So...is today the first day of the end the NHS?

[Badders123]

Just heard on the news that the govt will force the new junior dr contacts through on August 1st.
Is this It?
Are we sat here witnessing the end of the NHS?
:(

I think you're deliberately scaring yourself over this.

I think the whole junior doctor strike is being used to scare people in general. I've given up trying to understand it because the 2 sides seem to give completely contradictory accounts of the dispute. The term junior doctors seems to cover a whole range of doctors from recent graduates up to registrar level so I imagine that the changes will affect some doctors positively and some negatively.

However, I am pissed off with the doctors having placards saying the end of the NHS is nigh or that the Tories want to privatise it when as a previous pp said Labour have done way more to privatise it than the Tories ever have because they are using scare tactics to garner support from people like you and scaring vulnerable people in the process.

I don't think it's any secret that many Tory MPs are on the boards of private health firms, is it?
I'm not an idiot, i know that what's happening had been inevitable for a while - But I don't have to like it.

How would a fee paying NHS work?
Could it?
Would we get vast swathes of DM reading middle England complaining about having to pay "but inner city kids get free cancer treatment!!"
Deeply depressing day.

The govt are doing this.

First - cut funding to the point that the system is unworkable.

Second - blame the unworkable system in people abusing it

Third - gently plant the seed and encourage the idea that these users and abusers should be paying

Fourth - introduce payments for small things - missed appointments, etc

Fifth - introduce payments across the board.

Et voila! Privatised health.

We're up to step 3. DONT FALL FOR IT.

I dont think any of you know anything about continental social insurance healthcare systems.

I've lived in France for two décades and we get mostly excellent healthcare - at a price. Spending on healthcare per capita is 15-20% higher than in the UK despite salaries being lower here.

There is far more waste here than in the UK - the private aspect of many services means there is an incentive for providers to over prescribe and for patients to expect to walk away from every consultation with a bag full of drugs and prescriptions for expensive investigations. My daughter had an ultrasound yesterday (ovarian cyst), in the NHS the advice would be watch and wait, here they want her to have an MRI (because, guess what, the private clinic where she had the ultrasound just happens to have an MRI machine handy ...)

My DH worked in the NHS for many years so I know all about its faults but objectively you get exceptionally good value for money.

Are many on the boards? Which MPs? I know a lot receive donations from such companies in the same way that Labour MPs get donations from unions. Can't believe I'm defending Tories here, in reality I'm cynical about all parties.

I work in a psych hospital, on a busy acute ward. Our junior doctors work 9-5 Monday to Friday. Our consultants work 9-5 Monday to Friday. The clinical psychologists work 9-5 Monday-Friday...as do the OT's, the pharmacists, the discharge liaison nurse........you get the picture.

We have an on-call doctor for the rest of the time. They cover the whole area and seem to work on a rota. I can remember 3 times in the last year that the DMO was a doctor from our ward.

They do a fantastic job, and we should all be grateful that people choose to become doctors but I really cannot understand why they are striking. Surely they realise that the NHS (especially hospitals) is a 24 hour service that needs to be adequately staffed 24 hours a day?

Who are the 'many Tory MPs' who are 'on the boards of private health firms' Badders?

Also, with respect, so many people making poor lifestyle choices adds much of the burden on the NHS.

The funding has not been cut - infact it's being increased significantly. But so are the demands on the NHS. Do you really think that Bevan had infertility treatment and breast augmentation in mind when it was set up? The demands are so much greater than anything that could have been imagined.

I don't know which side of the fence I fall, but the NHS I've seen is far from perfect - as is the Govt.

I agree.
Is that a consequence of having a free at point of use health care system do you Think? People just give up personal responsibility?
My mother is coeliac. She refuses to go gluten free. Hence she has stomach problems
She did quit smoking, but not until my beloved dad dropped dead in front of her from smoking related causes :(
Until people take some responsiblilty for their own health, it's going to get worse.
Obese? Just get a gastric band fitted.
Type 2 diabetic? Just get pills.
High bp? Take pills.
My bil is very very lucky to be alive. When he was admitted his bp was 250/180
His blood sugars were in the 30s
All things that could have been dealt with had he ever attended an optician appt for example....
I'm so depressed about it all.

I went in a conference somewhere around 2008 and was told then the nhs was at the beginning of the end as far as the government were concerned.

Plan 1 was to privatise via "social enterprise"- convince staff to form non profit companies and hire themselves back to their jobs.

Plan 2 was to increase funding, but with no efficiency targets or plan to spend it "properly", therefore proving the nhs isn't sustainable even with lots if money.

I am crap at links.
This probably won't work but it will give you some idea where to look....
privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests

There are other countries who have better systems. It does need reform.

I have worked with local and central government depts for more years than I care to remember as a supplier and the endless meetings, the justification of their own roles. I attend meetings and there is a cast of 1000's and the next meeting there are new faces and we go through the same queries but with new people. They cannot make a decision and by the time they do there is little time to implement the solution. They then try and escalate and its rushed (and rushing something never goes well!).

My DM was in hospital last year and the care was awful, the nurses were horrible and talking over Mum in another language whilst they were doing something is just rude.

I also think its about time we paid some small charge for services. There will be the lefties coming on saying it should all be free, well I think that time has finished. My pensioner FIL who is a higher rate tax payer having worked in the NHS himself (final salary scheme) gets free prescriptions and he admits he can easily afford to pay.

Agree there is a lot of waste.

When I graduated, a Doctor's starting salary was about £12k, increasing to about 14k with out of hours/overtime pay.

A new graduate on the NHS graduate management scheme started on 16k. Normal working hours.

My mum has a friend who hoards meds.
Even paracetamol...what is it? 16p a pack?
She is a well off pensioner.
Insane.
She is currently trying to get Bunion surgery done on the NHS even though she admits here is no clinical need. But she has "lots of sandals I can't wear"
!!!!!!

Agree with Micah.

So why are you blaming it all on the government?

OhShutup What you outline is not privatised healthcare. Its nationalised healthcare but with a cost.

To be honest that would be the best outcome for the future of the NHS.

Very few countries have perfect health services but most have some kind of health tax or a cost at the entry point with a card type system for those who cannot afford to pay and pensioners etc

First - cut funding to the point that the system is unworkable

Your argument fails at that point. NHS funding has not been cut. It is increasing.

prh47 funding has only increased because cost has increased. Funding needs to stay in line with cost for sustainability.
The whole system has been deliberately sabotaged.

It's been ricocheting to it's demise since Bevan caved and filled the doctor's mouths with gold. It's only free at the point of delivery anyway. Those who work in it need to remember that. I'm not grateful for a rude, nationalised industry for which I pay handsomely and then find it doesn't deliver in the context of care or service. My DD has been failed recently. No service available via CAMHS. Good job we could afford private care - probably saved the NHS the cost of an attempted suicide

Biggest nail in its coffin was blair's PCTs and their associated bureacracy

I heard a doctors rep on the radio yesterday saying its "not about the money, its because they feel undervalued" well wait until they have to get a job outside the NHS then they will really feel undervalued because they will literally be a commodity.

The mirror published a list of the terrible Tories who had an interest in healthcare. They included amongst many other remote connections

An MP who before he was elected was a lawyer who worked in a law firm that represented health boards when Labour were setting up PPI deals;

another MP used to work at a well known healthcare provider JP Morgan. Presumably the "journalist" who wrote that pops along to his GP for financial advice.

Yes, I'm afraid I don't particularly value people and organisations who waste my time, are often rude and regularly fail to offer an optimum course of treatment because analysis if outputs is based on the average, mean or median rather than the needs of the individual.

Does anyone else remember when British Rail tendered it's advertising/PR contract in the late 70s/early 80s and one of their shortlist turned their reception into a filthy, littered, area, full of dig ends and coffee slops, and out behind reception a couple of unkempt and unhelpful staff who welcomed the BR executives without raising their heads or smiling "yea" "what do you want" who? "I dunno". The agency execs then appeared and ushered them through to their boardroom for their presentation which started with "This is where you are now". How can we help you change it? Do you realise thus is what your customers see?

I think it's a helpful analogy and the world has moved on since the lumbering days of nationalised dinosaurs.

Actually having said that, mostly the doctors in the NHS are generally the most helpful and professional but people are too often irked by the time they get to them. The managers, nurses and ancillary staff need a kick up the backside and most nurse managers need to go back to the wards and do what they were trained to do. Nurse!

This is one of the things that makes me really scared for the future. I have spent a lot of my adult life in a situation where I earned just slightly too much to qualify for any benefits (and therefore free prescriptions), but never went to the doctors even when I needed to because the prescription cost, nearly a tenner per item, would have come out of my food budget and I just couldn't afford it. If we were to have a system where free healthcare was means tested, or just charged for across the board, I'm afraid I would just have to die if I were to become seriously ill, and I dont even want to think what might happen with my children.