The Department of Health and Social Care has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (119393):
Question:
Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to secure value for money from the additional funds allocated to the NHS for 2022-23. (119393)
Tabled on: 07 February 2022
Answer:
Edward Argar, Minister of State:
The new Health and Social Care Levy provides £23.3 billion for the National Health Service over the Spending Review period. We will ensure that this investment is provided for frontline care in England, increasing efficiencies and using reforms to improve productivity. This will include prioritising diagnosis and treatment, transforming the delivery of elective care and providing better information and support to patients.
The answer was submitted on 15 Mar 2022 at 09:50.
I asked this question for a variety of reasons. I think it will prove difficult to switch the money from this tax from the NHS to social care over the course of the next three years as planned. I am concerned that it will lead some people to think £12bn extra on the huge NHS budget or £12 bn in total for social care will handle the needs of each service, when the current totals on public health and government financed social care in the UK is already at £230bn. I am concerned about how the money will be spent, wanting to see more detailed plans of how the money is spent on the extra nurses, doctors, medicines and procedures that are needed to clear the backlists.
There are savings to be banked from the end of the pandemic. The large costs in setting up and rolling out new vaccines and the test and trace system will be behind us, and the high costs of the early intensive care of covid patients will be much reduced now the vaccines cut the numbers and reduce the severity of the disease for most patients. I am also trying to find out how costs will change following the current reorganisation of management structures where presumably efficiency was part of the original plan behind yet another reorganisation.
March 16, 2022
Good morning.
You are going to need more that £23bn pounds now that you are importing Ukrainians on top of the Afghans and the HK Chinese, all of which will have access to the NHS and other services despite NOT contributing a penny to them.
This whole matter regarding more money for the NHS shows how bad this administration is and how clueless a PM we have. He will say, do and spend anything for good PR.
March 16, 2022
The Ukrainians are being allowed to work – so they will pay taxes.
I am delighted that the British public have forced this mean and nasty government to u-turn.
We aren’t all bigots.
March 16, 2022
That made me laugh. Have a look in the mirror if you want to see a genuine bigot. You detest people just for being old. Or for having a different opinion on the EU. You are bigoted.
March 18, 2022
+1
March 16, 2022
Really. I’ve just been given an appointment to see my GP in a……….. months time. This is a direct consequence of too many people for the health service. So, are you prepared to let your family give up its health services for the 12 million foreign nationals who were not born here, or the 3 million Hong Kong Nationals being given leave to come here on top of the unlimited number from the Ukraine, Afghanistan and the illegal boat people? This Government is a disgrace and dishonest. The rise in National Insurance won’t cover all these peoples health needs, let alone ours. Health tourism solved after 12 years? No. Its failed in every area of Governance whilst pretending to be conservative. I found out today that some of the Qatar gas being shipped here is fracked in Qatar. Their Energy policy and religious plight against that nasty CO2 trace gas has reached new heights of stupidity! Coal from Russia anyone? A special kind of stupid.
March 18, 2022
+1
March 16, 2022
Bigots, you say young andy.
Presumably you don’t read what you write regularly on here about people older than you.
March 16, 2022
Have you been allocated your Ukrainian refugee yet Andy ?
March 17, 2022
I look forward to waiting for the person at my appointment to turn up due to childcare and transport problems. Then with her baby in arms I can try to understand Ukrainian or possibly Russian. The translator will likely be running late, and not fully understand my request or complaint and unable to putin the other language.
March 16, 2022
When will we be able to see a GP in person again?
March 16, 2022
Peter, have you tried in the last couple of months to get a face to face GP appointment? People have to triage past a receptionist or the GP consult service but I don’t know anyone that has been refused. If you were refused which County are you in?
March 16, 2022
Not tried it. During covid you had to do everything via the net – even if you went into the surgery.
Hospital consultant keeps postponing my test and subsequent appointment. Eighteen months to two years late now.
March 16, 2022
Tracey,
I have an elderly father-in-law, they speak and diagnose him on the telephone. They definitely do not do home visits!
Elderly people would be better off in prison. The conditions are excellent, lovely food, tv, computers, warm, doctors on tap no cost of living crisis, cared for and regularly watched and drugs on demand if you wish. Then we have a catalogue of female prison guards having sex with male inmates! Where do they get sent? Jail!
Johnson does not even attempt to find £4-5 billion of fraudulent claims from covid, happy to write it off! That is why Lord Agnew resigned. Did it not occur to Johnson or govt. ministers, like the one JR spoke to, the money could be spent on NHS or elsewhere?
Good to see weak Johnson cave in to bribery demands from Iran, I wonder if that will help in the future! What will Russia, China or EU make it?
How about Harry Dunne, Julian Assange. The weakling on the world stage who happily pisses away our hard earned taxes. What was the £400 million given to Ukraine for exactly?
March 17, 2022
Hope, I am truly sad to hear that your F-i-L can no longer get home visits. I hadn’t heard GPs had stopped doing home visits is this in the South East? Do they give him a face to face appt. in the surgery? I would check out the other surgeries in the area and see if there is another one that still does home visits.
I can’t believe they don’t try to find £4-£5bn fraudulent claims, they know who they paid the money to, there must be a way, they should hand it to a private debt collection agency and let them keep half of what they recover, better than nothing. The people taking this money should not be allowed to run businesses in the UK in the future until they repay or agree a repayment schedule and pay on time.
I am very disappointed with this majority conservative government, apologies to John.
March 16, 2022
Go private about £70 and you can see them the same day or next day for 15 mins!
March 16, 2022
Don’t forget the inclusion and diversity staff that will be needed to cope with the extra workload of finding problems with the integration of said imports.
Another layer of management must be created to oversee incomers get priority over taxpayers.
After all its the International Health Service. Best in the world, not.
March 16, 2022
How did we ever survive the 70s 80s 90s 00s without Diversity Officers….well China, the Far East, Middle East, Africa, South America and Russia are going to learn the hard way without Diversity Officers…..Boris leading the way again
March 16, 2022
He would get excellent PR and help the economy hugely if he abandoned the insane HS2, Sunak’s the vast tax increases and Net Zero but he won’t do any of that it seems. Carrie perhaps will not let him?
March 18, 2022
Quite possibly but don’t forget the influence (control?) exerted by the WEF, UN etc.
March 16, 2022
+1
Plus 6 million from EU who stayed (likely to be an under estimate).
Patel hides illegal immigration figures to try to prevent our anger. Interesting to read how IPSA are back hiding facts from the public about MP wrong doing, 13 years on and Cameron’s disinfectant is not working!! Then we have dodgy covid figures and spending, the wall paper saga, party gate etc. There is a theme here with this party and govt.!
March 16, 2022
+1. I agree Hope.
March 16, 2022
+ many
Mark, you are so right!
March 16, 2022
Mark, perhaps we should find Ukranian nurses, doctors, dentists, mental health specialists in the same ratio that we take in unqualified refugees to enable the extra pressures on the British health service that we are already being told is being rationed to us.
March 16, 2022
Obviously the UK government must constantly seek new sources of cheap foreign labour for employers, that is as vital as finding new sources of energy. Looking ahead there may come a time when all terrestrial reserves of cheap labour have been exhausted – the rest of the world may have stopped having enough babies, as we in the UK did decades ago – and then they may have to foment a war on some other planet to provide a fresh influx of refugees to work on Earth. If they had four arms they could be very productive workers, putting the natives to shame and stopping any nonsense about immigrants being a burden on the planet.
March 16, 2022
Please could you ask why nothing has been done about passing the laws to protect the EU Single Market that were envisaged in the Command Paper published last July, and which would make redundant the obnoxious EU checks on goods entering Northern Ireland that are imposed by the present Irish protocol?
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/01/28/smoothing-trade/#comment-1295666
“It would be better to minimise the inevitable reputational damage we will suffer from breaking the treaty, and the best way to do that will be to voluntarily and unilaterally address the legitimate concerns of the EU and the Irish government by introducing export controls for the small trickle of goods entering their territory over the land border from Northern Ireland.
It is now six months since paragraphs 43 and 62 of the July Command Paper “Northern Ireland Protocol: the way forward” said … ”
Actually it is now eight months, and there is still no sign of “new legislation to deter anyone in Northern Ireland looking to export to Ireland goods which do not meet EU standards” or “to provide for penalties for UK traders seeking to place non-compliant goods on the EU market.”
March 16, 2022
Poor Denis. Still complaining about the Brexit he voted for.
Let me help.
Denis – this IS Brexit. It isn’t going to change. Get over it. Apparently you won.
March 16, 2022
Denis
It seems that this Government is limited and can only think and do one thing at a time.
First Covid stopped everything. Now it’s the War In Ukraine.
Clearly both important problems to resolve but with over 350 Party Mp’s in Parliament you would think that some would be able to multitask or be assigned a task.
One also asks what the Civil service are doing apart from supposedly working from home.
Where is the drive to get things sorted, good grief we have enough problems to resolve and fix !
Any news on stopping the concrete pouring to cap the shale gas wells. ?
March 16, 2022
The Foreign Secretary is basking in the apparent success of bringing back two of the Iranian hostages. (Was it part of Obama/Biden’s dirty deal? Let us hope the Shah’s money is not spent on terrorism as Obama’s 1 billion dollars were). We must be delighted for the sake of the two hostages and their families, but we must also hope against hope it does not set a precedent.
Can we now persuade the Foreign Secretary to turn her mind to getting back the part of our country which has been taken hostage by the EU? It doesn’t look good, because when Sammy Wilson reminded her of her duty, she replied she would “fix the Protocol.” We don’t want it fixed; we want to come out of it, using the escape clause which it already has. We don’t need to pay yet another ransom.
March 16, 2022
£23 billion is only about £3,000 per person on the (current) operations waiting list.
March 16, 2022
And doubtless over 60% of that will be wasted on admin. wages and their pensions rather than operations or treatments.
March 16, 2022
One can be fairly sure the NHS will deliver their customary appalling value for money with huge delays, rationing and by treating their “customers” with the usual complete contempt. Free at the point of (rationing, delays and non treatment) ensures a virtual state monopoly. What state monopolies deliver much real value?
Perhaps even the The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) for many.
March 16, 2022
The NHS now has the highest waiting lists in the world now at over six million. With nearly three quarters of a million missed cancer referrals which will clearly kill thousands.
Also reported today:- “Families face worst fall in standard of living since 1947” plus the highest taxes for 70+ years and rip off green crap energy prices too. Well done Sunak! Are you also a “low tax a heart person”? Like the “cast rubber” liar Cameron claimed to be? Such are PPE graduates it seems. Zero understanding of politics, science, energy, logic, maths and certainly economics – usually combined with being compulsive liars.
March 16, 2022
LL,
As Guido pointed out, £180,000 for a diversity officer! And there hundreds of them! How does this Save the NHS exactly? How does it help with backlogs? Did this not cross Javid’s tax hiking mind? Every ministerial post he has held he has wanted more tax!
JR already knows the answer to his question as it was one of his previous blogs where he blogged (sic) Johnson gave the money then asked how it would be used!
Johnson claims today we must double wind production! He has lost his mind or is just doing his wife’s bidding because previously he was for fracking. Imported gas comes from US and Qatar fracking!!
Interesting how is in Saudi Arabia today he and his latest squeeze would be up for stoning for committing adultery!
March 16, 2022
£180K is six junior doctors salaries – no wonder so few doctors (circa 50%) choose to stay with the NHS.
March 16, 2022
My energy bill is doubling in April. That’s a sure vote winner when everyone sees the consequences of Johnston’s wind power and stubborn refusal to grant licences in the North sea, denies fracking opportunities and imports coal when we have our own. Banning our cars from 2030 and boilers soon after. This is madness on steroids and the msm refuse to challenge or ask for scientific proof of this net zero bs. We need him and his green socialist wife out of office. The Tory’s will not be electable in a generation.
March 16, 2022
Some lonely, ignored, refused attention people will choose LCP at home without knowing it, such is the bewildering state of NHS.
March 16, 2022
He answers:- “We will ensure that this investment is provided for frontline care in England, increasing efficiencies and using reforms to improve productivity. This will include prioritising diagnosis and treatment, transforming the delivery of elective care and providing better information and support to patients.” So who is “we” and how exactly when the NHS has an appalling record of inefficiency and incompetent management – nothing will change I predict!
March 16, 2022
Good Morning,
Sir J. Your fears are well founded on NHS profligacy, whats to be done? See below example.
Guido regularly gives the NHS a caning on waste such as:
https://order-order.com/2021/12/03/nhss-latest-diversity-equality-hiring-spree/
March 16, 2022
+many
I don’t feel that anything in this country is for me.
I feel excluded.
Anyone in the NHS worried?
Very much doubt it.
March 16, 2022
Many diversity officers being recruited on over £100k it seems, so more than the cost of three junior doctors. Clearly they have totally insane priorities!
March 16, 2022
Especially as this should be part of the role of all supervisors, managers’ etc. Appointment usually means double standards with the indigenous population being marginalised. Watched the adverts on TV lately. You’d think there was a directive to exclude English people. But wait……………
March 16, 2022
Yes, the insanity of the NHS is there for all to see, and regularly exposed, so the fact that they are utterly shameless about it and never reverse these decisions proves that this mismanagement is deliberate and fully intended. Therefore there is only ONE way of curing it: sacking the Health Secretary. And the only way that would come about would be for Tory backbenchers to declare they have no confidence in him. But they won’t do that, so nothing will ever improve.
As for the extra money that has been allocated to the NHS, the fact that this was done BEFORE having a precise spending plan is so stupid and so incompetent that it proves that this government is beyond hope. No private company would do things this way round, and the fact that the OBR has said nothing proves they need to be disbanded too.
March 16, 2022
+1
March 16, 2022
Our host and some Londoners may remember an attempt by the then SoS for Health, Virginia Bottomley, to close Barts Hospital and redistribute its budget and staff etc to other hospitals, particularly in the east of the city, on the valid grounds that there were too many hospitals in one small area containing relatively few residents.
This move was strongly supported by the other NHS hospitals (a close friend, a senior consultant at the Royal London, kept me informed). Barts’ management resisted and rapidly instituted major expenditure on a new and apparently unnecessary operating suite, hoping – correctly as it turned out – that this would persuade the DoH to cancel their plans. The other hospitals who might have benefited from this restructuring were furious – it should not be forgotten that redistributing NHS hospital services in a far more equitable way was one of the original principles of the NHS.
The public tend to forget or are ignorant of the fact that both NHS management AND senior medical staff are just as prone to be self-important empire-builders as business people and politicians!
March 16, 2022
SM. It’s truly disgusting but I’ve been assured by a friend working high up in her hospital it goes on all the time. Spending for the sake of it because they’ve got money left that they don’t know what to do with. In the meantime my husband is well overdue for his cancer checkup and has been told he will have to wait another 6 months for a TELEPHONE appointnent to discuss problens with his stomach. This after already discussing it in January with his GP.
March 16, 2022
+1
March 16, 2022
IMO your reference to “high costs of the early intensive care of covid patients will be much reduced now the vaccines cut the numbers and reduce the severity of the disease for most patients” is somewhat optimistic.
3 points
– The latest stats show that 92% of patients that died and had been tested covid positive, had had the covid jab. With a death rate like this, it does not fit the category of a vaccine, nor has it even completed the trial phases. So please can we be honest and call it for what it really is. Experimental gene therapy.
– The growing number of serious adverse affects from this jab will result in a continuing significant number of, avoidable, deaths, especially in the young.
– Which begs the question how many of the above deaths were the direct result of the jab?
March 16, 2022
How much of this money will have already been spent on Diversity Management or ring fenced within the Trusts for such positions?
How much will be allocated to identify the massive areas of waste that is hemorrhages out of the system on a daily basis? It would seem the existing management structure is incapable of getting on top of the situation.
The NHS as is, is a bottomless pit that has money poured into it. Right across the board from within the Trusts and the Department of Health there has to be responsibility and accountability linked to wasteful practices. Recognition for those who are by their own behaviour identify and eradicate waste within their departments or work stations. Then maybe will things start to improve.
March 16, 2022
+1
The NHS also have staff to manage ‘climate change’! Why?
March 16, 2022
Because our Government is nut nuts!
March 16, 2022
It often gets far too hot and humid in hospitals.
March 16, 2022
Ask too:- What plans does the Government & PM have to secure value for money from the circa 50% of GDP they currently spend (mainly waste)?
Currently we get very little of any value at all from it at all and much of the expenditure clearly does much positive harm like all the net zero/expensive energy lunacy and HS2.
March 16, 2022
PMQs today….not a single question from any MP about ‘‘fracking’’
March 16, 2022
Deja vu.
March 16, 2022
One huge waste of money is all the training given to doctors who then leave the profession due to the very poor employment offer from the NHS. Only about 50% of UK trained Doctors put up with the poor pay (often under £30K), treatments and conditions of NHS employment. Only about 50% remain, they either leave the profession completely, go overseas or work elsewhere. Plus they often have £6K plus of interest PA on their large student loans to cover.
March 16, 2022
Much MUCH better off being a train guard or single mum on benefits.
March 16, 2022
+1
March 16, 2022
LL, reported 600 admin staff on over £150,000! Do not forget the hundred extra managers Johnson announced on £242,000!
March 16, 2022
Lifelogic I have asked you before where you get this poor pay (often under £30k) from, that just isn’t correct.
March 16, 2022
According to nhsemployers.org 26/08/2021 ‘Pay and Conditions Circular (M&D) 3/2021’.
Point 7 page 2 ‘The minimum and maximum of the pay range of salaried GPs employed on the salaried GP contract have been increased by 3% to £62,268 and £93,965 respectively from 1 April 2021’.
What LL might have been talking about is ‘Doctors in Training’ (DiT). In year 1, they get £28,808 (nodal point 1), in year 2 £33,345 (NP2), as Specialty Registrar Core Training or Run-Through Training £39,467 (NP3) then £50,017 (NP4), then £53,077 (NP5) that moved to £56,077 from 01/10/2021.
Anybody believing LL’s posts does that at their own risk …
March 17, 2022
My post are all quite accurate but do let me know if you do find any specific mistakes. I was indeed referring to new junior doctors pay which is as I say well under £30,000. Also remember they will usually have circa £6,000 in interest on their student debts PA so after tax, NI and loan repayments & interest they often have under £17,000 or £326 PW for rent, food, heating, council tax, clothing, commuting, car (often essential for the job), work lunches, leisure…
March 17, 2022
Maybe if you have a bad cold. But if you need a hip replacement, do you really expect your £70/month private insurance taken when you are 60+ to cover fully the £9k to £20k such an operation is invoiced for? (The highest figure includes the minimum two-week physiotherapy stay in a dedicated care centre after the operation, in the SE of England)
And if one has a long term condition like dementia, the £70/month private insurance will not cover anything except the very first diagnostics. Anything related to care whether at home or more likely in a residential home will not be covered.
March 17, 2022
Lifelogic, sorry I thought you were referring to fully trained doctors not doctors still in their training. All of our English students training at university have the exact same interest payment accrual and graduate tax of 6% it disgusts me because the Scottish, Welsh and N Irish teens don’t have this! One of my children trained for six years and has accrued a lot of tuition fee debt whilst also working throughout their degree, no guaranteed job at the end of it or even a guaranteed salary and pension contribution.
What year of their training does this salary kick at the start of year 5, at the age of 22/23? For 35 hours per week Mon-Fri? + weekend overtime and enhancements, night pay enhancements and employer pension contribution of around 23%. How much do you think they should be on whilst still being trained?
March 16, 2022
It’s easy to look up: 1st year junior doctor trainees working basic statutory hours get around £25k pa.
March 17, 2022
LL said UK trained doctors, not student doctors. Year 1 trainee GP £28,808 basic plus shift allowances, weekend allowances, pension contribution. It is a pretty typical graduate placement salary.
I do think the government need to justify diversity managers on so much more. How many years training do they have? What qualifications do they have? How many years work experience do they have? It is bizarre!
March 16, 2022
A recently qualified junior doctor in her FY1 that I know employed in Sheffield and another one I know going off to Nottingham shortly. Might be more in London perhaps.
March 16, 2022
Foundation doctors and special registrars (including GP trainees)
Grade £
FY1 28,808
FY2 33,345
March 17, 2022
LL relies on a a sample of two, wow!
Graduate engineer at Rolls Royce average pay is £30,923 (according to GlassDoor).
So what exactly is your point?
Initial salaries are low and salary progression is a more useful measure.
I also wonder just how high salary is on a newly qualified, eager young doctor’s mind in terms of career direction choices.
PS I don’t agree with having diversity managers at all, at any salary
March 16, 2022
A captured, weak and unprincipled Tory government captured by Labour’s regressive, public sector State machine will destroy this nation, its freedoms and its finances
The NHS CEO now determines health spending NOT the SoS for Health. That’s disastrous for the taxpayer who has to finance this bankrupt monolith
The contemporary Tory party has become an empty vessel concerned only with its own survival, at all costs and it will abuse the taxpayer ad infinitum to achieve it
March 16, 2022
Unfortunately too many of them fall into the category that is called “useful idiots”. MPs have trapped themselves in legislative straitjackets. They appear to lack the will or the nous to escape them when the need arises.
March 16, 2022
Dom,
Not only abuse but deliberately deceive.
March 16, 2022
The NHS CEO is currently an oxford modern history graduate & not a medic and She has already shown herself to be totally innumerate (over Covid & from her own mouth). I suspect that the vast majority of the doctors the NHS employ (most on less than 1/7th of her salary) would be rather brighter and would do a rather better job. Sir Simon Stevens under Jeremy Hunt both PPE Oxon was dire too.
March 16, 2022
LL,
Stevens was Blaire’s health policy advisor. All quangos and public sector bodies taken over by Socialists. Tories have built on and accelerated the left wing take over. Cameron and his bonfire a long distance strap line- it was an election teaser without any substance- he created more than he ever got rid of!!
Socialist Tories have allowed left wing socialists to remain, be promoted and take over top All public sector positions.
The con socialists have done nothing over 12 years to redress the balance. You might recall Francis Maude was going to sort out the civil service, the latest was Cummings. Neither achieved anything conservative.
March 16, 2022
Hope
Also all institutions, charities, arts etc. All taken over by socialists. It won’t change without revolution coming from the people.
March 16, 2022
+1
March 16, 2022
That made me laugh. What the SoS (now, there’s an apt acronym) knows about the NHS could be written in the back of a postage stamp in many languages (translators paid for, natch).
We should have a simple formula to determine health spending so it is set as a proportion of the tax take. Each trust should have an experienced private sector manager/accountant whose job would be to constantly monitor spending and prevent waste and the endless employment of people whose admin job is paid at 3 times the salary of a nurse.
March 16, 2022
Contrary to the empty promises of the Putin funded Brexitists, the health service has got worse. I read all these stories of elderly voters appalled that they are now having to waiting years for treatment. Having told all those foreign doctors and nurses to go home, Brexitists appear surprised that many of them have.
Anyway, I sympathise. I became unwell just before Christmas and had to wait almost a fortnight to see a specialist. Ghastly experience.
I have private health care and voted Remain.
March 16, 2022
I bet it’s still off to the NHS if you get Parkinson’s, MS, dementia or any other mental illness. Private health care don’t want to know you if you have a long term condition.
March 17, 2022
Nor will they come out to scrape him up off the motorway if he crashed his electric car, nor if there are complications will he get intensive care privately. When he gets to say 75, the premiums will be unaffordable.
March 16, 2022
change your provider – they are ripping you off.
March 17, 2022
Andy. They won’t want to know when something goes wrong. The private hospital I attended for a simple operation didn’t go to plan and they didn’t know how to cope as it was ‘out of hours’ but than fully managed to get advise from an NHS hospital specialist on duty.
March 16, 2022
Well, this one’s pretty easy. What with the illegals coming over everyday and now Johnson saying UNLIMITED numbers of refugees can come I would think it’s pretty obvious where the money will disappear to. Don’t forget all the extra diversity officers and translators that will be needed not only in the NHS but also in the schools. Then there will be mental health too. Already we have seen 20 cancer patients from Ukraine taken to hospital in London. While this is admirable I do hope nobody who’s been on the waiting list here for months will be bypassed. Still, we’re only English so what do we matter? Just empty your pockets.
March 16, 2022
Fedupsoutherner,
That is wishful thinking. Of course the indigenous people will be bypassed. In one of the Tories urban ghettos, wrongly named urban villages, the council have a pan county housing policy which enable those with a high point score to go to the top of the list irrespective how long they lived in the country, what they contributed financially or emotionally and no matter of family ties to the local specific area. Same for schools. You are the Tory tax fodder, no more no less.
They want you to: Shut up and put up with it, remember they are watching and monitoring you and will not tolerate dissent. Covid the forerunner, taken to extreme in Canada.
Still no announcement about covid passports or vaccination status for Ukrainians coming here? It has all the hall marks of those unnecessarily killed by the govt when they ordered their transfer from hospitals to care homes. How about saving the NHS? Do not be silly. The list will grow.
March 17, 2022
Hope.
The Head of Camden Council was on the TV News two nights ago. She said they had 60,000 on the Council House waiting list already. What hope is there for those poor people, now we have thousands of refugees/migrants to house? No one seems to care about them.
Also someone had asked their Council, how many school places they could offer to the Refugees. The answer was 9. They could not offer more. One wonders how on earth we are going to cope with refugee children, who need an education.
Sadly, our Government seems to make extravagant promises, and then leave others to fulfill them.
March 16, 2022
One big lesson from the pandemic was the thing which really worked well was the vaccine task force and roll out, which was taken out of the hands of the state bureaucracy and put with a competent team drawn from the private sector. We need far more of that.
March 16, 2022
I’ll repeat my call for NHS spending to be funded by an ‘NHS Tax’, shown clearly to the tax-payer. ‘NI’ is too vague.
NHS resourcing has been successfully weaponised by the left and a cowardly right won’t fight for common-sense. NHS spending, like an Omicron, will eventually squeeze out all other expenditures.
March 16, 2022
The way to ensure reasonable for money value is achieved within the NHS and other public sector organisations is to pay per procedure not as a grant.
A schedule of charges can be drawn up for each procedure carried out in the NHS on a patient and each Trust can invoice for activity carried out.
Cloth cut according to output with the Private Sector able to bid for overdue procedures at the same rate.
March 16, 2022
If we’re “lucky” the new funds being appropriated from the British people may just about cover the cost of providing “free” healthcare to the illegal migrants still flooding in/being ferried in across the channel; the tens of thousands of Hong Kong Chinese who have been invited in; the Afghans and Syrians who are coming and now the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians we have been told to expect.
Meanwhile my friend – a man in his late 50s – tried several times to actually see a GP over the past couple of years and each time was refused and fobbed off by “our wonderful NHS.” He has now been told he has an aggressive terminal cancer, which would have been treatable had it been caught earlier, and has 6 -12 months to live.
He has paid “for our wonderful NHS” all his working life and still will be, all the time he can work. But I guess we are all supposed to applaud the fact that we are providing “free” healthcare to the hundreds of thousands who have paid in nothing whatsoever.
I’m sick to death of the CON Party. My vote has gone forever.
March 16, 2022
I agree with the Public Accounts Committee report that the government fails to recognise that staffing the health service remains its biggest problem.
I have been pointing this out here for quite a while. I think it is now inescapable. There just aren’t enough doctors and nurses. Many that haven’t left yet are exhausted and demoralised. It’s a downward spiral.
March 16, 2022
I agree. But only a fool would add to the problem.
March 16, 2022
Apparently the Festival of Brexit is a big waste of money. Well over £100m is being spent on this thing.
According to The Times: “The festival’s ten projects include a “tour de moon”, grow-your-own-food events and an art installation on a disused oil rig off Weston-super-Mare.”
Brilliant. Thank you Brexitists. Just when I think your Brexit couldn’t be any funnier you prove me wrong.
March 16, 2022
What a bore you are today – like most days. Try keeping on-piste.
March 17, 2022
SW. Can you imagine living with him?
March 16, 2022
As an answer to such a specific question, I’d expect a detailed analysis of how the money is being earmarked to be spent, exactly. It shouldn’t be beyond the capability of ministers to list what money is being attributed to which specific areas.
Instead we get a pathetic generalisation.
Having wrought this money from us in a very unprincipled manner, the least HMG can do is to admit where it is likely to go on extra bureaucracy, and what if any will go to the frontline.
After it has been spent, I want to see evidence of any benefit – but will we be getting this? I doubt it.
March 16, 2022
Forget the tax increase. That’s in the bag and any questions about yardsticks for measuring its use will get no answers. There’s a more spectacular “eating its own tail” scenario in prospect now, with the Soviet NHS gorging on Soviet oligarchs’ cash via this government to prop itself up.
March 16, 2022
Whatever they do it will be a total shambles/disaster.
The NHS used to work in terms of providing straightforward healthcare.
But that wasn’t good enough was it?
No.
It had to be turned into something unrecognisable and inaccessible to those who paid for it.
Shame on all politicians for what they have done to this country.
And are still doing…. with increasing speed.
March 16, 2022
E,
People from around the world turn up at A and E get treated at our expense and fly off! Johnson’s mob were going to sort this out a decade ago! Hunt around election time made some murmurings then abandoned the idea.
Health tourism flourishes at our expense while the left wing virtue signallers in govt. think of more ways to tax and waste our money. Labour must laugh their socks off, they float an idea, Tories grab and build on it! No need for them to be in govt.!
March 16, 2022
To take 5 weeks to come up with that platitudinous answer shows that there is no definitive plan and the money will be frittered away.
There are far too many separate divisions, entities, departments, call them what you will of the NHS all with CEOs and expensive and wasteful administrations pulling against each other. There needs to be a ‘top-down’ reorganisation but it will never happen as the bulk of MPs are too young and have either very little or no relevant experience. I doubt anybody will be invited from industry to undertake the task because the result will be a staggering increase in the country’s unemployment total.
March 16, 2022
They will for their insider knowledge.
March 16, 2022
In order to attempt to silence the permanent and growing extreme discontent with what is often termed the world’s best Health Service (HILARIOUS), enormous sums of £billions are publicly quoted as handed to NHS. The trumpet blows but the detail is invisible.
A financial freeze is required for at least a year in order to re-assess the way forward. Yet again another assessment of restructuring and targets is needed. The constant new sticking plaster applied by the patient over the gaping openly bleeding wound really does deserve a ‘service’ attention.
March 16, 2022
The biggest mystery.
WHY WAS THE “HEALTH SERVICE” CLOSED IN A PANDEMIC?
March 16, 2022
Everhopeful. . There are still many GPS not actually doing face to face appointments. Why, when hospital doctors and nurses have worked all through the pandemic?
March 16, 2022
So it was just the flu after all
March 17, 2022
I’ve got Covid now. It’s nowhere near as bad as the flu. I’ve had colds much worse than this. I know it’s not this mild for everyone but nobody I know has been bad with it. Even my son and his fiance were not that I’ll and they are unvaccinated.
March 16, 2022
+1
All very puzzling.
March 16, 2022
because the contract lets them !
March 16, 2022
Seems like an awful lot of money (in total) for an ineffective and rather chaotic system.
John aware you did highlight the number of taxes it takes to fund the NHS in times past. Perhaps you can repeat/update those taxes involved.
Aware it was the complete income tax receipts, but there were others well, has this now just grown in number.
March 16, 2022
I see that even the search engine has been changed.
No more “Speaking for England”.
That makes me so sad.
March 16, 2022
Usual bla bla from the Civil Service/DoH which the Government will hide behind
March 16, 2022
Yet, yesterday Denis Campbell writing in the Guardian said “Highest ever number of medical students have been told there are no places for them this year”.
Seems rather odd that we are short of medics but; “A total of 791 medical undergraduates who have applied to start training as junior doctors at the start of August have been told there are no places for them – the highest number ever.”
This article ends ““It’s likely that most of the 791 people without foundation doctor posts will eventually be allocated one but it does create undue stress for them and they may be allocated a role in a part of England where it may be difficult for them to work due to family reasons.”
So we trained these people at extremely high cost including their partial investment in their own training through student tuition fees, yet we mess around at the end of the training instead of getting on this when they are starting their final year and allocate placements according to and guaranteed only with the expected grades for that placement. Just odd.
March 16, 2022
a-tracy
This is not the first time this has happened, it’s been going on for years.
Is it the system that’s at fault.
Is it lack of the correct information.
Is it a complete lack of joined up thinking.
Are the people managing, involved in training and filling positions, totally and utterly incompetent.
Aware that perhaps some fully trained medics would not want to work in certain parts of the Country, but if that is the problem every year, with the same areas being involved, then someone needs to find a solution, even if it means offering a higher financial package as a reward, on a temporary or semi permanent basis until it is resolved..
March 17, 2022
Alan, I wonder which parts of the Country doctors don’t want to train in if that is the reason? I thought every hospital had a university near to it and that doctors places were awarded to prepare doctors for that local hospital placement.
March 16, 2022
University subjects subsidised by the taxpayer don’t include foreign languages, apparently because we don’t really need them – so now the intelligence services are short of Russian speakers. But subsidized university subjects do include medicine, because having more doctors is a national priority. Indeed – during the Covid crisis the NHS told us they risked being overwhelmed, for lack of staff.
But now we’ve got neither enough Russian specialists, nor hospital places for hundreds of doctors.
Greetings from Absurdistan.
March 16, 2022
“plans”, “value for money”. I think that’s asking the wrong government.
What is needed is the introduction of insurance based private healthcare, especially for businesses, with tax breaks for relieving the NHS of the burden. Place the lifestyle disease treatment in the charity sector, and leave the publicly funded NHS for those genuinely unfortunate people whose medical conditions make it difficult or impossible to hold down a job that pays the premiums, and those who can’t afford their own private healthcare.
March 16, 2022
Perhaps if the UK had a sensible approach to energy security we may not have to beg for oil from Saudi. I am fed up hearing that it’s controversial with their human rights record. In that case let’s stop all trade with China. People think nothing about receiving cheap crap from China but moan about the essentials from Saudi. Nobody likes the way they carry on but thanks to stupid decisions we don’t have much choice.
March 16, 2022
I hope there is a mechanism to ensure that any contracts awarded to firms are strictly based on merit/value for money and not on ‘back-handers’ for family & friends.
March 16, 2022
We now read that cancer targets have not been met since 2014 and another key one since 2016. Ministers have failed to plan for an increase in staff numbers.
The NHS senior management have got this weak government and ministers by the balls and there is nothing you can do about it.
March 16, 2022
The Irish PM and EU brexit negotiator are in Washington currently trying to stir up support in Congress for the EU position regarding Northern Ireland. Meanwhile our ineffectual foreign minister proposes using the Ukraine situation to put any thought of suspending the Northern Ireland Protocol on hold.
This cannot stand. The U.K. government have to get Northern Ireland out of the EU single market or it means the slow annexation of the province. What would the EU really do if the U.K. invokes article 19 now? They will not launch a trade war when it would merely reinforce Putin’s impression that the West is weak.
March 16, 2022
I think we’re at the point where Biden needs to be told that any further interference in the affairs of NI will lead to his ambassador in London being thrown out of the country.
March 17, 2022
SW. Biden had the cheek to spout off yesterday about how countries must be free to make their own democratic decisions yet can’t keep his nose out of our affairs when it comes to Brexit and the EU. Hypocrit.
March 16, 2022
You assume our politicians are batting for the UK, and not the EU. I wouldn’t be so sure! They may ‘pretend’ to be batting for the UK, but it’s all talk, and the excuses start to roll.
March 16, 2022
I would take it as a given that inefficiency and waste will soon consume any money and extra money going to the NHS.
According to the yellow card reporting system, in respect of the injections for Covid19, so far there have been over 2,000 deaths recorded and about one and a half million reports of harm. As the claims roll in, bearing in mind that the manufacturers have been granted indemnity by the Government, will these claims be paid by the NHS or come out of general taxation? Either way the tax payer will foot the bill but I hope that there will be full disclosure of payments and what they were for.
Reply Need some proof of what actually happened . The negative view of vaccines is strongly contested by the NHS and most doctors.
March 16, 2022
True Sir John. I hear what the doctors say in hospital and they do NOT recognise the harm, some of which I have been witness to! Another problem with the NHS. To protect their jobs, doctors follow the official line which is not standing up to scrutiny. Or even official data!
March 16, 2022
Reply to reply: I think BOF is asking a very relevant question about liability for vaccine harms, already an issue for the courts in more than one country now. It is hardly surprising that the people who administered the jabs don’t take a negative view of them.
It is surely incumbent on the MHRA, the body that gave emergency approval to these injections, to investigate the thousands of reports made to it, showing it has followed up each case of death and serious injury, and has been able to attribute it to other factors. And to publish the results. This has been the practice when medical products have come under suspicion in the past, and pharmaceutical manufacturers should not be given a free pass this time.
March 17, 2022
The fact that the Pharmaceutical companies were given indemnity for their poorly tested product and the Government’s disgraceful vaccine injury compensation scheme (max £120,000 if you can prove 60% disablement) is one of the the main reasons why I refused to be experimented on.
£120,000 is risible when the average mortgage is £200,000. It wouldn’t do anything to provide for someone who was 60% disabled by the gene therapies for the rest of their life if they are young/middle aged and have a family to provide for.
March 16, 2022
Reply to reply: Why is it necessary to employ this straw man argument that anyone questioning the mRNA and carrier dna inoculants has a ‘negative view of vaccines’? Actual vaccines have a chequered history, some have been boons and some (like Pandemrix) not. As for the inoculants, recent data from the UKHSA is suggesting ‘negative efficacy’ (they make you more likely to catch Omicron) across all age groups. And data which the American FDA has been forced to release implies that at least one prominent inoculant was approved via false pretences.
March 16, 2022
Glad to know that if a hostile country holds me hostage my government will pay the ransom
March 16, 2022
ransom, really? A more than 40 years old debt.
March 17, 2022
Hef,
If correct why were the two linked by Iran?
March 17, 2022
H, See newstatesman.com, 12/11/2021 ‘Why does the UK owe Iran £400 m and will it pay the debt?’
March 16, 2022
Hardly a ransom Glen if we have agreed that we actually owe it them and have done for decades.
The more you hear, the more it would seem we are starting to act like a banana public ourselves on a number of topics..
March 16, 2022
we are paying a ransom via every tax for electing this government.
March 17, 2022
It’s amazing and brilliant they are both coming home. The debt has been paid and they are free.
March 16, 2022
These ‘extra doctors and nurses’ – how are you going to magically make them appear? Pinch more from India perhaps? Or the Philippines? I wonder how many doctors India has left. Most of them work in our NHS.
March 16, 2022
Its disgraceful that we’re robbing nurses from 3rd world countries….where they’re needed
March 18, 2022
Yes, we used to use spare capacity from the European Union.
March 16, 2022
Mike, there are 800 of them near the end of their training apparently that haven’t got placements yet? Plus perhaps some of these Ukranians fleeing with be health workers.
March 16, 2022
So everybody knew that we owed Iran a large sum of money and yet the Government was prepared to let Zaghari-Ratcliffe languish in jail for five years as a political football. Now they are suddenly able to move with alacrity and a deal is done in a couple of days. Could the increased desirability of Iranian oil and gas have any bearing?
March 16, 2022
Or could it be a case of Boris Johnson trying to ‘up’ his popularity in the polls?
Or perhaps it is ‘a good day to bury bad news’? Our Prime Minister going to the Saudis for oil when we could produce our own. And during the visit he thinks he can raise the subject of human rights.
Stomach-churning.
March 18, 2022
We’re Eton boy Conservatives,
Of our stations undeservatives,
But our country and our Party serve us well.
We’re winners, self-preservatives,
And braggarts, unreservatives,
If you disapprove, then you can go to hell!
March 16, 2022
cynic !!!
March 17, 2022
True.
And what about this for cynicism –
Now he has been sent back empty-handed, he can at last stand up to the Net Zero folk and say: It is with a very heavy heart I must tell you – we are going to have to source our own fossil fuels.
(Apologies to Sir John for having to moderate yet another comment, but one feels this glimmer of common sense is worth mentioning. Thank you.)
March 16, 2022
Beresford, we did not owe the revolutionary thugs a penny. We made a sale of arms to the Shah and they overthrew him before we could deliver. The money belonged to him and there was no way we were going to send the arms to them. As for the money itself, when Obama sent them a billion dollars, he had to send it in euros and Swiss Francs to avoid breaking his own laws, his own sanctions, which are still in place. The cash was flown over to them on pallets in a special jet and they promptly spent it on terrorism all around the region. Trump had to sort it out with a well targeted drone to remove the head terrorist. Meanwhile, the Shah’s money paid to us had been put into trust. We are now told it will be spent on charitable causes.
It looks as if Obama/Biden are making a new dirty deal with Iran and we have to wonder whether this was part of it. Is Russia also part of it? Is the Ukraine being dumped by Obama/Biden so they can get their new Iran deal?
March 17, 2022
The money did not belong to the Shah, but to the Iranian state, to the Iranian people. That the regime there changed should have had nothing to do. The near £400 m in 1979 (put into trust) should have accrued interests. Even if only accounting for UK inflation £1 in 1979 became £5.38 in Dec.’21.
If, as reported in the HoC by the FS, the UK only paid £393.8 m/ $530 m there has been some interesting profit made somewhere …
March 17, 2022
It wasn’t £400 million in 1979. It was a hundred and something.
March 17, 2022
rose, the original contract with the Shah was for around £600 m worth of various weapons (1,500 Chieftain tanks, ammunition, and 250 repair vehicles). (P.Wintour, 11/11/2021 ‘Why an old £400 m debt to Iran stands in the way of N Z-R’s release’).
By the time in February 1979 the Shah left Iran only 185 tanks had been delivered and
the UK’s International Military Services refused to deliver the remaining weaponry (they were sold to Iraq …).
So … 185 / 1500 = 0.123 and 12.3% of £600 m is roughly 74 m, only £74 m worth of ‘goodies’ had been delivered out of £600 m, meaning that the £400 m presently in the news (£387 m + £20 m of interest) is much more likely than the £100 m you quote (without reference, I note).
March 16, 2022
Every NHS Trust is in many aspects a different version/instance of a mini-NHS, with their own bespoke/customized additional costs of operation. Every Trust has it’s own ICT department designing/integrating their tools (some common, others not) and supporting varying processes and reporting – Wrong, as any modern private business will tell you.
* Application customisation is rife, costing billions extra to develop/maintain bespoke point to point system integrations and reporting. 3rd Party application providers are having a field day selling slightly different (customised) products to many individual Trusts. So wrong, little standardisation, reducing opportunities for economies of scale, possibly few procurement rules to ensure value for money…
* Where is the standardised EA Enterprise-wide ICT Architecture? Missing.
* Where is the standardized logical and application model and then where is the Middleware? Missing.
* Where are the lead Trusts to develop standardised processes, improvements and automation? Missing.
* Where is the analysis of global best practice in hospital ways of working made relevant to our services? Didn’t happen, because “we know best” mindset, what can the rest of the world teach our brilliant NHS?
Another layer of bespoke/customization in ICT is between our regions, England NHS, Scotland NHS & Wales NHS…. because they all know best over which ways of working are ‘Right’ egoically speaking of course.
However it’s the same job, same services, same patient operations, same treatments, so why should it all be supported with such a costly inefficient myriad set of different administrative processes, different tools & support systems?
Transforming the biggest employer in the Western world – extremely challenging… just too much for a 5 year Government imho and the NHS will never change itself, they all think they are right/marvellous.
One other possibility – As well as standardise their ICT, I would benchmark whole costs of all the services, diagnostics, treatments, operations with the UK private sector & comparable european countries – then ensure Trusts only get the budget for the services they’ve provided based on these optimised costs. That should soon stop £108k Diversity Managers!
March 16, 2022
Three hundred more illegal migrants crossed the Channel on Tuesday, a record for 2022 which won’t stand for long. Minister for Platitudes Tom Pursglove declared it ‘unacceptable’ while the Government prepared to ‘accept’ more, ordering the Army to construct more accommodation for migrants. Obviously there will come a point at which the British taxpayer will be unable to fund bed and board for a potentially infinite number of freeloaders. Where do you stand JR, do you put it down to traditional incompetence and short-termism, or do you believe like a number of folk here that our leaders are following the orders of the UN and WEF?
March 17, 2022
‘A number of folk here believe that our leaders are following the orders of the UN and WEF’.
To rephrase the question: do I believe that a number of folk here are believing all sorts of conspiracy stories (even on possibly Russian-linked websites)?
March 16, 2022
Sir John, your Tweet today touches on an issue that I have been arguing for, for a long time: labels that clearly state where a product is made. This should be compulsory for ALL products sold to the public. Every poll conducted on this issue shows that a clear majority of the public would like to buy British-made goods and would even be willing to pay a small premium to do so. The problem is that they simply do not know where goods are made. Have you had any discussions with ministers about this? Or your fellow Tory backbenchers? What about putting out some feelers to the opposition to see if they would support it (I don’t see why they wouldn’t)? And how about suggesting it to an MP who comes up lucky in the ballot for a Private Member’s Bill?
reply I was talking yesterday to a Minister about the enforcement of food labels to ensure we know which are genuinely UK produced, as there are some labels that try to make imports look like domestic. There is very little clear labelling of EU imports either with EU or with national insignia.
March 16, 2022
JR,
Correct me if I am wrong was remainer minister Caroline Speilman, when Secretary of State argued against labelling as she was all for EU food here. She was the one who transferred her shares to her husband to avoid claims of conflict over the issue. It strikes me this has long been your govt policy to hide where food comes from. She was the same one who claimed not to be able to increase reservoirs as it was against EU directive, irrespective that the SE needed them.
March 16, 2022
Yes, a lot of Southern Irish produce is passed off as British.
March 16, 2022
But, before I buy on line, I would like to know where a product is made. I bought a Bose sound bar recently. A famous American maker of loudspeakers- I was very disappointed to see Made in China on the soundbar.
March 17, 2022
Reply to reply. We do not see the ENGLISH flag on items enough. Made in the UK is not good enough. I want to see made in England. I see Wales and Scotland but not England. Is it a dirty word?
March 16, 2022
OT but may be of interest
“Around a third of Ukrainian refugees arriving in France are actually economic migrants from other areas of the world, mostly North Africa and the Middle East, according to an investigation by newspaper Le Figaro.
Over 5,000 refugees have already arrived in France from Ukraine, with some being transported by bus from Berlin and others arriving by rail and air.
“However, many of those arriving through official channels and being identified by the authorities are non-Ukrainian, with Le Figaro reporting that as many as 30 percent are migrants of other nationalities,” reports ReMix News.
“The newspaper reveals that 7.5 percent are of Algerian nationality, while 3.5 percent of arrivals are from the Ivory Coast and Morocco respectively.”
Indians and Kyrgyzstan nationals also represent a chunk of the fake refugees, in addition to migrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Pakistan, Nigeria, and China, who are all falsely claiming to be Ukrainian.
The incentive for economic migrants to obtain asylum in France by pretending to be Ukrainian is clear given that they are given immediate blanket refugee status, guaranteed accommodation, as well as educational, financial and medical support.”
March 17, 2022
Yes, a new route for illegal immigration and trafficking has been opened up through the Ukraine, with the hard faced women in all our opposition parties wanting to take the illegals without visas or ID. Macron has also indicated he wants us to hurry up and take them all. That is why he and they want a permanent processing place at Calais.
March 17, 2022
B, 30% are not from Ukraine, so 70% are from Ukraine. Does Le Figaro say that these 70% should be driven back to the borders?
March 16, 2022
One thing for certain fish and chips will be off the hospital menu.
White fish, potatoes,cooking oil and gas for the fryers all rising out of control on the 6pm news.
What is Boris talking about? More windfarms. You cannot make this up.
He has got to got rid of before he thrashes the whole country. How the hell the blinkered 500 cannot see it for what it is and the end result is unbelievable. When the wind don’t blow or blows too hard they don’t ######## work. End of.
March 17, 2022
Turbo. Common sense? Haven’t you heard? It’s a rarity.
March 16, 2022
It is not just a matter of targeting the N.I. hike towards Care, Sir John.
The whole bureaucratic monstrosity called a National Health Service needs a root and branch overhaul.
Sack at least half of the ‘administrators’ and other hangers on.
Let the clinical staff make the decisions.
Just one example. According to an email I received recently, your government have told DHSC to hold two ‘Independent Reviews’.
One of them is to find ways to make England SMOKE FREE (i.e. smoker free), by 2030.
Why?
Isn’t it a matter of personal choice? A matter of liberty of the individual?
Apart from which it is just one example of Bureaucracies WASTING TAX PAYERS MONEY!
March 16, 2022
Just wondering how long till the inevitable car crash. ‘Never mind there is no money left’.
It will be ‘Your money is worthless, we frittered away its value’. We now must join the EURO or some other globally controlled unit.
Its such a good thing our public sector highly paid with defined benefit pension plans are inflation proofed and that they are somewhat protected from sanctions. After all we would not want such concerns effecting the quality of the decision making.
That’s just for the little people who are closer to the 29k, mark struggling to get by.
We need salary caps in the public sector. With public defined benefit pension caps. Thats where your money is going. The diversity hires need to be cancelled if salary is more than 25k.
March 16, 2022
It gets bigger every year. It gets more administrators every year. It has less beds every year. It’s going to end up taking the whole of the government’s budget. Yet politicians treat it as a religion. Every year we pay more and they deliver less. What earthly use is the NHS?
March 16, 2022
Tom Pursglove says you ‘are fixing a broken system’ (referring to the channel crossings). Who has been in power for the last 12 years? Who was Home Secretary for 6 of those years? And you kid yourselves the Tories have a reputation for competence.
Reply The EU was in power for most of the last 12 years requiring open borders.
March 18, 2022
Reply to reply: Really? So ‘the EU’ was making the Home Office policy, whether May’s, Rudd’s , Javid’s or Patel’s? How comes that some of EU countries (eg, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland) were able to prevent most of the Syrians (and others) to come to their countries in the year 2015 and later?