovely carers who are rushed off their feet. Now and again an ambulance arrives because of a serious health problem.

Retirement in paradise doesn't last

This I work in an area like this. There aren’t the carers to drive to a remote property down a rough track 4 times per day. People are without care but I can’t blame people for not doing care. Alone, late at night, dark, no suitable toilets anywhere (can’t use people’s homes always) no where to get a hot drink between visits. I see them parked in a lay-by with a pasty and a bottle of coke. When they get to the property, they are sometimes attacked by dogs, treated poorly by relatives and frankly these are conditions that most people would not work in. To top it off their cars get wrecked quicker.

Of course the government likes to get us discussing the fact there isn't enough money for pensions and the NHS etc. When they've diverted BILLIONS to their mates during the covid pandemic and vastly overspent (otherwise known as siphoning tax money into the accounts of the rich) on things that should have cost a fraction of the cost - overpaying for test and trace, inadequate PPE, consultants, paying per day the cost of buying brand new to rent gazebos at testing sites - hundreds of thousands wasted per year. Paying to fill in potholes for the richest in society.

Now they're insisting schools pay multiple times the cost needed for Dyson air purifiers, when there are plenty of good air filters out there costing a fraction which do the same job. There is a magic money tree when they're profiting.

I'm fairly sure if the country could somehow get back the money pilfered by corrupt politicians there would be plenty to go around.

The 171 Billionaires here in the UK saw their wealth increase 21% during the pandemic, they now own £600 billion.

So a 1% Billionaires wealth tax would raise £60 billion, 3 x the Govt plans to spend on the NHS over many years (in real terms)

Then there are the tech companies who have made trillions....

Then there are the 1000s who have 100s of millions in money and assets.

Tory answer is to tax the very poorest workers.

@Tealightsandd

The"old" as you have defined them

Luckily I'm up late (late shift, then chatting to family in Australia) and around to correct your mistake. Not my definition. I was quoting and responding to a previous poster.

As for the rest of your frankly deeply unpleasant ageist attempt to stir generational division and hate, what a load of rot.

The UK has one of the lowest pension rates in Europe. Far higher levels of pensioner poverty than other western countries. In apparently the world's fifth largest economy.

Your rhetoric is nasty but also a slippery slope. You judge people's value only on if they're currently paying income tax? (VAT apparently doesn't exist in your world). So who will you pick on next? Those too disabled to work? Refugees? Students?

Talking of students, the vast majority of the older generation, like I said, went straight out to work at 15/16. You talk of costing the taxpayer? Billions and billions of student loans will never be repaid, because Tony Blair's 'education, education, education' hasn't magically created more graduate jobs. It simply led to non graduate jobs asking for a piece of paper that said degree - at great cost to both student and taxpayer.

So anyway. What's your request? Eugenics? Plunge already poor pensioners into further poverty (whilst the billionaires of all ages do just fine)? Or what?

What's your view on the anti smoking and junk food crusades btw? Presumably you're against that, because afterall win win. 'Sin' tax winfall and shorter life expectancy.

I am an Actuary.

I understand this a lot better than you do.

I look at the cohort of rhe baby boomers. I don't care about emotional reasons and I don't assign illogical weightings to the numbers like you obviously do.

On the basis of the actual financial numbers, the baby boomer cohort will extract far more financial resources from the UK economy vs what they paid in.

No "ifs", not "buts", or "maybes". I will not be discussing your uninformed alternative facts.

Now, if you want to have a discussion about how we can possibly pay for that with various combinations of tax rises, spending cuts, and benefit cuts....then that's fine.

Regarding the argument that we need to step up and take care of the elderly, it is simply not possible anymore.

The majority of us have been forced into two income households whether we like it or not. Absolutely brilliant for feminism, but shit for everything else. The majority of the population cannot afford to live on one wage thanks to massive inflation and very little increase in wages to reflect that. Carers allowance is an absolute insult, and thats if you can even get it, PLUS it requires you to basically give up your job. Then how will you pay the bills, because you can't support your spouse and children on that one crappy income.

So no, we can't just have old Mum come live with us because it would financially cripple us. Nevermind how exhausting it is to actually look after someone with full care needs and zero help from carers because they are WAY too expensive and you would need at LEAST a dual income household to pay for them. On top of running a household (women's work because most men aint going to stay at home and do this shit). Nevermind the fact that a lot of people are already a family of four cramped into a tiny 2 bed victorian house with extortionate rental prices (£800-1000 in my city is cheap). Where would granny even go? In with the kids in their tiny "Double" bedroom?

@Youarefakenews

All those of you saying 'oh but I can't possibly look after my elderly relative' do make me laugh. You will spend time complaining on social media about the NHS. Not all patients stuck in hospital without adequate home care are complete invalids. A great many are possibly not so steady on their feet, Can't be relied on to take medication, Need assistance in dressing & undressing. Now all of these things can be assisted with by most able bodied people.

In the past decade or so, we have expected the state to take on the things we as family should be doing for each other. The current state of the NHS is our doing as well as mismanagement by both hospital hierarchy and successive Goverments.

Incidentally for those crying bloody tories look what they have done to us, Look back and see who was the probably the biggest supporter of PFI Contracts to build and run our hospitals. None other than our newly Knighted ex PM Tony Blair.

Do you look after an elderly relative who doesn't take their meds and has falls?

Photo shows hospital beds squeezed next to each other with no privacy [[https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/health/nnuh-hospital-beds-squeezed-8601816?fbclid=IwAR2OFzEVr_Pk9PtVmzHzAd8FgBSJwKi1GsTbmiDg_7_Kbmv8F86K76atfic]]

Just an update on the situation at my local trust. With photos of cramped bed spaces for context.

Photo shows hospital beds squeezed next to each other with no privacy

Oops! Link fail!

@Alexandra2001

The 171 Billionaires here in the UK saw their wealth increase 21% during the pandemic, they now own £600 billion.

So a 1% Billionaires wealth tax would raise £60 billion, 3 x the Govt plans to spend on the NHS over many years (in real terms)

Then there are the tech companies who have made trillions....

Then there are the 1000s who have 100s of millions in money and assets.

Tory answer is to tax the very poorest workers.

Thanks for putting some numbers to what is so obviously true.

But get the little people distracted arguing about who amongst them has to pay for Granny. The Tories are so good at distracting us from daylight robbery - why do we fall for it?

That photo says it all. It's obvious that Boris needs to act now but he's too cowardly to do so. The audacity of the Tory MPs congratulating him for "holding his nerve"and not acting, it's truly horrendous.

@ItchySnoof

Regarding the argument that we need to step up and take care of the elderly, it is simply not possible anymore.

The majority of us have been forced into two income households whether we like it or not. Absolutely brilliant for feminism, but shit for everything else. The majority of the population cannot afford to live on one wage thanks to massive inflation and very little increase in wages to reflect that. Carers allowance is an absolute insult, and thats if you can even get it, PLUS it requires you to basically give up your job. Then how will you pay the bills, because you can't support your spouse and children on that one crappy income.

So no, we can't just have old Mum come live with us because it would financially cripple us. Nevermind how exhausting it is to actually look after someone with full care needs and zero help from carers because they are WAY too expensive and you would need at LEAST a dual income household to pay for them. On top of running a household (women's work because most men aint going to stay at home and do this shit). Nevermind the fact that a lot of people are already a family of four cramped into a tiny 2 bed victorian house with extortionate rental prices (£800-1000 in my city is cheap). Where would granny even go? In with the kids in their tiny "Double" bedroom?

Great post, although I've got a different definition of 'feminism' because it's not 'strip all normal people of choice and make women's and men's lives equally shit'.

I don't think the reality that many are living now that you so eloquently describe has any benefit for feminism at all.

Even the government is waking up to the fact that their plans to make everyone work longer leaves a massive gaping hole in social care since the unpaid hard graft of caring women used to do won't be possible any more when they're all working full-time outside the home until 70, probably in inflexible zero hours contracts if the direction of this country continues.

We're beginning to see the consequences of the reduction in women being able to do unpaid caring for family through the beds crisis. Caring for a disabled person (young or old) is a difficult job, it's not something that can be fitted around a full-time job before the hours of 8 and after 6pm like a hobby.

It's about time part of the entry requirements for being an MP would be to be a full-time carer for 2 weeks. They're just shutting their eyes, putting their fingers in their ears and going 'la la la'.

@BreifNCCriticalHosps

Photo shows hospital beds squeezed next to each other with no privacy

Oops! Link fail!

That photo reminds me of the photos from Indian hospitals during the horrendous Delta wave there.

Of course many people couldn't get into hospital at all there. Having beds like this is obviously better than leaving patients untreated - and presumably that's their choice at the moment or they wouldn't be doing this - but imagine what it must be like for staff dealing with twice the number of patients than normal with high staff absences. They're not superhuman or robots, they simply can't provide the same level of care.

How Boris can do nothing now, I don't know. It's clearly going to take bodies piling up outside hospitals before he'd do anything.

It’s clearly going to take bodies piling up outside of hospitals before he’d do anything

Didn’t he famously say “let the bodies pile up”?
So he’s not averse to piles of bodies.

On the basis of the actual financial numbers, the baby boomer cohort will extract far more financial resources from the UK economy vs what they paid in

Very true

Now, if you want to have a discussion about how we can possibly pay for that with various combinations of tax rises, spending cuts, and benefit cuts....then that's fine

Cut what spending? and what benefits? we have Cornwall Council wanting to close ALL their community leisure centres, no money to pay even the M.W for carers & benefits frozen for the last 11 years.

We need wealth taxes, probably on assets, as cash is too easily hidden or got rid off, no one needs to be a billionaire plus an overall of council tax, £1m + homes get off so lightly compared to a modest 3 bed semi.

Agree with the above except £1m IS the price of a modest 3 bed semi in some of the country…

£1m + homes get off so lightly compared to a modest 3 bed semi.

Anyone thinking that doesn't live in London or the South East

@Alexandra2001

On the basis of the actual financial numbers, the baby boomer cohort will extract far more financial resources from the UK economy vs what they paid in

Very true

Now, if you want to have a discussion about how we can possibly pay for that with various combinations of tax rises, spending cuts, and benefit cuts....then that's fine

Cut what spending? and what benefits? we have Cornwall Council wanting to close ALL their community leisure centres, no money to pay even the M.W for carers & benefits frozen for the last 11 years.

We need wealth taxes, probably on assets, as cash is too easily hidden or got rid off, no one needs to be a billionaire plus an overall of council tax, £1m + homes get off so lightly compared to a modest 3 bed semi.

I agree that the situation right now is complicated.

The issue is that the UK population as a whole is getting older due to the baby boomer cohort progressing along via the age pyramid. Average age is now 44 in the UK. This will also keep increasing slowly.

Whether we think its fair or not, they will end up utilising healthcare more (older with more complex needs), will require more resources directed towards pensions etc.

The question is: how do we do this in a more "fair" way? Specially towards the young which have been absolutely hammered this past decade?

Inter-generational fairness is very important as lack thereof creates material polarisation and eventual brain drain (young bright people emigrate abroad which makes the problem even worse).

So, lets divide this into three:

1. Healthcare

There really is not much you can do here except increase funding for the NHS, specially for hiring more nurses and doctors. We need them not just now, but also for the next 30 years plus. Healthcare inflation has always been a problem, and that is not something that is going away. NHS actually does a decent job of keeping some of the costs down (specially cost of drugs).

We will all benefit from having a properly staffed and funded NHS, so this is not a major sticking point viewed from the point of young & old.

1. Pensions

I keep hearing the argument of "but the UK has the lowest pensions in Europe".

I always laugh at this argument because the hypocrisy is absolutely astonishing. The reason why the French and Spanish have much higher pensions is because they also pay in much higher contributions, and have been doing this for decades.

None of the Boomers who complain about the pension being "too low" contributed to that extent. So essentially, they want higher pensions at the expense of the working folks. The hypocrisy is astonishing to be perfectly honest.

The only answer to that is:

Ok, you can get a higher pension as long as you contribute adequate taxes on those payments. No more free loading for you.

1. Social Care

Any person that needs social care and has assets 100% needs to draw down on those assets to pay for their care.

Again, its not the taxpayers job to subsidise your wealth via your house. Whether your children inherit the house is an emotional argument which has zero basis on the care situation. They can stump up the money for your care if need be, but its not up to the taxpayer to subsidise their inheritance.

The taxpayers should ONLY step in when there are no assets to use (poor or low income), or existing assets have been used up. Thats it.

Now, for the younger people (40 or less) who want more of an insurance based system once they get older (so they might require care), a premium paid directly to the state via their salary (like NI), which would be contributory, can be used. So if they do require care, that LT care insurance would kick in.

@theemperorhasnoclothes

Of course the government likes to get us discussing the fact there isn't enough money for pensions and the NHS etc. When they've diverted BILLIONS to their mates during the covid pandemic and vastly overspent (otherwise known as siphoning tax money into the accounts of the rich) on things that should have cost a fraction of the cost - overpaying for test and trace, inadequate PPE, consultants, paying per day the cost of buying brand new to rent gazebos at testing sites - hundreds of thousands wasted per year. Paying to fill in potholes for the richest in society.

Now they're insisting schools pay multiple times the cost needed for Dyson air purifiers, when there are plenty of good air filters out there costing a fraction which do the same job. There is a magic money tree when they're profiting.

I'm fairly sure if the country could somehow get back the money pilfered by corrupt politicians there would be plenty to go around.

This.

@ItchySnoof

Regarding the argument that we need to step up and take care of the elderly, it is simply not possible anymore.

The majority of us have been forced into two income households whether we like it or not. Absolutely brilliant for feminism, but shit for everything else. The majority of the population cannot afford to live on one wage thanks to massive inflation and very little increase in wages to reflect that. Carers allowance is an absolute insult, and thats if you can even get it, PLUS it requires you to basically give up your job. Then how will you pay the bills, because you can't support your spouse and children on that one crappy income.

So no, we can't just have old Mum come live with us because it would financially cripple us. Nevermind how exhausting it is to actually look after someone with full care needs and zero help from carers because they are WAY too expensive and you would need at LEAST a dual income household to pay for them. On top of running a household (women's work because most men aint going to stay at home and do this shit). Nevermind the fact that a lot of people are already a family of four cramped into a tiny 2 bed victorian house with extortionate rental prices (£800-1000 in my city is cheap). Where would granny even go? In with the kids in their tiny "Double" bedroom?

And this.

Equal work opportunities for both sexes is important. That didn't have to necessarily mean both parents having to work full-time. Instead there could have been a push towards changed attitudes towards male SAHP. More of a focus on truly shared work and parenthood.

The housing market has been allowed to spiral wildly out of control. Certainly way beyond reach of many single income individuals and families. Successive governments have encouraged an economy built on debt and a very over inflated housing bubble.

It's one of the consequences of policies that fail to value human lives. Seeing individuals and families only in terms of financial worth - and how much can be made out of them.

The above devaluing of human lives heads to a slippery slope - to the very nasty "worthless eaters" notion. Start on the elderly (decades of income tax from the age of 15/16 ignored) and then who next? Those too disabled and ill to work? Refugees? Carers? Single parents? Low waged? It's a relentless and merciless slope.

The actuary above refused to answer my questions, when I asked what they wanted to happen. They appear to see the retired as a 'burden'. Yet fail to say their favoured policy. Which presumably is either eugenics or plunging one of the developed world's poorest pensioner groups into further poverty.

Or as a possible alternative they might wish to encourage an increase in smoking rates. Studies have demonstrated that smoking is a net gain to the national economy. Huge tax income and lower pension and social care costs.

Either we value old age or we don't. What we can't do without massive hypocrisy is tell people to give up fags and junk food because they shorten lives...but then complain when people don't die younger.