Privileged Entitled Elite. Name checks out. I was also born poor. Grew up in St. Mary’s. Have worked hard all my life in areas with little financial value but huge social value. Rich people complaining about contributing to society is the real yawn.
Erm, no you don’t. If you are very fortunate, you don’t get any allowance on the first £12.5k Find ways to pay less than the poor **** me, you here all week? If you give me your account details, I’ll send over 50p for the meter.
Think you are too angry to recognise Im taking the piss. Like you didn’t understand the irony of my iuswername, which I think I got called that on here a while back. Anyhow - don’t want to fall out with you, so leaving it there
How do you know what social value, and contributions to society I and other people that have a little more money than you create? You seem to get so blinded by the wealthy, and your view of them, that maybe they complain about contributing, and go on about you working in areas with little financial value and huge social value. So, how do you know what ways I am not contributing to social value - what a huge assumption. Because the reality is far far different. It isn’t my fault you chose, knowingly, to go into jobs that don’t pay well financially. Like I said, with my background going through the wealth spectrum, I can understand what it is like - all you are doing is demonstrating you haven’t had the exposure to see it on the other side. I started this off hoping for a reasoned debate, to get people to share experiences etc, didn’t really work out though. Maybe that is why there will always seemingly be this divide with rich/less well off folk.
Maybe angry wasn’t the right word, maybe animated. Im certainly not angry about this. See, I’m not trying to change your view on this, just saying how it feels on this side. You took issue with that, not me…
When I reported my car being stolen, they couldn't have been less interested - "it's probably in a chop shop or on a boat to Albania mate". He's probably right but it's not what you want to hear. They seem to make more effort to emphasize how undermanned they are than getting your property back. When something as upsetting as that happens, just a little empathy helps even if what he says is true. The couldn't care less "what do you expect us to do?" attitude makes the frustration even worse. And being insured seems to absolve them of any obligation to help. A few years ago we had some property stolen. I won't go into lengthy details but the local police knew who it was, they knew where they lived. They were seen taking an item by a witness. We knew where they lived and could see one of the stolen items sitting on their dining table through the front window! We got one item back because they still had it in their possession and made to give it back, one of them got a police caution for that. That was it, the police seemed quite happy with their result, back to the station for a nice cup of tea. The rest of the stuff had gone and we were advised to make an insurance claim. Oh, and the £5 charge to drop your wife off. You're totally right about the squeeze, squeeze rip off Britain we live in, but it's a good job you didn't use the short term car park. A few months back I dropped my wife off at Term 3. I went with her to drop her luggage off and went straight back to the car. That cost me £9, the woman in front of me paid £24. When I picked wifey back up after having to wait for her plane to arrive it cost me £18. People don't have any choice and they can charge what they like the thieving bastards.
The thing I struggle to understand amongst the posts telling us that the NHS cannot work is that a mere 13 years ago it seemed to function reasonably well. What changed over those years to take it from pretty much OK to a state where people tell me that it can no longer function? Genuine question. Vin
I can see where Billy is coming from. Not all people who earn a reasonable amount of money are total toss pots like the Tories would have you believe. The amount of tax paid is huge, and more people are paying more tax as wages have been driven up by inflation. The bands have been frozen for a few years now as have the allowance rates, so more people have edged into the 20% & 40% band. Just because someone is in the 40% band it doesn't mean they are privileged or elite. It is right that they more you earn the more you pay, but those on PAYE cannot find 'clever accountants' to pay less.
See I'd be all for a change (albeit a reduction rather than complete removal)here if the systems were completely separated but unfortunately they're not. Obviously there's the ambulance example that people on private care would still get access to if they needed it but it runs deeper than that. If people use private health care then they should always use private health care. Too many people are happy to get initial consultations, preassessments etc through their private health care but then when it comes to having the actual surgery (which will cost much more/not always be covered) will have it on NHS where they've jumped the queue - this shouldn't be allowed imo and the entire pathway should be one or the other. The other thing is that private hospitals who perform surgery should be forced to have critical care facilities on site in the event they are required. It's not right that someone in the private system can end up being sent to take up an NHS bed because the private sector won't pay for these facilities. I know for a fact that this happens all the time in the Soton/Pompey areas. And while a bill may be sent (but not always, another NHS inefficiency!) it certainly doesn't cover everything such as the time it takes nurses away from other patients. It also doesn't make up for the fact it can lead to surgeries being cancelled for NHS patients who might need critical care.
Combinations of things all happening at the same time. But all started by the current people in charge. Brexit, Covid, Ukraine. Each event individually a 'once in a lifetime' event. But unfortunately all within 3 years of each other. And with incompetents in charge. Brexit lead to a shortage of Nurses/Doctors as they weren't welcome/sent away. Covid, see above for why it was at braking point during an unprecedented need for the NHS Ukraine - pushed up the price of everything. Meant more poor paid nurses left. May I add whilst we are talking about taxes and pay, if there are one group of people who I think are worth extra is Nurses. Disgusting how the current government have treated them. I'm pretty sure that after putting their lives at risk during Covid they would have preferred a bit of money to the population banging pots and pans every Thursday.
Think back to 1997, the last time the NHS was on it's arse. What did the 18 years prior to that, have in common with the last 13 years? Incidentally, schools were crumbling then too, and the streets were full of homeless people, as they are now.
I know lots of people who'd disagree that it'd functioned reasonably well previously I fairness. A lot of the issues I've been speaking about have been a problem for a long long time as far as I've been told. I can't find any figures but I'd also wager that the increase of admin staff has an impact here as more of the budget is going toward non clinical purposes (and a huge chunk of these people don't earn their wage). Like I say though I can't find the figures and that may be over a larger time period so am happy to be corrected. We also can't ignore the elephant in the room that is Covid. While there were obviously problems prior to that I don't recall record waiting lists being a thing, and you can't underestimate the impact of there being an 12-18 month period where it was incredibly hard to get treatment for other illnesses which weren't life threatening. That's directly contributed to more people being unwell and seeking medical attention at the same time and we've seen huge increases in things like heart diseases where the conditions are more serious than they would have been had they got the treatment at the time. And that doesn't even take into fact that Covid itself will have made many people more unhealthy and increase chances of developing certain conditions. Wasnt there a study that said about half a million people missed out on starting medication for heart conditions during the pandemic? Not a surprise that many of those people need more attention now than they would have done.
Yeah I agree with this, thanks for the nuanced post. I do use private for the operation also, wouldn’t do it to queue jump as you say, and also know people who do this. Doesn’t sit right with me at all. And yep, private should do more catering for critical care, however feel if this started it would end up with the privatisation for the NHS, which I’m sure many folk don’t want to see. I still think there is huge inefficiency in the NHS, and recall having a blood test at the hospital (weirdly my private paid for me to attend the hospital, no idea why), during CoVid. The system worked perfectly, no waiting time when checked in, in and out in 3 minutes. I can’t understand why things aren’t run in a more systematic way like this was. I get I am simplifying matters, but there is credence in it.
