Save the NHS

[Bibio]

ok its flawed but its paid by the people for the people. if we ever do go private then the gov will tax us just the same but we will loose yet another service. the problem is the funding like other funding is not ring fenced and the surplus is used to top up other things. take road tax for instance, if every penny raised was spent on the roads in the uk we would have the best roads in the world, but no the funds are put in the pot and divvied up. this keeps the supposed costs of other services 'cheep' to fool joe public.

dont let our beloved NHS fall into the hands of private enterprise or foreign hands. there is enough of britain gone elsewhere.

Until the abuse of our public systems by freeloaders (of which there must be hundreds of thousands) is firmly tackled, then no amount of public money thrown at these institutions can save them. I certainly do not want this to turn into a racist thread, but it does seem to me that Britain is becoming the dustbin for the world's increasing population - too many asylum seekers and other undesirable elements (one of Mugabe's henchmen given leave to remain in UK because of his human rights) - that that the few that can and must pay are constantly supporting the rest. I know that when I do pop over to England, I despair at what I see. Nowhere is perfect - we live in Spain for valid health reasons - unemployment is horrendous, my 19 year old son cannot find work, but the overall quality of life is just so much better. I suppose we could return to live in England and my wife could then legally and rightfully tear the a*** out of the benefits system but still not receive the quality of health care she gets here. I really hate to see what is happening to the NHS et al, but unless the government (of whatever persuasion) start to listen to the electorate and do what they were elected to do, then things can only get worse.

Believe me, If I really thought that signing the petition would actually achieve something then I would.

(As an aside, if Camilla ever becomes Queen, then that really will be the end of the UK for me....)

Another thing, The Nhs shouldn't be paying for healthcare for non residents or non nationals, don't know about other parts of the country but we get foreigners come here on 'treatment holidays'.

These people take the pi55, they know exactly what they are doing, getting free healthcare to which they don't contribute.
They call 999 and get an ambulance for a cut finger etc which costs us loads of dosh.
I'm not talking about stopping treatment for the ones that need emergency or life threatening care, but these cases are rare compared to the others.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...dit-cards.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...ctivities.html

Stories like this help to highlight what is wrong with public services.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...ealthcare.html

well worth a read....

[dizzyblonde]

Originally Posted by fenjer

where were your kids (if you have any) born - probably and NHS hospital,

With my first I couldn't wait to get out of there. 12 hrs in total I was there. Solely because it was a newly built place, the service was terrible, I was left on my own to fend for myself, through the night with a new kid, nobody checked on me, just got him born and fecked off.....fair it was 3am, but to leave a baby totally nakid with a new mum, then proclaim he was blue, jaundiced and cold a few hrs later, was not a pleasant experience. To top it off the room was filthy, I won't say about the shower room, it was disgusting. I'd have been better giving birth in an abatoir!

However, with Oliver, the experience was much better, but then they couldn't take any chances with him, because if they hadn't have given me their full on attention he would have died. In fact, they went totally overboard with their proddings, pokings, scans etc.

I am exceedingly grateful for the care I got the second time round, I'd have felt the same the first time, if my midwife had come off her holiday 12 hrs earlier, and not come in like a whirlwind at 7am too late, but oh how things changed when she arrived!

Things have improved in our NHS hospital. Apart from childbirth, I've had the experience of their hip replacement service, their live saving kidney ops, carpul tunnel surgery to name a few(family not me personally!). All those, were perhaps good and lucky experiences, as I know others who've had the same that have not had a good result....in surgery, wards, aftercare etc.

Its like potluck, and it shoudn't be so.Its not just a variation from hospital to hospital, its a variation from day to day, and it shouldn't be like that.

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

Its like potluck, and it shoudn't be so.Its not just a variation from hospital to hospital, its a variation from day to day, and it shouldn't be like that.

Thats only going to get worse as they hand over the planning and provision of care to GPs.

You could get super care in your local hospital, and your friend in the next town could get rubbish care - all thats going to happen is the ridiculous postcode lottery that we have now for things like cancer drugs - can you imagine how much worse that would get if the consortium was responsible for deciding which operations were happening, which drugs they are providing etc?


And that whole "I'd sign if I thought it made a difference" attitude pi55es me off - it made a difference when a few million of us signed a petition to save the public forests, why should the NHS mean any less or be any different. And perhaps I'd take those stories more seriously if some of them had come from some publications other than the Torygraph.

perhaps the forests were worth saving

[Bri w]

So other countries allegedlly have better facilities...

I've seen hospitals in Germany, Holland, France, Greece, & Spain. In all the countries mentioned each has hospitals that are better than ours and worse. I've had staff go out to Holland, France, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Saudi & Spain because their own staff couldn't cope with their workload - and they're better than us(?).

Rather than post up a load of anecdotal evidence of what good and bad in each country lets just cut to the nub of what the proposed changes are all about. Its about redirecting of the funding to make best use of it, and its about privatisation of various parts of it.

Privatisation has been going on for years, e.g. regional dialysis centres & national diagnostic centres. Pretty much every hospital site has private clinics on it from which the NHS buys services.

Redirecting the funding to specific clinical areas and regional areas will, as Jen says, create further post code provision and hence larger areas akin to healthcare deserts - strangely enough if you go out in the sticks in some of the countries mentioned above, Spain, Portugal, Greece, you have exactly that.

So just what is wrong with the NHS? The infrastructure, and hence the finances, can't cope with the population. The choices are more money but that isn't available, get tougher with medical tourists, reduce the available specialities free at the point of use. Or move the funding to other Managers (GP's in this instance) and ask them to achieve better provision with the less money... recipe for disaster.

As Bibio says, do you think there'll be a reduction in tax if medical insurance becomes a necessity? Of course there will, just like Council Tax when Water Rates were seperated from it, and sold off to private companies.

If you are happy to go down the road that will see a further increase in postcode provision of service, and ultimately the need for medical insurance on top of what you already pay for don't sign the petition.

Signed, with a comment