NHS faces biggest financial crisis 'in a generation'
- Thread starter Nick 0208 Ldn
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Fair enough, it can be dangerous to talk about that kind of thing! I'll go asking around my own trust and see if I can find out!
I watche Hospital on bbc2 last night, what a feckin joke the nhs is, i felt sorry for the staff featured in the program
While the patient cases may differ, the same pressures and issues arise up and down the country.
I'm glad this week's version focused on delays in discharging patients. Problems diacharging any patient on a ward can domino and snowball into major problems down the line so easily. In a lot of cases, the biggest cause of a delay is a lack of communication and unified effort across all services.
The question for me is how long is money just pumped in without fundamentally changing the way care is delivered, and trusts are made accountable?
Just to elaborate, what accountability do you want? Are you referring to management being overhauled like many other businesses or are you looking at changes to clinical or other areas?
While every hospital can improve in key areas (absolutely no doubt about that), certain Trust's face pressures beyond their immediate control in many aspects. An aging population require expensive and lengthy treatments on the whole and if that's in a rural county where there are few Trust's available, say Cornwall or Devon, what accountability can be brought down to those Acute Trust's that will actually change anything? Many of their issues could be social or community concerns blocking patient transfers or lack of resources to tackle the patient needs yet the level of funding to do that may not be there therefore it's a never ending problem to reach the unreachable goal. Likewise, big city Trust's face huge Emergency department pressures and complex surgery cases amongst everything else, what would "accountability" for accountability sake actually change? That's before you get into internal political concerns that plague every Trust up and down the land.
I'm not having a go at you or anything, it's more a case that the change required is far beyond just that.
Whats the black hole from? Subsidised medication Id bet is a massive cost.
As long as it takes for the Tories to convince enough people that the NHS needs the likes of Branson to come and save it. Speaking of which:
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That comes back as a No and the Merry Band of Hunts have their proof that people aren't willing to give their own money to pay for these things. Where oh where can we find it from?
Hunts own constituency
Anyway this is the Tories fault for letting Pickles rampage through the Local Government budgets. Years of austerity and cuts and suddenly they expect people to find 15% extra.
Cuts planned to Worcestershire hip and knee operations
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-38770046
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-38770046
The NHS is going the way of dentistry
23% drop in nursing applications thanks to the removal of bursaries.
Wonder if Nick still thinks that was a good idea?
Wonder if Nick still thinks that was a good idea?
From the Guardian's original report, albeit with the caveat that people had to read the whole article:
Three was very little acceptance on here that the existing system was in serious difficulty; instead, it was just the same old political tribalism, ignoring any nuance that might have been present.
Slightly odd quote to use because Prof Jessica Corner (who has a vested interest in a scheme that will give universities more money (its her job!)) was wrong as we found out today. There has been a sizeable drop in applications to study nursing.
It's probably a survivable drop in numbers, there is probably more applicants than places still, but its a long way from a ringing endorsement of the change.
What would you have done to solve the problems inherent to the previous system, if anything?
According to UCAS analysis there has been a general decline in older applicants for degrees, something which affects nursing disproportionately. This would also need to be explained.
Maybe we reform the reform, if you will, however this mean that there was no reason for one in the first place.
You're probably not going to like the answer, but there's only one solution: more funding.
Make more Government funding available for training
Why can't nurses train themselves, like the good old days.
You do intend to significantly increase the standard bursary for the individual a well i hope, rather than simply expanding the previous regime?
How much more in additional taxation would you be prepared to pay annually? £100, £500, £1,000?
That's a cop out, it doesn't matter if I'm willing to pay a fiver or five grand. The government shouldn't function by individuals stinginess.
It's not a cop out in the least. The NHS has a funding shortfall, and i would like to know how committed you are on a practical level. Do you only have glib replies to offer, or aid of a substantive nature?
You can either pay on-demand, when you seek an GP appointment or initial consultation (as occurs in other European countries), or in the form of significantly higher taxation.
It is a cop out, the shortfall isn't because of any single person's willingness or unwillingness to pay X% tax, it's because the government has decided to give X funding to services which leaves them stretched. I'm willing to pay as much tax as it takes to have functioning services, but I don't make those decisions. And it doesn't come to that anyway, are we going to ask people "how much are you willing to pay to fix potholes?" when the council needs money? "how much are you willing to pay for defence" when the army has an operation? It's not a healthy way to see the functioning of the state.
I a merely seeking to ascertain whether you are all talk. It is all well and good people in here complaining about the deficiencies of a service, but are they themselves intend to be part of the solution. To your credit though, you've said that you are happy to pay whatever it takes.
Nothing £350m £200m £100m £50m a week can't fix.
It presents a false choice. "you want X, you must pay X", the tax rate is set by the government and they choose the distribution of revenue. And you're entitled to criticise the distribution of government funds whether you're below the taxable threshold or in the highest tax bracket.
How much does BUPA cover cost? Surely if you can afford it you should be on it, I bet its less than the 150 Euros I pay for insurance per month.
No way Brits will want to pay high taxes like in Europe so that's out of the question, they are more likely to vote in any govt that will offer tax reduction
Bottom line, low taxes = low quality services
No way Brits will want to pay high taxes like in Europe so that's out of the question, they are more likely to vote in any govt that will offer tax reduction
Bottom line, low taxes = low quality services
Considering we're talking specifically about funding more places for nurses do you have any idea of how much that would cost? I genuinely have no idea and would be interested to know if you did. The governments aim is for 10,000 new places by 2020 funded by fees. Taking that as a starting point how much would it cost to have funded those extra places themselves?
It's about £5bn in training for all health staff. £500m less than the government spends on agency nurses, who charge way above full time rates. Training, or even importing, more nurses would actually save money, given the obvious rules of demand vs. supply.
Thats what they currently spend in total? Or thats what it would cost to fund 10,000 more places? I assume the former?
That's the total budget for all health education. And agency staffing is 3.3bn actually, thought it was 5.5 for some reason.
The NHS' issues go well beyond this one area though. Even the original bursaries were said to be too low, leading to financial hardship for the applicants. So we needed more nurses, and they in turn needed more cash for daily life during training. This latter problem seemed quite relevant to me when this news first came out (in addition to the cap on applicants). Given the cost of living crisis in this country i probably wouldn't have ditched bursaries outright, however the RCN did achieve some concessions in this regard at least :: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...orm/nhs-bursary-reform#repaying-student-loans
From what i can see, student nurses used to receive £6-8,000 annually, plus top-ups for those with children.
It's not like this policy can't be reversed. A couple of years ago the nursing places were oversubscribed by the thousands, have they all vanished permanently? We'll need to find out. If the reform is a continual failure it will be quietly shelved. Hunt would survive it mind.
As it was over subcribed the size of the bursary wasn't an obstacle to recruitment. This change was about shifting funding from the State to the individual because the Tories hate government spending their tax money on poor people
So NHS is Obamacare with different name? 
Anyway which country have a good health system that's not broke and works? I will think Germany.
Anyway which country have a good health system that's not broke and works? I will think Germany.No.
I know is not I was kidding but its failing like Obamacare was with higher costs and I'm a Republican but I believe in free healthcare but needs to be the same quality we have now.
The quality of care in the NHS is better than that of America's health service.
No it isn't. The NHS has plenty of systemic problems, and will likely continue to face major crises which could worsen, but this idea that it's 'failing' is nonsense. It's still a fantastic health system that we're lucky to have, which has done an enormous amount of good for Britain, and which is something I'd argue we should be extremely proud of as a nation.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade our system in Germany for any other I know (though I would improve quite a lot of the specifics). But that you consider it 'good' makes me wonder if you actually know how Germany's health system is funded.So NHS is Obamacare with different name?
This.
The media and private investors will do and say anything they can to make believe its a failed system so people moves/pushes for the private system. So much money to be made out of the suffering of people.