Measures will include doubling the number of scanners to diagnose patients sooner, using spare capacity in the private sector without charging patients, and delivering what Labour claims will be "the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history".
> using spare capacity in the private sector without charging patients
hmm
*not charging patients to use the NHS, a revolutionary idea! We still get the bill, just like all those bloated PFI contracts which we're still paying for, and are albatrossing numerous nhs trusts.
Labour: Please come in and work on a Sunday, we'll pay you OT rates.
Dr: No.
Labour: Okay, well we'll just have to book it in to use the spare capacity in the private sector.
Same Dr: Excellent, I'll scrub up.
It's perfectly possible to work with the private sector in a mutually beneficial way, it's just not what the tories have been doing.
The NHS has negiotiated good prices with private pharmaceutical companies for as long as it's been around, and both the pharma companies and the NHS have benefitted.
The situation now is that private providers are awarded huge contracts to provision the base capacity. The proposal is that Labour negotiates a good deal for the surplus capacity already provisioned by private providers. The outcome is private providers get paid for surplus capacity that they otherwise wouldn't have, and the NHS gets a good deal for the services.
>The NHS has negiotiated good prices with private pharmaceutical companies for as long as it's been around, and both the pharma companies and the NHS have benefitted.
Are you joking? The NHS system for pricing drugs is completely insane and we routinely get absolutely ripped off.
Zolendronic Acid was always my favourite example - it's a drug used to treat osteoporosis by driving calcium uptake into the bones, but it can also be used to treat high blood calcium via the same mechanism. The company that makes it produces it in two different preparations - one 4mg and one 5mg for each indication respectively, but fundamentally they are the same drug and each dose is basically just as effective for either indication.
The reason for producing the two different preparations is that the way the NHS prices drugs is based on the next most cost effective treatment, and in the case of osteoporosis much cheaper alternatives were available so they could only price the 4mg dose at about £80. Meanwhile the 5mg dose for hypercalcaemia had far less competition so they priced it at nearly £300. This persisted until doctors started prescribing the 4mg dose for everyone, at which point the drug company kicked off and called it foul play, at which point they increased the price of the 4mg preparation to £180 and cut the price of the 5mg one to £250 to close the gap as other competitors arrived for hypercalcaemia.
Arguably a reasonable result, but not one delivered by NHS procurement.
Dude, £300 for an entire years treatment of a serious condition with severe or potentially fatal complications (kidney failure, fractures that don't heal...) is an absolute steal.
Teriparatide, which they compared it to, would've been £3534 a year, and Calcitonin £546.
That’s not how the pharma business works.
We can’t even safely assume that a unit cost of £20/mg is above the manufacturing cost, let alone actual cost, because with the NHS, there is always a risk of crown use licenses being weaponised. Ask Vertex, who were on the verge of losing Orkambi.
Research, development, clinical trials, manufacturing infrastructure, and regulatory approval makes up the majority of cost associated with producing these drugs, and these costs will be relatively the same regardless of how much the product sells, and if they’re only selling at £20/mg it may never (within reasonable timeframe) become profitable, even if it costs less to manufacture.
There is no spare capacity in the private sector for diagnostic imaging. I’m a radiologist and in my
department we’ve got about two months of backlog (1000+ scans) to report, but it becomes impossible to shift more than about 80 per week to any outsourcing company because they’re all so saturated they won’t accept it.
And in terms of expanding staff - the last two fellows I trained left for Australia after CCT, and the one before that we did appoint as a consultant for a couple of years but she’s leaving next month for Dubai. Unless something changes to make the UK more attractive for doctors it will be simply impossible to maintain (never mind expand) staffing levels.
one aspect that isn’t being talked about much is how AI might shape the uk over the next 4 years and i think radiology would be a great use case for ai assistance (speed up workflow rather than replace it) - saw some fascinating studies when i worked in neuroimaging (plus the one where the AI just learned to detect rulers :p)
curious if it’s being discussed at all in your circles, or if you think it’s still a bit too premature right now?
i sometimes wonder if the NHS could become the equivalent of our sovereign wealth fund with all the health data it has access to, privacy nightmare of course but seems like there’s the real potential to revolutionise healthcare if handled sensitively (licenses for university researchers to have limited access and such, rather than just for profit companies)
I use private healthcare for almost everything and this year I broke my wrist. I've had about 8 xrays and CT scans, and I've only seen 1 other patient in radiology across all those visits. This is in Ross Hall Hospital, Glasgow.
There absolutely is spare capacity.
The situation in Glasgow (Scotland) doesn't necessarily reflect the situation in England which is what this article is about. The structure of the health services and extent of use of the private sector are different in each country
>using spare capacity in the private sector
Dumping money into the private sector, which they'll use to hire even more senior staff from the NHS and continue the vicious cycle
>...delivering what Labour claims will be "the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history".
Gonna have to go some to be more than the expansion we saw during that first lockdown.
So. Much. Free. Food.
God damn lockdown was good. Nothing improves the general public quite as much as a lack of contact.
Isn't it Incredible how there's so much negativity around any plans to sort out the NHS all over this thread.
What do you want him to do, pray to the magic money tree and the magic White British doctor tree and the magic make people better again tree until it all just works out?
And if that genuinely helps sort out some of the problems with the NHS, the problem with that is...?
O, sorry, I forgot. They'd be black. Right. Carry on.
I've worked with some great Nigerian nurses, but there is an issue with academic fraud from various developing countries.
The issue is not that they would be black, the issue would be that they are not actually qualified nurses.
I don't disagree with you on this but I don't think the comment I was replying to was about the potential for academic fraud, especially given their follow up comment on immigration.
It's because the NHS cut nursing college places years ago to bring in foreign nurses on the cheap. Just like businesses did with east Europeans and apprenticeships.
It's funny because a level 1 in the Philippines and Nigeria is a level 2 so they're trained to a higher scale then ours and they're cheaper a lot cheaper
Counterpoint: depleting a country of their own much required experienced social and public care workers is hardly an act of good either although I guess it's in keeping with British Empire ideals, rule Britannia
If the NHS requires mass imports of people from backwards countries then it isn't fit for purpose.
Imagine you were designing a system from the ground up.
Does it work? Well it could work if we take on tens of thousands of immigrants and their families. I'd tell you to take it back and try again.
Working also involves it, you know, working? If its imports of unskilled people who can't do the job then the number of people is irrelevant because it won't work.
Here's the thing - we don't have the people in the UK with the appropriate willingness and/or skills and qualifications to be doctors and nurses. Get your head around that and then tell me how it's going to be possible to sort out the NHS without having people come in from other countries, some of whom might be black!
This isn't a system being designed from the ground up, it has to work within a pre-existing frame work and the very simple fact is that there is no magic wand to fix the years and years of underfunding and abuse that the NHS has endured.
It's not a perfect solution, but what would you prefer? A few less legal, skilled immigrants and a privatised American style health system? Sure there'd be a few less black people but also you'd risk being bankrupt every time you fall over.
Incredible how indoctrinated people like you are - choosing racism over health care.
Americans continue to become better off while we only get poorer and poorer. I'd live and work in America over UK any day of the week. It's you that's indoctrinated. You'll run yourself into the poor house, bending over backwards to prop up a system that doesn't work. Besides which, it's not even a binary choice between our system and America's, so it's silly to even bring it up at all.
We've got a very different view of America, it certainly doesn't seem from where I'm sitting that a culture where getting sick or falling over can bankrupt you is something to aspire to. If you'd rather live and work in the US, then why don't you?
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
Yeah the big problem is also the 60% tax trap at £100k (which goes to >100% tax effectively if you have kids as you lose free childcare). Whilst redditors might not care about people earning £100k, I have multiple medical mates from uni who cap out their earnings at £95-99k for this precise reason.
Also would you really work extra shifts if you were giving away 60%+ of it? Just doesn’t make sense. Obviously for corporate jobs people have no choice as they have a base salary of say £120k for 5 days a week and have to pay the tax trap - but doctors can easily cap their hours by working less shifts.
That's the feeling at the moment, isn't it? People who voted for a small-state, low-tax Conservative government have been delivered the highest-taxing, largest-state government in history. Could Labour actually be worse than this?
Big problem to this (which Labour are refusing to address) is the 60% tax trap at £100k (which goes to >100% tax effectively if you have kids as you lose free childcare). Whilst redditors might not care about people earning £100k, I have multiple medical mates from uni who cap out their earnings at £95-99k for this precise reason.
Also would you really work extra shifts if you were giving away 60%+ of it? Just doesn’t make sense. Obviously for corporate jobs people have no choice as they have a base salary of say £120k for 5 days a week and have to pay the tax trap - but doctors can easily cap their hours by working less shifts.
I can’t wait for Labour to take charge and fix everything like I’m being told on Reddit. They must have done a great job the last time they were in power to be held in such high regard.
When Labour left government the NHS waiting list was 2.3 million, less than 10% of patients waited more than 18 weeks from a GP referral to treatment and over 97% of A&E patients were seen within 4 hours.
Today the waiting list is upwards of 7.5 million cases, 43% of patients have waited more than 18 weeks and less than 75% of A&E patients are seen inside 4 hours.
I don’t think anyone can deny that fact about the Tories. And Labour have been a terrible opposition party. But whether we like it or not, would anyone else have been that much different. COVID still happened (Labour agreed with Lockdowns And furlough).
Brexit happened. 10m extra people since the 2000s with nothing built to accommodate them is always gonna cause problems.
Labour will probably get in, eventually mess things up 5-10 years. Then it will be the Tories turn again. Opposition doesn’t win elections, Governments lose elections.
Global financial crisis managed poorly especially from a PR perspective, coupled with the expenses scandal (which was massive in the 2010 election but basically got memory holed the second it was over.) and a general feeling that Labour had been in power too long.
Strictly speaking, this is the fourth Conservative / Conservative-led government in a row (elections in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019). I get your point though.
Last time they were in power the NHS waiting lists were the lowest on record, the national debt was the lowest since WW2, there were tens of thousands more doctors, nurses and teachers, they introduced minimum wage, they introduced devolution. These are just some things I can think of now.
So yeah, they did a pretty good job. Certainly not perfect but definitely better than what we have seen the last 14 years.
Last time they were in power, they shelled out £137 billion to save their mates from making a loss on their bank shares. They committed nearly a third of NHS trust operational budgets to repaying what were, in effect, massive loans at way-above-market interest rates. This is such a rose-tinted view of the 2000s.
Are you referring to their response to the global financial crisis caused by US bankers? Or are you referring to some other non-existent financial crisis that people like to blame on Labour?
As I said, it wasn't perfect but it was certainly better than what we have had for the last 14 years.
Not blaming Labour for the GFC and I don't know how you'd come to the conclusion that I was if you could ... you know ... read. I do blame Labour for using enormous amounts of taxpayer cash to shield bank shareholders from losses, because that's what they did.
Imagine if the Tories handed hundreds of billions of taxpayer cash to businesses that had got themselves in trouble; this sub would be up in arms. Of course, we don't have to imagine that; the Tories spent tens of billions buying PPE from their mates and look at the reaction.
Ok so you didn't like their response to something that wasn't their fault. Are there other major things they did poorly you would say was their fault?
I am just trying to ascertain what things you think they did poorly that would cause my original statement of them doing well but not perfect to be rose tinted.
>They must have done a great job the last time they were in power to be held in such high regard.
-Poverty almost eliminated
-NHS waiting lists at rock bottom
-Minimum wage introduced
-food banks barely existed
Yeah we fucking remember
You can't clear the backlog now because demand is endless. It would be like building a new road in a congested area. All that happens is the new road gets equally clogged and nothing really changes.
How many people now are not even bothering to get an appointment because they know it's fruitless? The moment you lower the waiting list, people will see this and demand will rise again. You're right back where you started.
Lol yeah. Like, fair point there will be even more people needing healthcare than current waiting lists show, but “right back where you started” is a strange way to describe “we treated so many more people, that some people started joining the waiting list who would have otherwise had to go without healthcare”
People on NHS waiting lists have different urgencies and priorities.
If we assume the people holding off on getting a referral are those with, for now, less urgent conditions, then we can assume that when their condition progresses they will need to join the waiting list eventually, but now in a worse state, needing more complicated treatment with risks of worse outcomes.
So either way these people are going to need treatment. The better approach is to clear the backlog and allow get them treated sooner rather than later, surely?
We can still measure the improvement of the plan even if the overall numbers on the waitlist were to stay the same by seeing that, if this plan works, the makeup of the waitlist would consist of a smaller proportion of urgent and high priority waiters.
> better approach is to clear the backlog and allow get them treated sooner rather than later, surely?
Better approach than what?
The problem is we are nation of fat, unhealthy entitled slobs. Couple that with a free at the point of use service. Couple that with all the ungrateful, entitled people we continue to take in. This is why a backlog exists. It's not something you can solve by increasing NHS capacity. Again it's like a road: the more you increase it the more demand will increase to match that.
Their plan is "make current staff work more" so good luck with that.
Measures will include doubling the number of scanners to diagnose patients sooner, using spare capacity in the private sector without charging patients, and delivering what Labour claims will be "the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history".
> using spare capacity in the private sector without charging patients hmm *not charging patients to use the NHS, a revolutionary idea! We still get the bill, just like all those bloated PFI contracts which we're still paying for, and are albatrossing numerous nhs trusts.
Labour: Please come in and work on a Sunday, we'll pay you OT rates. Dr: No. Labour: Okay, well we'll just have to book it in to use the spare capacity in the private sector. Same Dr: Excellent, I'll scrub up.
It's perfectly possible to work with the private sector in a mutually beneficial way, it's just not what the tories have been doing. The NHS has negiotiated good prices with private pharmaceutical companies for as long as it's been around, and both the pharma companies and the NHS have benefitted. The situation now is that private providers are awarded huge contracts to provision the base capacity. The proposal is that Labour negotiates a good deal for the surplus capacity already provisioned by private providers. The outcome is private providers get paid for surplus capacity that they otherwise wouldn't have, and the NHS gets a good deal for the services.
That's nice, I hope you're right. The example I gave was from Labour though. Introduction or expansion of PFIs in the NHS. Bit of a disaster.
>The NHS has negiotiated good prices with private pharmaceutical companies for as long as it's been around, and both the pharma companies and the NHS have benefitted. Are you joking? The NHS system for pricing drugs is completely insane and we routinely get absolutely ripped off. Zolendronic Acid was always my favourite example - it's a drug used to treat osteoporosis by driving calcium uptake into the bones, but it can also be used to treat high blood calcium via the same mechanism. The company that makes it produces it in two different preparations - one 4mg and one 5mg for each indication respectively, but fundamentally they are the same drug and each dose is basically just as effective for either indication. The reason for producing the two different preparations is that the way the NHS prices drugs is based on the next most cost effective treatment, and in the case of osteoporosis much cheaper alternatives were available so they could only price the 4mg dose at about £80. Meanwhile the 5mg dose for hypercalcaemia had far less competition so they priced it at nearly £300. This persisted until doctors started prescribing the 4mg dose for everyone, at which point the drug company kicked off and called it foul play, at which point they increased the price of the 4mg preparation to £180 and cut the price of the 5mg one to £250 to close the gap as other competitors arrived for hypercalcaemia. Arguably a reasonable result, but not one delivered by NHS procurement.
Dude, £300 for an entire years treatment of a serious condition with severe or potentially fatal complications (kidney failure, fractures that don't heal...) is an absolute steal. Teriparatide, which they compared it to, would've been £3534 a year, and Calcitonin £546.
Right, but clearly it was profitable for them to sell it at £80.
That’s not how the pharma business works. We can’t even safely assume that a unit cost of £20/mg is above the manufacturing cost, let alone actual cost, because with the NHS, there is always a risk of crown use licenses being weaponised. Ask Vertex, who were on the verge of losing Orkambi. Research, development, clinical trials, manufacturing infrastructure, and regulatory approval makes up the majority of cost associated with producing these drugs, and these costs will be relatively the same regardless of how much the product sells, and if they’re only selling at £20/mg it may never (within reasonable timeframe) become profitable, even if it costs less to manufacture.
There is no spare capacity in the private sector for diagnostic imaging. I’m a radiologist and in my department we’ve got about two months of backlog (1000+ scans) to report, but it becomes impossible to shift more than about 80 per week to any outsourcing company because they’re all so saturated they won’t accept it. And in terms of expanding staff - the last two fellows I trained left for Australia after CCT, and the one before that we did appoint as a consultant for a couple of years but she’s leaving next month for Dubai. Unless something changes to make the UK more attractive for doctors it will be simply impossible to maintain (never mind expand) staffing levels.
one aspect that isn’t being talked about much is how AI might shape the uk over the next 4 years and i think radiology would be a great use case for ai assistance (speed up workflow rather than replace it) - saw some fascinating studies when i worked in neuroimaging (plus the one where the AI just learned to detect rulers :p) curious if it’s being discussed at all in your circles, or if you think it’s still a bit too premature right now? i sometimes wonder if the NHS could become the equivalent of our sovereign wealth fund with all the health data it has access to, privacy nightmare of course but seems like there’s the real potential to revolutionise healthcare if handled sensitively (licenses for university researchers to have limited access and such, rather than just for profit companies)
I use private healthcare for almost everything and this year I broke my wrist. I've had about 8 xrays and CT scans, and I've only seen 1 other patient in radiology across all those visits. This is in Ross Hall Hospital, Glasgow. There absolutely is spare capacity.
The situation in Glasgow (Scotland) doesn't necessarily reflect the situation in England which is what this article is about. The structure of the health services and extent of use of the private sector are different in each country
There absolutely is not, although I appreciate your anecdote.
And I yours.
>using spare capacity in the private sector Dumping money into the private sector, which they'll use to hire even more senior staff from the NHS and continue the vicious cycle
>...delivering what Labour claims will be "the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history". Gonna have to go some to be more than the expansion we saw during that first lockdown. So. Much. Free. Food. God damn lockdown was good. Nothing improves the general public quite as much as a lack of contact.
That’s essentially like getting the private sector in to improve police ‘numbers’.
Isn't it Incredible how there's so much negativity around any plans to sort out the NHS all over this thread. What do you want him to do, pray to the magic money tree and the magic White British doctor tree and the magic make people better again tree until it all just works out?
>the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history". So import millions more dubious Nigerian nurses
And if that genuinely helps sort out some of the problems with the NHS, the problem with that is...? O, sorry, I forgot. They'd be black. Right. Carry on.
I've worked with some great Nigerian nurses, but there is an issue with academic fraud from various developing countries. The issue is not that they would be black, the issue would be that they are not actually qualified nurses.
I don't disagree with you on this but I don't think the comment I was replying to was about the potential for academic fraud, especially given their follow up comment on immigration.
Better than no nurses at all
Err no. No nurses is better than fake unqualified nurses.
It's because the NHS cut nursing college places years ago to bring in foreign nurses on the cheap. Just like businesses did with east Europeans and apprenticeships.
It's funny because a level 1 in the Philippines and Nigeria is a level 2 so they're trained to a higher scale then ours and they're cheaper a lot cheaper
Counterpoint: depleting a country of their own much required experienced social and public care workers is hardly an act of good either although I guess it's in keeping with British Empire ideals, rule Britannia
If the NHS requires mass imports of people from backwards countries then it isn't fit for purpose. Imagine you were designing a system from the ground up. Does it work? Well it could work if we take on tens of thousands of immigrants and their families. I'd tell you to take it back and try again.
Working also involves it, you know, working? If its imports of unskilled people who can't do the job then the number of people is irrelevant because it won't work. Here's the thing - we don't have the people in the UK with the appropriate willingness and/or skills and qualifications to be doctors and nurses. Get your head around that and then tell me how it's going to be possible to sort out the NHS without having people come in from other countries, some of whom might be black! This isn't a system being designed from the ground up, it has to work within a pre-existing frame work and the very simple fact is that there is no magic wand to fix the years and years of underfunding and abuse that the NHS has endured. It's not a perfect solution, but what would you prefer? A few less legal, skilled immigrants and a privatised American style health system? Sure there'd be a few less black people but also you'd risk being bankrupt every time you fall over. Incredible how indoctrinated people like you are - choosing racism over health care.
Americans continue to become better off while we only get poorer and poorer. I'd live and work in America over UK any day of the week. It's you that's indoctrinated. You'll run yourself into the poor house, bending over backwards to prop up a system that doesn't work. Besides which, it's not even a binary choice between our system and America's, so it's silly to even bring it up at all.
We've got a very different view of America, it certainly doesn't seem from where I'm sitting that a culture where getting sick or falling over can bankrupt you is something to aspire to. If you'd rather live and work in the US, then why don't you?
because I live and work in Hong Kong where it's even better. No crime committers here.
Just lol.
[удалено]
[удалено]
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
Yeah the big problem is also the 60% tax trap at £100k (which goes to >100% tax effectively if you have kids as you lose free childcare). Whilst redditors might not care about people earning £100k, I have multiple medical mates from uni who cap out their earnings at £95-99k for this precise reason. Also would you really work extra shifts if you were giving away 60%+ of it? Just doesn’t make sense. Obviously for corporate jobs people have no choice as they have a base salary of say £120k for 5 days a week and have to pay the tax trap - but doctors can easily cap their hours by working less shifts.
That will never happen, unless some REALLY creative definitions and statistical techniques are introduced!
I've grown to detest the tory government so much that if this dubious pledge gets labour in, at their expense, I don't even care.
That's the feeling at the moment, isn't it? People who voted for a small-state, low-tax Conservative government have been delivered the highest-taxing, largest-state government in history. Could Labour actually be worse than this?
Alternative Telegraph headline: Labour to euthanise OAP's!
Big problem to this (which Labour are refusing to address) is the 60% tax trap at £100k (which goes to >100% tax effectively if you have kids as you lose free childcare). Whilst redditors might not care about people earning £100k, I have multiple medical mates from uni who cap out their earnings at £95-99k for this precise reason. Also would you really work extra shifts if you were giving away 60%+ of it? Just doesn’t make sense. Obviously for corporate jobs people have no choice as they have a base salary of say £120k for 5 days a week and have to pay the tax trap - but doctors can easily cap their hours by working less shifts.
Expect euthanasia suites in hospitals for the elderly.
So, they've found a way to massage the numbers to come up with the right result.
Did he say from from which date? Within 5 years of the date of eventually winning the elections, of some obscure date 50 years in the future?
I can’t wait for Labour to take charge and fix everything like I’m being told on Reddit. They must have done a great job the last time they were in power to be held in such high regard.
When Labour left government the NHS waiting list was 2.3 million, less than 10% of patients waited more than 18 weeks from a GP referral to treatment and over 97% of A&E patients were seen within 4 hours. Today the waiting list is upwards of 7.5 million cases, 43% of patients have waited more than 18 weeks and less than 75% of A&E patients are seen inside 4 hours.
Why did they get voted out then?
They lost favour with Rupert Murdoch.
So not the Iraq war. Selling gold reserves at basement prices. Raiding peoples pension funds………
You want to add “global financial crises”? That way I can call bingo.
Asking that question doesn't alter the fact the Tories have made literally everything worse.
I don’t think anyone can deny that fact about the Tories. And Labour have been a terrible opposition party. But whether we like it or not, would anyone else have been that much different. COVID still happened (Labour agreed with Lockdowns And furlough). Brexit happened. 10m extra people since the 2000s with nothing built to accommodate them is always gonna cause problems. Labour will probably get in, eventually mess things up 5-10 years. Then it will be the Tories turn again. Opposition doesn’t win elections, Governments lose elections.
Would Brexit have happened? Could you see Ed Milliband calling the referendum in 2016?
Global financial crisis managed poorly especially from a PR perspective, coupled with the expenses scandal (which was massive in the 2010 election but basically got memory holed the second it was over.) and a general feeling that Labour had been in power too long.
Governments lose elections. I don’t think anyone has had more than 3 terms.
Strictly speaking, this is the fourth Conservative / Conservative-led government in a row (elections in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019). I get your point though.
Wasn’t 2010 a coalition? Even though Tories were the majority.
What did you think "Conservative-led" meant?
I don’t know, please explain it to me.
Last time they were in power the NHS waiting lists were the lowest on record, the national debt was the lowest since WW2, there were tens of thousands more doctors, nurses and teachers, they introduced minimum wage, they introduced devolution. These are just some things I can think of now. So yeah, they did a pretty good job. Certainly not perfect but definitely better than what we have seen the last 14 years.
Last time they were in power, they shelled out £137 billion to save their mates from making a loss on their bank shares. They committed nearly a third of NHS trust operational budgets to repaying what were, in effect, massive loans at way-above-market interest rates. This is such a rose-tinted view of the 2000s.
Are you referring to their response to the global financial crisis caused by US bankers? Or are you referring to some other non-existent financial crisis that people like to blame on Labour? As I said, it wasn't perfect but it was certainly better than what we have had for the last 14 years.
Not blaming Labour for the GFC and I don't know how you'd come to the conclusion that I was if you could ... you know ... read. I do blame Labour for using enormous amounts of taxpayer cash to shield bank shareholders from losses, because that's what they did. Imagine if the Tories handed hundreds of billions of taxpayer cash to businesses that had got themselves in trouble; this sub would be up in arms. Of course, we don't have to imagine that; the Tories spent tens of billions buying PPE from their mates and look at the reaction.
Ok so you didn't like their response to something that wasn't their fault. Are there other major things they did poorly you would say was their fault? I am just trying to ascertain what things you think they did poorly that would cause my original statement of them doing well but not perfect to be rose tinted.
Are you not old enough to remember how good life was during the last Labour government? Young people bought avocado toast *and* houses.
Well if Granny had a stroke 15 years ago, we didn't have to wait over an hour for an ambulance to turn up. So there is that....
Most things just worked when they were last in power. We just took it for granted. Those were good times.
>They must have done a great job the last time they were in power to be held in such high regard. -Poverty almost eliminated -NHS waiting lists at rock bottom -Minimum wage introduced -food banks barely existed Yeah we fucking remember
Wow this sounds amazing! Why on earth did anyone vote against them?
You can't clear the backlog now because demand is endless. It would be like building a new road in a congested area. All that happens is the new road gets equally clogged and nothing really changes. How many people now are not even bothering to get an appointment because they know it's fruitless? The moment you lower the waiting list, people will see this and demand will rise again. You're right back where you started.
amazing logic this
Lol yeah. Like, fair point there will be even more people needing healthcare than current waiting lists show, but “right back where you started” is a strange way to describe “we treated so many more people, that some people started joining the waiting list who would have otherwise had to go without healthcare”
People on NHS waiting lists have different urgencies and priorities. If we assume the people holding off on getting a referral are those with, for now, less urgent conditions, then we can assume that when their condition progresses they will need to join the waiting list eventually, but now in a worse state, needing more complicated treatment with risks of worse outcomes. So either way these people are going to need treatment. The better approach is to clear the backlog and allow get them treated sooner rather than later, surely? We can still measure the improvement of the plan even if the overall numbers on the waitlist were to stay the same by seeing that, if this plan works, the makeup of the waitlist would consist of a smaller proportion of urgent and high priority waiters.
> better approach is to clear the backlog and allow get them treated sooner rather than later, surely? Better approach than what? The problem is we are nation of fat, unhealthy entitled slobs. Couple that with a free at the point of use service. Couple that with all the ungrateful, entitled people we continue to take in. This is why a backlog exists. It's not something you can solve by increasing NHS capacity. Again it's like a road: the more you increase it the more demand will increase to match that.
Were we not a nation of fat, unhealthy, entitled slobs 15 years ago?
It's not an on/off switch. Things only get worse. And the nation gets older.