The NHS

Is it fair that the NHS had it's funding cut and is then criticised for a fall in results?

Them DAMN TORIES are RUINING this COUNTRY.

Vote Lib Dem.

Spoiler:

the Tories will sell it off, to the highest bidder, it's all that's left to fund the huge pensions, that they want for later life... the NHS will be no more... the health insurance companies will await our calls and our monies

If only Labour had selected David instead of Ed as leader. They'd pi$$ the next election and save the NHS for the next generation.

Having spent too long seeing a consultant this afternoon, I am up for giving the NHS a good kicking .....

Most of the nurses I have dealt with during recent months have been excellent. Lots of the doctors have too. But the system stinks!!!!! It seems to be creaking at the seams.

The problem is going to get worse. People of my age - the baby boomers - need to be put down at the slightest hint of illness. It's only in that way that the NHS can be a great service.

The modern NHS is a great example of the dangers of trying to impose free market dogma on something that be run for the public good. The cost of running the NHS has spiralled since the F**k-witted idea of introducing 'marketisation' to the NHS. Each Hospital Trust and PCT (collection of GPs) now have to employ legal staff to manage the contracts that each part of the NHS has with each other. Every procedure done in the NHS goes through detailed 'coding' so that if can be labelled and charged accordingly. This means a massive increase in the number of back-office, non-clinical staff that the NHS has to employ, all to maintain an internal market despite the fact the vast majority of procedures are funded by the tax payer, regardless of which particular part of the NHS is actually requesting/doing the work.

Add onto that the increased intrusion of independent, non-nhs contractors into NHS work, which requires extra paperwork and management, the disastrous PFI schemes, where private contractors fund NHS building work and then screw the NHS over on both the cost of the work and the subsequent maintenance contracts, the uber-f**kup that is the NHS IT upgrade, successive government's obsession with making the NHS report a bewildering and unneccesary array of statistics which they do little or nothing of use with, and the constant structural re-organisations, and you have a recipe for waste and increased spending.

The ironic thing: it's the actions of successive governments that cause all this extra spending and cost, and yet it is also the politicians who go on to complain about waste and spending in the NHS, despite the fact that much of the extra spending is a result of 'improvements' that the politicians themselves have made!

In the last three months I have had an emergency ambulance 6 or 7 times. In addition, I have had dozens of blood tests, urine tests, x-rays and scans. My condition was confirmed about three weeks ago, though it was apparent a couple of months ago (since when I've had a further awful emergency admission). I've also had several appointments with my GP. That lot must have cost the NHS many hundreds of pounds or even thousands!

But today I still had to have an appointment with a consultant who saw me for about three minutes after an hour's wait, half-heartedly prodded my stomach and said, "That will have to come out." (There is no exaggeration at all there.) WHY did I have to go through that? Why did he have to go through that? Why did the over-worked system have to have that imposed upon it? The cost of all this in terms of both time and money must be phenomenal.

The system is crazy!

knecht wrote:

Having spent too long seeing a consultant this afternoon, I am up for giving the NHS a good kicking .....

Most of the nurses I have dealt with during recent months have been excellent. Lots of the doctors have too. But the system stinks!!!!! It seems to be creaking at the seams.

The problem is going to get worse. People of my age - the baby boomers - need to be put down at the slightest hint of illness. It's only in that way that the NHS can be a great service.

What makes you think the free at the point of delivery NHS system would be any better being privatised... look at the hollow promises on the privatised utilities. All they did is ride the profitability of new 80's IT technology and screw the UK residents, now being done by foreign money owners. I've seen the Nuffields of this world at work. They might be good at a mean cup of tea, but that's about it ... if you want the big treatments from them, it comes at the cost of the NHS.

Systems always stink somewhat, we're human beings, we can only do our best, scientific systems aint as clever as they sell themselves, but I would rather have a non profit driven community orientated system trying to sort it out, than a for profit appartheid system, where the few get minimally better treatment and the rest get worse access and die earlier... those are the choices in this polarised country.
Look up Chai Patel and his dubious 'business' money making history, a real modern day executive ghoul heavily involved in the ongoing 'privatisation' of NHS services and responsibilities and ask yourself if his sort should "OWN" the NHS, and would he have given you a better day with your specialist.

Penz wrote:

knecht wrote:

Having spent too long seeing a consultant this afternoon, I am up for giving the NHS a good kicking .....

Most of the nurses I have dealt with during recent months have been excellent. Lots of the doctors have too. But the system stinks!!!!! It seems to be creaking at the seams.

The problem is going to get worse. People of my age - the baby boomers - need to be put down at the slightest hint of illness. It's only in that way that the NHS can be a great service.

What makes you think the free at the point of delivery NHS system would be any better being privatised... look at the hollow promises on the privatised utilities. All they did is ride the profitability of new 80's IT technology and screw the UK residents, now being done by foreign money owners. I've seen the Nuffields of this world at work. They might be good at a mean cup of tea, but that's about it ... if you want the big treatments from them, it comes at the cost of the NHS.

Systems always stink somewhat, we're human beings, we can only do our best, scientific systems aint as clever as they sell themselves, but I would rather have a non profit driven community orientated system trying to sort it out, than a for profit appartheid system, where the few get minimally better treatment and the rest get worse access and die earlier... those are the choices in this polarised country.
Look up Chai Patel and his dubious 'business' money making history, a real modern day executive ghoul heavily involved in the ongoing 'privatisation' of NHS services and responsibilities and ask yourself if his sort should "OWN" the NHS, and would he have given you a better day with your specialist.

1. I don't.
2. I agree.

knecht wrote:

In the last three months I have had an emergency ambulance 6 or 7 times....

Crikey. The '999' lady's probably added you as a friend on facebook by now.

At least you're getting your monies worth. Having a (relatively) clean bill of health is vastly over-rated...