Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

  • Stay in

    Votes: 56 47.9%
  • Get out

    Votes: 61 52.1%

  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
Look at what you’re actually saying here.. me, Strolls and lefties are pathetic for wanting to protect free healthcare. Really? You want your kids/grandkids to be denied something you’ve had the benefit of your entire life.

No.
You miss the point.
I'm saying that, until people like you and Strolls and pretty much everyone on the left can entertain a discussion on sorting out the NHS without shouting at anyone wanting said discussion and droning on about the evil Tories, we'll never move on.
You've both just done it.
Just throwing more and more money at it isn't the answer. It's outdated and needs reform.
 
No.
You miss the point.
I'm saying that, until people like you and Strolls and pretty much everyone on the left can entertain a discussion on sorting out the NHS without shouting at anyone wanting said discussion and droning on about the evil Tories, we'll never move on.
You've both just done it.
Just throwing more and more money at it isn't the answer. It's outdated and needs reform.

If either party .. or whoever is in power is looking to privatise I’d be objecting, couldn’t give a **** if it’s Starmer, Sunak or the no 10 cat. If the conversations to privatise are entertained it’ll just be a matter of time before it happens and they’ll be some rich ****s making a fat stack of cash off the back of it like Mogg did with leaving the EU.
 
No.
You miss the point.
I'm saying that, until people like you and Strolls and pretty much everyone on the left can entertain a discussion on sorting out the NHS without shouting at anyone wanting said discussion and droning on about the evil Tories, we'll never move on.
You've both just done it.
Just throwing more and more money at it isn't the answer. It's outdated and needs reform.

Check out the performance records of the NHS under Blair versus subsequent Tory governments. It needs to be properly funded, which it was under Blair, but will never be under any Tory administration.
 
Check out the performance records of the NHS under Blair versus subsequent Tory governments. It needs to be properly funded, which it was under Blair, but will never be under any Tory administration.

So, I Googled “Performance of NHS under Blair”, opened the first link and this was the opening part of the executive summary:

“The decade opened and closed with Labour in power and the NHS in financial crisis, in spite of the greatest increase in expenditure the NHS had ever seen. The economy was sound for most of the decade.”

I’m sure the whole piece is more balanced and there are good and bad stories to tell. We all love Tony after all. Just a regular guy and all that.
 
OK, here's the thing....

The left introduced the NHS, the right don't like it. The left want to protect it, the right would rather sell it to the highest bidder.

No amount of Tories calling it 'Our NHS' is ever going to change those (simplistic, yes) basic facts.

Did the Tories come up with the idea of the NHS first?
Published: August 25, 2015 10.01pm NZST
Author
  1. You must log in or register to see images
    Nick Hayes

    Reader in Urban History, Nottingham Trent University
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Bit of bourgeois David? Reuters

In outlining his 25-year vision for the NHS, the secretary of state for health, Jeremy Hunt, has been at pains to highlight the important part played by Conservatives in the founding of the service and in its subsequent guardianship. The implication was clear, as prime minister David Cameron, has said for nearly a decade: “The NHS is, and always has been, safe in our hands.”

It’s easy to understand why Hunt might try to make this claim. Four years before the NHS officially came into being, the wartime Conservative-led coalition published a 1944 white paper that certainly set out the need for a “free” and “comprehensive” healthcare service. It was presented as a natural evolution from past provision. But how different was it from the later NHS blueprint?

Under the 1944 white paper, voluntary hospitals (financed by local fundraising and workers’ contributions) would remain independent, not be taken over by the state. They would instead contract services from newly established local joint authorities, comprising amalgams of city and county councils. These authorities would also run the existing municipal hospitals. The white paper placed local authorities at the centre of hospital governance.

It was planned, also, to establish local authority health centres, where GPs would provide primary care for the community. In short, the Conservative emphasis was decidedly more pluralistic than the state-centric nationalised service we got in 1948, similar in some way to the “internal market” in health set up after 1989.
 
So, I Googled “Performance of NHS under Blair”, opened the first link and this was the opening part of the executive summary:

“The decade opened and closed with Labour in power and the NHS in financial crisis, in spite of the greatest increase in expenditure the NHS had ever seen. The economy was sound for most of the decade.”

I’m sure the whole piece is more balanced and there are good and bad stories to tell. We all love Tony after all. Just a regular guy and all that.

Perhaps you could share this with the class.
 
Did the Tories come up with the idea of the NHS first?
Published: August 25, 2015 10.01pm NZST
Author
  1. You must log in or register to see images
    Nick Hayes

    Reader in Urban History, Nottingham Trent University
You must log in or register to see images

Bit of bourgeois David? Reuters

In outlining his 25-year vision for the NHS, the secretary of state for health, Jeremy Hunt, has been at pains to highlight the important part played by Conservatives in the founding of the service and in its subsequent guardianship. The implication was clear, as prime minister David Cameron, has said for nearly a decade: “The NHS is, and always has been, safe in our hands.”

It’s easy to understand why Hunt might try to make this claim. Four years before the NHS officially came into being, the wartime Conservative-led coalition published a 1944 white paper that certainly set out the need for a “free” and “comprehensive” healthcare service. It was presented as a natural evolution from past provision. But how different was it from the later NHS blueprint?

Under the 1944 white paper, voluntary hospitals (financed by local fundraising and workers’ contributions) would remain independent, not be taken over by the state. They would instead contract services from newly established local joint authorities, comprising amalgams of city and county councils. These authorities would also run the existing municipal hospitals. The white paper placed local authorities at the centre of hospital governance.

It was planned, also, to establish local authority health centres, where GPs would provide primary care for the community. In short, the Conservative emphasis was decidedly more pluralistic than the state-centric nationalised service we got in 1948, similar in some way to the “internal market” in health set up after 1989.

What a ****ing travesty of the truth.
 
“In no previous decade had such a succession of Ministers, new policies, White Papers and restructurings hit the NHS. It seemed that, great though clinical advances were, the NHS was overshadowed by structural change, hospital scandals and an increasing desire to legislate and regulate deep-seated problems away. With ever-increasing speed, the pieces on the NHS chess board were moved around. Health advisors in No 10, economists, and operational research staff now played a role in shaping policies, largely accepting Virginia Bottomley’s concept of a tax-funded and largely free service but one in which provision was not necessarily in the public sector. A raft of policies emerged; not always compatible, seldom evidence-based; private sector involvement, quality, peer review, central direction, performance reporting, accountability, competition, trusts, patient choice, and payment by results.”
 
“There was an increasing role for the private sector as the NHS moved from a services provider to a commissioning organisation. This was opposed by Frank Dobson (at one time Secretary of State), substantial parts of the Labour Party, unions, NHS management and sometimes the medical profession. Previously used by the NHS as a pressure release valve, the private sector was becoming integral to all segments of the NHS. Commercial organisations tendered and supplied family practitioner services, hospital trusts increasingly contracted out services, and patients might have a choice of a private hospital. The private finance initiative funded hospital building, and privately managed independent treatment centres handled NHS patients. DHL took over the supply and transport of hospital supplies. Perhaps it was not surprising that the NHS decided to brand itself. In 1999, to imply focus and consistency of service, Frank Dobson told the NHS to adopt a single logo.”
 
What a ****ing travesty of the truth.
no idea who or what they are
but this is at the bottom of the piece

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What a ****ing travesty of the truth.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
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Pretty pathetic for Tories to try to claim that they created the NHS.

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
 
I've got a radical idea to reform the NHS and save our economy....

Ship all of the over 60's to australia or new zealand :bandit:
 
I’ve long thought that the Dutch and German insurance systems, which provide better (though not perfect) healthcare for all, even those who can’t afford to contribute, make a lot of sense. Where providers are just that, providers, not classed as private, public etc. people forget that GP practices are mostly private partnerships with central government/taxpayer funding. We already have a mixed model.

I fear that the NHS is so politicised that it would be electoral suicide to stand on a platform of basic reform, and, even if successful, implementing the reform would be more than a challenge. Perhaps a tragic implosion is the only way to force change.

But making the life of clinicians tolerable, through hours and pay, is a prerequisite to getting the biggest thing right - training enough people and getting them to stay in the country/ profession once trained. Capacity, lack of, is killing access and quality now.

You're forgetting the golden rule of internet debates about the NHS: only the US healthcare system and the NHS exist. One pure evil, one heaven sent.

More seriously, 'In Search of the Perfect Healthcare System' by Mark Britnell is a great read if you want to look at the systems Sb mentions and a few more.
 
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