The new governmentâs policy to the NHS so far looks like the old oneâs. Tell them getting waiting lists down is the priority, and then give them more money to do so.
There are to be new hospitals on capital account. Boris promised that but despite record funding little was completed and a lot was not started.What will be the change to get to construction contracts faster?
There is to be ÂŁ1.5 bn of extra equipment. There always is a substantial equipment budget. A bit more might remove a few bottlenecks as people wait for tests.
The obvious think lacking is hospital beds or surgery small operations capacity. Of course beds need staffing, but the NHS is always recruiting extra staff.
There is some talk of the NHS making more use of private medical capacity as Blair and Milburn started. It is certainly a good idea to explore if the private sector could for example tackle a lot of cataract removals or knee joint repairs in dedicated facilities contracted to perform NHS work to a high standard. The patient would still be treated free.
There are some obvious money saving things to do to help bridge the gaps. Foreign visitors should pay for any use they need to make of the NHS, though that often does not happen.
The NHS should accept returns of equipment suitable after cleaning for reuse, like crutches  and frames. It should get better at controlling stocks and reducing wastage of foods and medicines.
October 30, 2024
Good morning.
And the main reason for that is . . . . . . MASS IMMIGRATION. Quelle surprise !
As I have said many, many times before, BEFORE they get their visa’s they must first take out medical insurance with a BRITISH BASED insurance company. Those countries that ‘game the system’ the most will have to pay higer premiums and this will act as a form of disincentive. Women who are pregnant or very old people needing much care will simply not get the insurance and therefore no visa. No visa, no entry. It is a simple system and a very effective system. Plus we get to make a bit of money from foreign vistors on the side đ
October 30, 2024
I agree. In Spain you can’t get residency without getting private medical insurance. Our system is far too lax. The NHS should also tighten up on Irish citizens who pretend to live in the UK to gain access to free treatment.
October 30, 2024
Christine : “The NHS should also tighten up on Irish citizens who pretend to live in the UK to gain access to free treatment.”
Do UK citizens, particularly those who live in Northern Ireland, get free mediacl treatment in the Republic of Ireland?
October 30, 2024
68% of Citizens of the R3public of Ireland donât get free healthcare in the âfree stateâ.
October 30, 2024
That’s splitting hairs.
Ireland is now wealthier than the UK per capita, with a better health service and with 200K UK citizens living in Southern Ireland.
The Tories are never going to get back into power if Tories have conversations like this.
Got to think big. Like how to really boost our High Tech Industry, Car Industry and the North of England.
October 30, 2024
+1
October 30, 2024
Same old same old. 40% less nurses in training since 2010. Why is that. It’s because they’d rather conscript poorly educated foreign staff whilst insisting uk staff must have degrees
How about not charging fees for training uk nurses for starters.
Streeting bleating on about lack of resources when in actual fact the NHS has enjoyed mega funding only to see productivity slip like most of the public services.
No mention if the 70% non medical staff, many who could be culled to release more money for front line services.
14 years in opposition and no tangible plan
October 30, 2024
They now have Nursing Assistants who can take the role of a Nurse.The registered Nurse is only the beginning of his/her career.Most develop into a specialty with further degrees , training and prescribing degrees. It’s just a different route of getting solid ongoing medical qualifications rather than relying on a short time in university for registered medics.
We also have physician assistants who have not been to medical school but have attained knowledge through a different route.We have pharmacists whose knowledge of drugs compliments any practitioners work.
I myself had medical exams in Nurse Training ,but alas these have been wiped out of recognition because they were state driven . Universities wanted the money!
October 30, 2024
Ian,
I am a retired Psychiatric Nurse. I was contracted to work thirty seven and a half hours each week. When I retired, I was replaced by two, part time nurses, each contracted to work sixteen hours per week. Net result… Number of nurses doubled, number of nursing hours
reduced… Headline for purposes of politicians… We have more nurses than before.
The old nursing role is being carried out by Care assistants, the Doctors role is being carried out by GP associates.
The old job of teacher is now done by Teaching Assistants. Police Officers are being replaced by PCSOs. Prison Officers replaced with Auxiliaries.
I suspect that these replacements are cheaper.
In my experience, the qualified professionals spend more and more of their day sat behind a pc screen, ticking boxes and filling out endless forms and paperwork for a whole host of government and management monitoring purposes. When I joined the profession, it was to help those troubled with their mental health and much of my role was to observe and interact with the patients…. I did not sign up to tick boxes and have no interaction with my patients. If I wanted an admin job I would have had one.
October 30, 2024
A visa to the UK for more than 6 months already has a mandatory ‘health insurance’ payment, paid on application for the visa.
October 30, 2024
Indeed, gov.uk âPay for UK healthcare as part of your immigration applicationâ exactly defines who has to pay or not.
October 30, 2024
Quite so. Wokingham’s nearest main hospital, the Royal Berkshire hospital, serves a Wokingham and Reading Borough population that grew by 75,000 between the two recent censuses (not to mention West Berkshire and probably some of South Oxfordshire). I wonder what extra resources it was given between 2011-2021 to cope with the extra patient numbers.
October 30, 2024
Richard II
Hospital capacity
I raised this with the Chief Executive at a public, meeting at the time the old Battle Hospital and RBH were planning to be merged as one a few decades ago.
I asked how many extra beds the merger would provide at the RBS site, compared to when we had the two Hospitals on two sites.
Was advised RBH would provide the same capacity as both originally did.
When I asked about population growth and car parking facilities, was advised bed occupation was going to be of shorter duration, so patient occupation overall would be greater.
To the Question of car parking, I was advised a bus route was nearby.
My simple reply was that population growth would outstrip any shortening of patient bed time, and that people travelling to A&E or daily outpatient clinics rarely arrived by bus, as they were often incapacitated.
It all fell on deaf ears. !
October 30, 2024
It is also quite well known that (some overseas Ed) doctors tell pregnant ladies to go to Britain to give birth, and they do, often multiple times!
I seem to recall that one issue with not checking for health insurance was down to the doctors – who insist it must be free for all at the point of delivery. This is really not helpful.
October 30, 2024
Theyâd just hop on a boat, cross the channel get treated and then go home. No visa required!
October 30, 2024
My family in Cape Town say a tattooist from the Cape opts to work in Glasgow 6 month of the year. No tax job permit etc., last year he fell ill, spent 4 months in an NHS hospital. Presumably had treatment. No charge. They asked no questions whatsoever.
I donât understand why some of us – the lawful – bother.
Ayn Rand saw what needs to be done. We have to let this overweight state crash under its own volition. Donât do anything, stop busting a gut to save them yet again.
October 30, 2024
Darn ! I knew there was a flaw somewhere. đ
October 30, 2024
well said Mark B, we need to stop being the free health system for the world. Even down to pregnant Arabs scamming the Brit tax payers
October 30, 2024
Pregnant women shouldnât even be allowed onto airplanes after 7 months gestation without significant health insurance including maternity and not at all after 36 weeks.
We have plenty of private GPs now, the NHS GP service should just direct them to those GPs where they have to pay ÂŁ70 as many of us do when we canât get an appointment. You can get appointments online for about ÂŁ35 so just give them that number.
A&E in other countries take your credit card off you on arrival and process travel insurance bills! If the NHS canât do this then these are the services we should transfer to private hospitals who can bill properly, emergency patch ups only. In Spain my mother was treated in a private hospital at the cost of her travel insurance.
October 30, 2024
The NHS has become a sacred cow. Untouchable. Chewing through cash by the billion. There is no one person or political party that appears to have a clue what to do with the monstrous beast. Yesterday Andrew Neill posted a clip of his discussion with two experts on the NHS. One pointed out it was designed in the 1940s for the conditions in the 1940s and needs a fundamental rethink. But who has the capacity, and more importantly, the political will to create and implement a more relevant health system for the UK? There is no one. It was pointed out that no other country follows the UK model.
October 31, 2024
It had a re-think in, 2012, the ‘internal market’ and all that rot, which is what we are saddled with now. Another case of a politician having a bee in his bonnet and experimenting on us, finding that it didn’t work and was booted into the House of Lords as his reward for failure. Same has happened several times with education. Politics should play no part in it, the politicians are all amateurs with no real knowledge – Take Hunt for example trying to make a silk purse of a sows ear and making things worse.
October 30, 2024
Scratches? The wonders of auto correct AI I assume?
How to make the NHS work:- Start charging all who can afford to pay. Give tax relief for people who go privately, stop IHT insurance tax of medical cover, allow companies to provided medical cover as a tax and NI free benefit. Give people on waiting lists 30% of the money if you go privately, ditch net zero and EV ambulance, ditch the diversity agenda, do not fund GPs on a per capita basis but on work actually done, stop the dangerous net harm covid Vaccines, make the medical regulators independent of Big Pharma, cut non admin staff hugely, make them respond to patients no government dictates.
Same for EV fire engines:-Electric fire truck burns down brand new German fire station.â
Electric Fire engine catches on fire and burns down new fire station and 10 other fire engines.
âŹ25,000,000.00 worth of damage. Also, the fire station didn’t have a fire alarm fitted.
The UK is insanely going down this path like NHS ambulances , EV fire engines and ambulance are far inferior to diesel ones. EV fire engines cost over ÂŁ540K is seems.
October 30, 2024
We should have free and fair competition in schooling and universities too. But Labour are doing the complete reverse. Starmer claims he would even rather his family died rather than go privately so deluded is the Socialst fool.
Also in transport, energy, broadcasting, healthcare, housing, bankingâŠagain they are heading in totally the wrong direction.
October 30, 2024
Electric fire engines are particularly mad as they spend most of their time stationary in fire stations (where they are clearly a fire risk) so will certainly increase CO2 as they will never do sufficient miles to break even on CO2 produced in manufacture of battery and vehicle.
Electric Ambulances also mad due to charging down time wasting workers time, fire risks, range issue, higher depreciation levels, less space in the vehicle. Both far more expensive and less practical than diesel ones.
October 30, 2024
Not forgetting the EV bin lorry that burst into flame in London.
October 30, 2024
As a priority, they need to sort out the ambulances. It is unacceptable that, like my aunt and mother-in-law, they had to wait 12 hours and 6 hours, respectively, lying on the floor with a broken hip, waiting for an ambulance. It is even more galling that we see a line of ambulances ready and waiting for the new arrivals on the south coast. This is no way to treat our elderly. You wouldn’t treat a dog this badly. Disgusting!!
October 30, 2024
+1. My elderly neighbour had to wait 10 hours, lying on the floor (suspected neck injury meant we couldn’t move her). Her daughters drove the 2hrs down from London to wait with her. This is 3rd world level healthcare.
October 30, 2024
Indeed and each arrival cost about ÂŁ41K in hotel costs. My son, a junior doctor in London, gets paid about (after the rise which he has still not seen yet) about ÂŁ30k take home. The less council tax, commuting costs, interest on student debt, pension cont. he is left with about ÂŁ20k about half as much as a boat arrival. This for his room, rent, food, drink, lunches, utilities, clothesâŠ
October 30, 2024
They’ve been using private hospitals for years to reduce waiting lists. My husband is lucky enough to always get NHS treatment in the local private hospital. What the NHS needs to do is tackle the high levels of sick leave amongst its staff.
October 30, 2024
Police and Cooper Balls on again about âtoo early to speculateâ. Do they know what speculate means? It is what you do in the absence of full information or delays and lies from the powers that be. I shall speculate as much as I want to, this especially given Kiers sick two tier policing and justice system and misinformation we suffer under.
Well said Allison Pearson in the Telegraph today.
âWe deserve to know the full truth about the Southport massacreâ
October 30, 2024
+1 we need fulsome apologies from the Authorities who attacked the victims protesting at their plight. Those who were unjustly jailed need public apologies and compensation.
The PM needs to resign.
October 30, 2024
As does that poor policeman, absurdly charged with murder for what were surely pure political reasons. We must be seem to be doing something on this to keep certain communities happy. So letâs put this chap through two years of misery, but we will make it a murder charge as no sensible jury will ever convict him of that. What an appalling PPS, politicians and legal system we have.
How is Lucy Letby and when will she get her appeal in about 10+ years I assume. The conviction is clearly unsafe. More political law-fare with absurdly long sentences for Tommy Robinson too.
October 30, 2024
These are things to stop waste that you stayed last year.I have worked ithe NHS since 1968 and have seen and experienced changes since then. I perhaps have a little more insight that most.
When managers put forward their cases for more money,it doesn’t solely depend upon need by rather who can collate a good argument on paper and who has friends in high places.Of course this perspective with be flatly denied!
I think minor surgical units are a good idea and yet as usual views seem to be taken that the problem is mainly lack of clinical staff.The wheels aren’t turning well due to basic inability of systems to run effectively,then much time is spent blaming the clinical staff for the slow process of administration.
Out of date software,a continual rapid change over of staff,who cannot understand the nuances of the English language and what is meant within a sentence.Low paid staff not able to cope with changes and why they are doing the job. Non clinical staff prioritising referrals according to what is written and set referral protocols not allowing for individual circumstance.
Whilst technology is improving staff are not.
New groups are set up to supposedly improve outcomes and they cause so many problems because they have got the basic knowledge and understanding of how individual circumstance fits in toeiwhole picture.For instance children who were born in other countries have been vaccinated in their native countries as and often carry a badly documented card with them.These cannot be put on the usual system so families get letter after letter saying that they need vaccinations.So the clinician has to spend time explaining that the letter is wrong and work out from the brought documentation what is required.Then they have to explain to hundreds weekly who cannot speak or understand English what the problem is and the parents simply hold up the letter.Often this is an hour’s wasted time in a 10min slot.These are a few examples only.
October 30, 2024
It is difficult to diagnose the problems the NHS has when looking at it from the outside. Those inside are the ones who really know or should know. Even their knowledge will be specific to what they do.
From the outside we can make comparisons of what once was to what is now. For some it can be, as in my case, a comparison between countries. For instance in Spain a GP was two days away, in the UK it is nearer thirty days if you wish to see your own GP. In Spain, minor and routine problems apart, my GP was a facilitator to diagnostic services beyond his practice in hospitals. In the UK experience suggest the GP is a gatekeeper, if not a barrier, to specialist diagnostic equipment and consultants. The result is that problems go undiagnosed, patients suffer unnecessarily , and die prematurely. It may be that in UK circumstances this is all that a GP can do. We need some honest enlightenment in this diary from any GP contributors. Today I am seeing my GP after a 30 day wait just to get a private referal. My partner, after a GP blocking approach, went private, resulting in a consultant specialist appointment, MRI scan and follow up appointment, all within two weeks. I sympathise with those who suffer because they cannot afford it.
The NHS is suffering a deliberately engineered population explosion at the hands of politicians. An explosion that has not produced the medical specialists the NHS is very short of through lack of career training in the UK. Inadequate, after hospital and end of life palliative care, blocks hospitals. A 47% none medical NHS staffing level seems OTT to me. The consultant my partner will see next week has one very efficient and user friendly secretary, who may well work for other consultants in parallel. When there are alterative models of health service around the world that work much better for their patients, why are we not considering them. Free at the point of use is an established myth for the NHS. Check out the tax you pay and ask yourself how free. Wes Streeting might have an enlightened approach to his new job, time will tell.
October 30, 2024
Posted at 06.30, what don’t you like.
October 30, 2024
Good morning, Sir John –
No matter how much money is pumped into the NHS – it will never be sufficient, not as long as the attitude of the people changes, to taking responsibility for their own health and, more importantly, not as long as the attitude of the government + attached Media insists on everyone being so infantilised that even sticking a plaster on a scraped knee needs medical supervision while said MSM produce daily ‘health advice’, combined with ‘news’ of the latest shocking disease bound to kill us all.
October 30, 2024
Sir John,
As I have said before…. The NHS has become too politisised over the years for any government to have a simple and honest discussion about it and it’s future.
We need that debate to discuss exactly what we want or need the NHS to be.
I think everyone can agree we need the emergency side of it and the ambulance side of it.
We need it to manage acute and chronic serious conditions.
Maybe some of the less necessary procedures should attract a patient monetary contribution. What may these less necessary procedures be I hear you ask… I would suggest IVF, tattoo removal, gender reassignment operations etc. There must be many other areas that aren’t necessary and could be thought about.
I think we need an honest and open cross party debate about the future of the NHS and then, once completed and implemented, keep the politicians out of it.
October 30, 2024
Did anyone seriously think that Keir-Ching! and his bunch of Student Union Marxists were going to actually reform the NHS? This is the group of authoritarian lefties who would have locked us down for even longer and harder than Johnson and the Quad did in order to “save their beloved NHS.”
They will just throw more money down the bottomless pit and, since the borders are still wide open and hundreds of thousands are flooding in every year, it will achieve absolutely nothing. The Junior Doctors have the massive pay rise they demanded (with no efficiency reforms whatsoever) and the Unions will prevent any genuine reform from taking place.
We need to move towards an insurance-based system that blocks health tourists from exploiting British taxpayers; disincentivises people from making poor lifestyle choices and deters the worried well from clogging up their GP surgeries or A & E.
No branch of the Westminster Uni-Party is prepared to do what’s necessary.
October 30, 2024
Donna
I see from todays Budget that ÂŁtens of Billions more is going to be spent on the NHS without any plan to reform !
Thus the waste and inefficiency will continue.;
October 30, 2024
Cutting back on the unnecessary bureaucracy and posts that add no value is necessary. Unfortunately Labour is even less likely to do this than the Conservatives.
October 30, 2024
The DT says the percentage of high earners, 1.5x median wage, dropped by 4% in 4 years to 22%.
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ï»żIn the UK 20% pay 80% of the income and NI tax and 10% pay 60%.
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ï»żIf this continues in 10 years the % high earners will drop to 12%. This implies something like 40% of income and NI tax revenue will go in 10 years. This calculation is based on 5% of the top 10% and 5% of the 10-20% leaving. The only solution will be a massive drop in Government spending.
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ï»żOntop of this you have millions of migrants coming into the country who cost ÂŁ500,000 each if they live to 80, according to the OBR.
Itâs going to get very ugly very quickly.
Within the space of 2 Governments it will become unmanageable. Itâs going to get very ugly. We are looking at a pre war German style collapse.
October 30, 2024
All in support of the UN’s Agenda 2030 “levelling down” Agenda. The way they’re going, they’ll hit the target several years early.
October 30, 2024
The NHS is a financial black hole! Is the Health minister only responsible for the English NHS?
October 30, 2024
You need to open up competition. Copy some of the infinitely better european systems. I’ve experienced healthcare in France, Austria and Spain. All far easier to access than here, often free at the point of use.
I have glaucoma and need daily eye drops to stop me going blind. The drops are cheap, but are prescription-only. I was diagnosed here in my local hospital 5 years ago and received the drops. The last 2 years I’ve worked in Austria, where I got the drops via their NHS equivalent. That gap in being here in the UK means I have to see the hospital consultant here again before they or my GP will prescribe the drops.
I’ve been waiting for that consultant appointment since March. I went to the hospital eye clinic 2 months ago in desperation to tell them my supply of eye drops (left over from Austria) was running out, I had about 15 day’s supply left. I had my diagnosis (that they had written) and a copy of the last prescription I’d got in Austria to show them. They said sorry, they couldn’t prescribe without seeing me, and couldn’t see me without an appointment; they’d ask the “appointments team” to escalate my appointment. Catch 22. I’ve still had no appointment.
So, as far as the NHS is concerned I can go blind, for want of an extraordinarily cheap drug.
I checked about seeing a private consultant (for ÂŁ150), but on enquiry they said they can’t issue a repeat prescription. So that would have meant paying ÂŁ150 every month to get a prescription.
So, I visited Greece on holiday, where one can buy the eye drops over the counter for ÂŁ5. I count myself very lucky I was able to do this and stock up.
What an appalingly inflexible and bureaucractic system!
October 30, 2024
The NHS is overwhelmed with layer upon layer of middle management. With a headcount of ~1.35 million, only 150,000 are doctors and consultants. There are about 300,000 directly employed nurses, radiographers, lab people etc with another 100,000 working for agencies. Total clinical staff is about 550,000, or roughly 40% The other 60% are senior management and admin!
No wonder the waiting lists are so long. Streeting should have a one-off cull of the dead wood, freeing up whole hospital floors for new wards. The NHS is notorious for office empire building. Just throwing more money at this monolithic organisation will achieve little more than more admin staff
October 30, 2024
Same with the MoD.
14 years of Tory rule did nothing to reverse it.
October 30, 2024
60% admin and they canât bill travel insurers, private users not entitled to NHS treatment, other Countries on the GHIC card, we get put to the back of the queue those that pay. Just refer foreigners without NI numbers to private GPs, private hospitals that can bill.
October 31, 2024
A-tracy: Agreed. The DWP / Sec of State’s team are apparently working on tracking & recovering fraudulently claimed monies. I wonder if the Health Sec has any changed mechanism in mind or already set up to better monitor, track and deny fraudulent use of our health service.
October 30, 2024
Sir JR wins undertstatement of the year:
“There are some obvious money saving things to do to help bridge the gaps. Foreign visitors should pay for any use they need to make of the NHS, though that often does not happen”
People come to England with the sole intention of getting free treatment. It’s been happening for decades.
As said by ‘Mark B’ If you are coming here legally, you should provide for your own healthcare via insurance. After paying in to the system for a set term (say 5 years) NHS entitlement could be granted.
If you come here illegally you should have NO NHS entitlement.
P.S. When my son injured his ankle, he was given aluminium sticks to aid him walking. When he was better, I took the sticks back to the hospital. Only to be told ‘we don’t want them thanks !!!!
We jumped through hoops trying to find somewhere that did want them.
October 30, 2024
Free at the point of use is too open to abuse.
Grant based funding does not direct funding to where is is most productive.
Charge a small amount per appointment (refundable to the old or infirm is they turn up).
Pay per procedure or appointment carried out rather than by block grant funding. Improvements will follow the productivity.
October 30, 2024
Exactly. This is why GP’s can afford to work only 16 hours per week (at least in my surgery). They get paid per patient on the books, not by number of consultations or outcomes. With all the thousands of new houses going up all round, their books will be bulging as will their bank accounts with no more effort, just patients told to go away or wait 3 weeks. They even now have a paramedic doing triage when you ring up – i.e. keeping patients away from the doctors.
October 30, 2024
+1 @NS, the French system works a bit like this. Far superior to ours.
October 30, 2024
No doubt a massive failure of the previous government. Were held to ransom politically and threw egregious amounts of money whenever âpavlovs dogâ barked without getting much in return. Equally the weak Ministers/advisers seemingly had no vision and therefore ideas about what improvement looks like.
Couple that with inept Civil Servants, poor leadership, entrenched unions, consultants etc and you have what we see today.
You make serious suggestions so letâs assume the âwhyâ has been done, personally i am not convinced a thorough problem analysis has been done. Certainly no business plan seems to exist.
Now for the âwhat. Take one your suggestions. More knees, hips etc done in the private sector. Sounds easy. But on the basis many Consultants work for NHS as well, where is rte extra capacity and as presumably âprivateâ is more expensive, where is the extra budget?
More beds. Easy to say. From planning through budget to build out how long? Where are the staff coming from to support these. The NHS is chronically short at its existing level.
More cancer diagnosis, needs more Consultants and presumably at the end of the process more drugs so bigger budget.
And so it goes on. Sensible suggestions but little realistic nose to tail analysis.
The stark truth only going to get worse with an ageing population is that the NHâs model is unsustainable and politicians are lying to us and themselves if they think the country can afford to fund it ad infinitum.
A supply side problem caused by too much demand., Managing (reducing) the latter is the solution.
Efforts are being made with preventive interventions but the honest debate should be about the actual model.
Apparently the private sector can support a solution, acceptable politically if done via the NHS.
Going direct say with tax relief on contributions for instance, an anathema.
As ever in this country the politics is giving the people poor outcomes. Will anything change?
No chance.
October 30, 2024
Whatever government does, it does badly and expensively. What the NHS needs is slimming down. Relieve it of the obligation to treat lifestyle diseases, introduce a workplace health insurance scheme so employees can opt out of the NHS with tax incentives to cover most of the cost.
October 30, 2024
If the NHS can use private facilities by edict, what is the incentive to fund private healthcare?
Better by far to pay for your elective health needs in a different country and depend on the NhS for emergency treatment like everyone else.
As Javlin points out, more and more able people are doing this as part of their removal of their ability and assets from our failing, surrendered country.
October 30, 2024
The last few years have seen a marked loss of faith in the medical establishment by the public. Measures were implemented to”protect” us from a hyped-up threat to every human being as well as the mandating of a “safe” vaccine for which the makers were exempted from any responsibility for adverse effects! (Would you buy a car for which the manufacturers were indemnified against any faults?) This has been compounded by the moves by the pharmaceutical industry, with the cooperation of the establishment, to encourage people to take drugs for their whole life (e.g. statins) rather than looking at lifestyle and diet and now we have injections to “cure” obesity while unhealthy food products are marketed without pause at the young. The NHS needs to flush out all these issues and get back to working for the benefit of patients rather than satisfying its corporate associates.
October 30, 2024
More money alone will not make for a better NHS – Somethings are just basically wrong. Starmer should look at what works well and improve that, but he clearly has no innovative ideas of his own, considering he has opened a website for us to tell him what to do.
For a start, it should review and reduce its drug bill â all too often patients are labelled and put on drugs for life, with no consideration that the condition could change. The body is not something that is static. Cocktails of drugs are often in use to suppress side effects. The bill for drugs would be a lot less if the NHS would stop its prejudice against cheaper natural solutions. The bond between the NHS and drug companies needs to be broken.
Hospital food is generally awful, brought in from outside catering companies, and warmed up. The NHS should have itâs own kitchens and cook things fresh to meet dietary/medical requirements.
The number of reports required and levels of bureaucracy is far too high, forcing front line staff to spend more time filling out forms than looking after patients.
Probably the biggest thing missing from management of the NHS is common sense â time that improved.
October 30, 2024
The CQC has enmeshed the whole medical and dental services with a huge requirement to record âcomplianceâ protocols and carry out layers of useless procedures and audits, end result : wasted time and money and great depletion of morale and enthusiasm by staff, just note the many doctorsâ enthusiasm for early retirement.
October 30, 2024
Hi agree on couple of your ideas . Visitors to UK should pay when I go on holiday I buy travel insurance. Using the private sector is a good idea but when it goes wrong they need to pick up the bill when it goes wrong not the NHS.
October 30, 2024
My biggest complaint is that the NHS has become a factory environment, more attuned to providing doctors with a smooth supply of work than looking after the needs of patients.
Where is the recuperation for people recovering from surgery?
Doctors dismiss patients at the first opportunity with little regard to their strength or ability at home to recover from surgery. Recovery should be an important part of the treatment.
That is not to stay patients should remain in hospital until they can walk unaided, but we used to have recovery homes, years back, where patients could regain their strength.
Certainly, being in hospital too long is bad for your health. You become weaker with little opportunity to regain strength. Overall care is too concentrated on taking a pill, or fifteen — Painkillers are not always the answer.
October 30, 2024
A friend has just had knee replacement surgery. Discharged the same day! Utterly irresponsible and inexcusable. What if there are post surgery complications? Discharged under the influence of a local anaesthetic – she was in agony when this wore off. Youâd like to be in a hospital bed in this situation – but that costs money better spent on an administration using a spreadsheet on ÂŁ70k a year – as advertised on my local hospitalâs notice board.
October 30, 2024
It seems to me that the NHS has suffered from dire mismanagement for decades.
To turn it around, the Health Minister will have to call upon the real experts from the Private Health Care sector. But will he have the bottle to do it?
October 30, 2024
Itâs too late. Working in the NHS, indeed the whole public sector, is regarded by many of the staff as a cushy job for life. Sick? No probs – take as much time as you need. Dentist appointment – take the day. Parentsâ evening at school? No sweat – leave early. Working from home and walking the do instead of working – who knows or cares. Most of them are âat itâ. And there is nothing that can be done about it.
As soon as any organisation has a guaranteed budget, no competition and no performance targets – well, the entitled idlers in the public sector are what you get.
My wife worked for local government some years ago for about 18 months. Her attempts to work more efficiently and to get better value when issuing contracts were blocked at every turn – both by her boss and the councillors. She gave up and left. She had colleagues who rarely turned up for work for more than 3 days each week. Headache on Monday and âupset tummyâ on Friday – with a few âbad backsâ thrown in and the ubiquitous âlittle Johnny is off sick from schoolâ.
Nothing can be done. The public sector will consume the economy until, in the end, weâll all work for the state. At which point we will be full blown socialist with society, and sound standard of living, down the toilet.
October 30, 2024
“In a letter to Governor Andrew Bailey on Wednesday, Ms Reeves is expected to call on Threadneedle Street to reinstate climate change as one of the Bankâs key priorities.”
Yet she cant stop him loosing massive amounts of our money with his ‘fire sale’ of UK Bonds
October 30, 2024
No matter how much money is given to the NHS it will still fail. The model of free public health is broken. With an unsustainable increase in population from immigration and an ageing population it is doomed to fail. Grossly over staffed with expensive managers and insufficient medical personnel many of whom work part time the NHS is too big and grossly inefficient. There has to be a complete structural overhaul with âfree at the point of deliveryâ mantra abandoned and a part insurance part state funded system introduced. Reform at GP level is essential to ensure doctors work full time to properly support the population under their care. The huge increase in GPâs working part-time is totally unacceptable. Regrettably, itâs not just the NHS, itâs local councils, transport, roads and policing. Our once wonderful country is in decline and thereâs no chance Labour will be able to sort out the mess.
October 30, 2024
The only thing I would agree on being once wonderful was the tolerance, justice and sense of pariotism.
As I enter my almost certain last few years I no longer see any of that, and have a deep sense of foreboding for my children and grandchilden. The Conservative party of some years ago retained some principles, no longer evident, but the new same old same old Labour Party has been ushering in a wide range of declining ones.
October 30, 2024
When you train more women than men then after they start their families they donât want to work full time. Then the male doctors think this is good, Iâll just do three days too. We need to train more working class doctors as we used to when we had grammar schools. Start training more nurses on the ward from 16 years of age on properly constructed NVQ from level 2 right up to degree level then at allow them to get their degree part time working part time if they wish.
October 30, 2024
Rachel Reeves is rightly accused of breaking the ministerial code by ‘prematurely disclosing’ details of the budget to the media.
This principle is clearly and unambiguously set out in paragraph 9.1 of the Ministerial Code. While this can hardly be described as a leak – the Chancellor herself gave interviews on the record and on camera – the premature disclosure of the contents of the Budget has always been regarded as a supreme discourtesy to the House.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office Nick Thomas-Symonds addressed the House of Commons today saying the government will bring forward an updated version of the code. The Ministerial Code will be updated, following accusations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves breached it.
Two Tier Kier’s new world in action – we are right the rest of you are wrong
October 30, 2024
She still breached the existing code, not breaching a future code is no defence.
âAusterityâ applies only to the reduction of government funding apparently, just as âracismâ is exclusive to the Caucasian race.
Interesting times created by our ânowâ PM and our ânowâ Chancellor, as opposed I expect to our âthenâ PM and âthenâ Chancellor âŠđ€Ż
October 30, 2024
One gigantic multi-culti housing estate with no shops, no transport, no heat and no leisure built around a hospital.
That’s Labour’s vision.
Stay safe !!!! Save the NHS !
October 30, 2024
The NHS appears to be managed to build administrator empires, focusing on political ideology of DEI before it considers its position as serving its Customers with Clinical outcomes. Itâs not our money it is theirs is the attitude.
The flaw is hidden back in the aeons of time. National Insurance was introduced as what was interpreted to be compulsory way of ensuring people could take care of themselves, a tax in any other world. If NI had been real insurance funding health and retirement, it wouldnât have evolved into the massive State legalized Ponzi scheme it is now. Thatâs the cycle that needs to be broken.
If you pay into an insurance scheme you expect it to pay out in time of need. The NHS as it is now is an evolved Communist project that is about its members and not on competitive delivery. All the money in the World wonât solve its woeful performance, as it would be just more money for them to build empires. Clinicians should be in Charge the administrators should be working for them not them working for the administration.
However, GPâs, Doctors, Surgeons etc. are not NHS workers they are self-employed contractors as such their ethos is different. Would it be such a jump for the whole service to enjoy payment by results, paid for by the insurance payment the Customer, the Consumer are making? You already get the same Surgeon, Doctor etc in the private sector as the ones that are in attendance for the NHS.
The problem is not the Clinical side it is the Administration Empires and Governments that want the glory and self satisfaction of ego involvement
October 30, 2024
I was recently in my local general hospital radiology dept. They have five radiation machines and plenty of customers – I was taken aback by just how many cancer sufferers there are. I noticed that one radiation suite was not being used. I asked a radiographer what was wrong, was it clapped out? On the contrary, she said, that suite contained a brand new machine all ready to go, but they just did not have enough staff to train on it and to run it. One of the radiographers was due to leave the hospital soon, so matters will l be even worse. I doubt this is unusual in the NHS, so Reeves may provide money for new machines and scanners, but where do the operatives come from? My radiologist told me she studied at university for three years to qualify, so they are not just ready to be picked off the wall. I don’t know what she gets paid, but it is not enough. Chucking money at it will not work. Morale is so low, that they just cannot keep staff or recruit. This is what needs looking at. So disappointed that they are asking the public for ideas. They have had 14 years to see it is not working and come up with the cure. Amateurs, as I said last week. Professionals in the hospitals, amateurs in Whitehall on 3 times the salary of the qualified.
October 30, 2024
As someone who has experienced both the NHS and the Australian systems, for many years each, I can say with complete certainty that the only sensible proposal for reform of the NHS that I have seen is that by Lord Daniel Hannan: replace it lock, stock and barrel with the Australian system.
October 30, 2024
PG…or the French system…or the Austrian system….or the Spanish system. Do you see a pattern emerging? The tougher question is to find a worse healthcare system than the NHS!
October 30, 2024
The NHS as with all the Government briefings on their Budget, the removal of the purpose Parliament, the locking up of Political dissenters while freeing the real criminals – all highlight the pursuance that everything the EU has got wrong. You have to guess with a purpose of its own.
We now know that the Civil Servants have just been told that the Home Office is creating a new âEurope Hubâ in the governmentâs latest push for closer ties with the EU. The unit will sit within the International Strategy, Engagement and Devolution Directorate and âwill have responsibility for ensuring that our strategic approach to this work is coherent, working collaboratively across the Department.â The strategic approach being â give up Brexit freedoms to cosy up to the CommissionâŠ(https://order-order.com/2024/10/29/labour-creates-new-europe-hub-in-push-for-closer-eu-ties/)
The rejoin project is well on its way. They have calmed the Civil Service Establishment that has fought Brexit because of the people of the UK’s desire for self-Government and responsibility that would have come with Democracy.
October 30, 2024
This remains a free country. You are allowed to be a Communist. You can stand for election as a Communist Party candidate.
What you are not allowed to do is effect a fraud by becoming elected as something that you are not and then reverting after election.
The Government must be ejected and the election voided.
October 30, 2024
+1 well said Lynn
October 30, 2024
If you look at the staff in a shop, they are very busy and move fast. Every time I go to a hospital I see them strolling around (usually in pairs) like they are walking in the park.
NHS productivity must be awful.
October 30, 2024
Good post.
Alas they will not cut spending. They will print, borrow and steal their way through it. Kicking the can as far as they can get away with.
October 30, 2024
Agree with most comments.
October 30, 2024
The OBR, has a short History and is the brain dead child of Conservative Chancellor George Osbourne, but of more interest to us all when have they ever been correct in their assumptions, predictions and forecasts?
Does it only exist due to the inadequacies of our Chancellors and the Treasury? Or is it truly an expensive haven for those that cant get real jobs – the ‘jobs for the Boys’
October 30, 2024
Stop mass immigration and ensure all visas are not valid without medical insurance.
The current Far Left run NHS will never work because it is essentially a Soviet style monopoly provider where the patients are often mistreated because they have no choice and the staff are bullied into submission because they have nowhere else to work if they want to remain in the UK.
Since the annual budget of the NHS is 3 times that of the annual turnover of our largest supermarket I would suggest that the way forward is to split up the NHS into three separate organisations to provide competition for both customers (patients) and staff
October 30, 2024
If âthe private sector could for example tackle a lot of cataract removals or knee joint repairs in dedicated facilities contracted to perform NHS work to a high standardâ why cannot the NHS replicate such a facilities, thus keeping for its own use the profits that would otherwise leak to the private sector?
Also, Ministers must have ready exculpatory worded statements for when the âhigh standardâ contracted by any such private sector facilities is not met in the face of margin squeezing etc..
I recall some private firm was making for itself good money renting mobile operating theatres to NHS hospitals. Why did the NHS not supply itself? Perhaps the answer is the capital budget was spent and the revenue budget could be stretched!
October 30, 2024
People should be encouraged to take out medical insurance. Some competition might also provide insentive for the NHS to improve efficiency.
October 30, 2024
Good performance tonight on GB-News, just wish the past PM had your passion