£2.7 billion a year NHS bill for dealing with pissheads

This thread emphasises one thing, people who stand behind their chalk lines drawn by the party are just prolonging the inevitable collapse, the parties are all about jobs, their jobs not ours. They are all self serving leeches watch Game of Thrones it's what it's like in the corridoors of power.

Earwegoagain wrote:

This thread emphasises one thing, people who stand behind their chalk lines drawn by the party are just prolonging the inevitable collapse, the parties are all about jobs, their jobs not ours. They are all self serving leeches watch Game of Thrones it's what it's like in the corridoors of power.

Homeslice wrote:

Rickler wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

My C&P was complete.

If there is comparable interest on the Labour benches then you find them.

Put up or shut up.

Well, Pat Dunne's easily knocked that one out of the park...

Go fetch.

Hardly.

The list of MP’s is wildly inaccurate. Danczuk, Darling, Blunkett, Dobson, Reed. Two things they’ve got in common-1) Implacably right-wing. 2) Not current MP’s. I’m not sure if you realise it, but the Labour Party Of today is a different beast to the pro-business, neoliberal Blairite personality cult of a few years back.

The other thing they aren't is in government, of course. Not at present anyway. They are a bit of a sideshow.

It's a reasonably fair point though and only strengthens what I was saying: parliament has been corrupted by the private health companies either by directly offering directorships to MPs (past or present), MPs holding shares in private healthcare companies or by MPs accepting donations either at party or constituency level.

Putting it simply many of them have been bought and paid for or, at the very least, have split interests and yet they are supposed to dispassionately make judgments on our behalf when it is quite clear that far too many of them, whatever their party allegiances, are in one way or another on the take.

As long as this is disclosed it is all perfectly legal too. (Nor does it only apply to health matters but that is what is under consideration here.) I suppose being openly compromised is one of those great British values we hear so much about; in other countries we'd point at their parliaments and say "look at how how corrupt Johnnie Foreigner is!!"

All of which is rather beside the point. If we paid no tax at all there would be no NHS at all. If we pay little tax we get fewer services. If we want fewer people waiting on trolleys in corridors we need to pay more tax to achieve it.

If you are not happy to pay a little more tax and still complain about the patients waiting on trolleys then you are either an idiot or a hypocrite and if you are not happy to pay more tax to sort it out then you are actively causing the problem.

And there is a huge blurring of the tax lines anyway, police forces are having their budgets slashed left right and centre but local authorities have now been given the go ahead to increase council tax to provide some extra money, it's happened everywhere through society. We are getting less services and we are paying more yet they have to keep there low tax party message going. Anyone who doesn't see we are paying more than we ever have in tax is deluded its the shift on where the money is going that has changed.

In the financial year ending 2017, the UK government spent £264 billion on welfare, which made up 34% of all government spending

In the financial year ending 2013, the government spent £253 billion on welfare, around 35% of government spending.

Source ONS

Although I'm not a fan, I cant believe the royals get £264 billion. They don't get that much. Mind you, i'm not sure how much lizzy gets from off shore windfarms these days. Apparently she owns the whole ocean now.That was a nice little new extra earner slipped under the radar while austerity started for the downtrodden after the first crash.
Won't be long before this descends into bringing back the workhouses. Typical footy fan talk
Of course the old, poor and dispossessed wouldn't need so much help if a few ne'erdowells hadn't stolen all the common land on which people depended for life's resources. Can't live on thin air.
Most of the rich, and tories, are quite happy with the nanny state, they do very well out of it, better than anyone. It also keeps a lid on things and keeps them safe from the chop. They love it.

"Welfare" is only 14%.

The biggest drain on the public purse is pensions.



https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/budget_pie_ukgs.php

If you include Pensions in the overall Welfare spending it looks like this.



http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief-guides-and-explainers/an-obr-guide-to-welfare-spending/

Very little gets spent on the unemployed. A negligible amount. Most of the people claiming "welfare" are in work and most of the "Welfare" (i.e. not including Pensions) budget goes to them.

Frank, I think Pat's under the false impression that people haven't paid for their state pension.
Most "welfare" actually goes on education and health care, free child care, even the Opera subsidy helps a few.

I rather suspect he, like the vast majority, think it nearly all goes on dolies because of the intense scrutiny applied to those out of work.

As the pie charts show this is terribly misleading but it is a deeply held, even if totally erroneous, belief.

Gentlemen, I am aware of the breakdown, the figures used to encompass 'welfare' spending are used by the ONS, the Government and her majesties loyal opposition...

Actual government welfare spending 2017 figures provided by Office National Statistics.
   
Pensions  £111bn  42%

Incapacity, disability & injury benefits  £44bn 16%

Unemployment benefits  £2bn 1%

Housing benefits £25bn 10%

Family benefits, income support & tax credits  £46bn 18%

Personal social services and other benefits £35bn 13%

interestingly the payments made to the Royal Family are not considered to be welfare spending....

I posted these figure to indicate where a sizeable portion of 'where the money goes' since that was the question posed.

I think most of us have read the stories on the long wait some heart attack victims have waited for an ambulance due to “higher priorities” elsewhere, in fact a small few have died, assuming these “higher priorities” weren’t piss heads then I suppose all we’re saying is for these piss heads to be quite a low priority, strange in my younger days of getting very inebriated I don’t ever recall being carted off in an ambulance, more afraid of a thick ear from the old man

Graiser wrote:

strange in my younger days of getting very inebriated I don’t ever recall being carted off in an ambulance, more afraid of a thick ear from the old man

......and therein lies the exact point I was making in the OP.  You get pissed, you make disruption, you use vital NHS resources and you should pay simple as. No one but no one forces it down your throat.
Make it clear with a lead in period in that if you turn up pissed at A&E you get a surcharge of £200 no messing no bullshit just billed

How much do you suggest billing a wilful ten year old who breaks an ankle playing football for their primary school ?

If it is OK for pissheads to be charged then why not junkies? Nobody forces them to stick needles in their arms, do they?

Lord Melbury wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

It is already the most efficient health service in the developed world.

Where on earth did you get the idea it's efficient ? It's anything but.
Billions are wasted each year in PFI payments, outrageously expensive maintenance contracts paid out on those PFI buildings, nearly 40% of the 1.2 million employees are non-frontline pen pushers, layer upon layer of managers, administrators & "executives" whatever they are but they sound f'kin expensive. £10 billion wasted on an  aborted computer system.
A very recent personal experience of a close family member who's new medication was delivered to Plymouth by taxi from Bristol to be followed later the same day by a specialist nurse to train the family member in administering the new medication from... Bristol. You couldn't make this shit up.

Regarding your list of MPs with their fingers in the pie, you seem to have forgotten to paste the list of Labour MPs doing the same, or was that the intention, or do you believe they are all squeeky clean ?          

According to The Commonwealth Fund healthcare think tank Per person the NHS offers the best value for money out of all the developed nations,

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/14/nhs-holds-on-to-top-spot-in-healthcare-survey

Compared to countries such as France or Germany the per person spend is significantly lower. I think in Germany £136 per person for every £100 spent in the UK. The NHS isn't failing its being falied.

The report quoted by Hugh above goes on to say,

“The UK stands out as a top performer in most categories except for healthcare outcomes, where it ranks with the US near the bottom,” according to the Mirror, Mirror 2017 report from the US-based Commonwealth Fund.


so bottom for 'healthcare outcomes' along with the US which spends 16% of GDP (nearly twice as much as us)

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

If it is OK for pissheads to be charged then why not junkies? Nobody forces them to stick needles in their arms, do they?

Totally agree.

beesrus wrote:

How much do you suggest billing a wilful ten year old who breaks an ankle playing football for their primary school ?

An accident, getting pissed out of your brains or shooting up your veins isn’t.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

If it is OK for pissheads to be charged then why not junkies? Nobody forces them to stick needles in their arms, do they?

Actually, yes they do. Dealers looking to infiltrate a fresh marketplace will often swamp the place with free Heroin. Speculate to accumulate, if you like. It doesn't take long for that method of direct pushing to create a whole new marketplace of addicts.

And then there's those fatties, surely they should be barred from the NHS and left to their own devices, especially those kids who eat all that there sugarrrr.
And nobody forces anyone to smoke tobacco. Don't treat anyone for cancer or heart disease who has smoked in their life..... they didn't have to smoke.
I've got an idea, lets just have the NHS for churchgoers. The church of good wholesome living
Puritans rule. Don't treat anyone who's misbehaved, unless they're your own mother, father or child of course. The rules change when it gets too close to home.

I'm so glad I've spent my life avoiding small mean spirits with no empathy for others who live differently.

So are we

Graiser wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

If it is OK for pissheads to be charged then why not junkies? Nobody forces them to stick needles in their arms, do they?

Totally agree.

How about those who abuse prescription drugs?

Nobody forces them to swallow too many pills, do they?

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

If it is OK for pissheads to be charged then why not junkies? Nobody forces them to stick needles in their arms, do they?

Couldnt agree more with you SFD I would happily include that lot in the billing in fact double billing with that crew
Bees not the kid breaking his ankle playing football no thats clearly a different scenario

harvetheslayer wrote:

Graiser wrote:

strange in my younger days of getting very inebriated I don’t ever recall being carted off in an ambulance, more afraid of a thick ear from the old man

......and therein lies the exact point I was making in the OP.  You get pissed, you make disruption, you use vital NHS resources and you should pay simple as. No one but no one forces it down your throat.
Make it clear with a lead in period in that if you turn up pissed at A&E you get a surcharge of £200 no messing no bullshit just billed

Once upon a time, a friend and I got beaten up in town - him far worse than me. We were both pissed - I think I'd had about 9 pints (I was glad too, it hurt less). We did nothing to cause the incident, just on the receiving end of some unsavoury characters.

My mate had his leg broken where they'd jumped up and down on him. It required an ambulance, A&E, an overnight stay, surgery and quite heavy police involvement. Should he/we have been charged for wasting hospital resources because we were drunk? I'm assuming in your world that we'd have needed to be brethalysed upon entry to the A&E? Few quid in cost right there too. Then there would be the appeal process for getting our money back when it was ruled we were victims, not perpetrators...maybe even some compo! Ker-ching, ker-ching, ker-ching.

The problem with sledgehammer Daily Mail headlines/opinions is that they pretty much always conveniently ignore the nuances in life.