I feel that the less connection the NHS has, whether that be pharmaceutical or any other way, with the orange t*rd's US, the better. This government seems to think that sucking up to this ethical drain is frightfully important but, my feeling is that this is a bully best ignored until he's gone. Perhaps, this government would be better advised to build better relations with our closest neighbours and allies in Europe.
Speaking for myself as a pensioner who will soon be sucked back into the income tax system which, incidentally, I paid into my whole working life I would be more than happy to pay a little extra tax if it meant that the NHS could go back to the functioning system I once nursed in during the 1970s!
The NHS and a welfare state are anathema to the One Per Cent. If you doubt the veracity of that statement just check the front pages of the Daily Torygraph or Daily Wail. Old people in particular are seen as a "nuisance" as they are heavier users of the health service and, heaven forfend, actually expect a state pension. Not, as some journalists would have you believe, a "benefit" but something they have contributed to all their working lives. All of which explains the total neglect of the social care system for the elderly. Just look at the way care homes were treated during the covid pandemic. Nothing will change until we change the UK system of feudal governance.
The state ' benefit '.... sorry pension... was taken without consent... it was imposed... we had no choice.... yet those in private schemes performed so much better than the states unbelievably pathetic control even after the commissions removed by the financial advisors who paid their mortgages... sent their kids to private schools ... exotic holidays... ... so... what else explains having the lowest ' benefit ' payments in Europe but the states blind believe in the status quo with the feudal government... GAWD help the next generation...
In the UK, state pension contributions are used to prop up the state - there is no "UK Pension Fund" which is why it's called a 'benefit'. In the rest of Europe these contributions are ring-fenced and managed. This is one of the reasons that EU pensions are so much better than in the UK. And is also one of the financial reasons for Brexit - after the banks and super rich fears over regulation and tax transparency - as the deadline was approaching for the UK to move its "pension fund" to a ring-fenced invested fund in line with EU regulations.
Thank you for this clear & well defined explanation... which I intend to copy and share if you have no objection...
In a different time zone when part of the services ....a friend & I received a notification informing us that the company who looked after our no choice donations had came 37th in the list of financial operatives... so we decided to travel to Earls Court where the Financial Services Industry were having an exhibition to attract investors... and we were openly hostile to the staff of this listed 37th operator... the well suited suave staff chose not to offer us coffee or biccies from the well stocked display .... after we asked why they were rated at 37th and not 1st etc... but received no satisfactory answer...
However when we arrived back it our barracks... they had taken the chance to notify our commander and so we were put on a charge.... Now... I am in receipt of a service linked ' benefit ' that is a miserable £40 per week and due to the whims of the liebour gov has now been reduced even further due to falling into a Taxable ' benefit ' when added to my equally miserable state ' benefit '.... so I strongly advise anyone who will listen.... to avoid as best they can this state theft and pocket as much cash as they can by avoiding the westminster establishment's legalised theft... How this company was nominated by the M.o.D to look after our interests has always puzzled me...
I'd like to add a reminder. A well-funded NHS will require higher taxes to pay for it.
But the cost to individual tax payers of not paying the extra tax will be having to pay for MUCH more expensive (and often clinically poorer) private health care. Or getting/staying ill, even dying, unnecessarily. Funding the NHS properly will be cheaper.
The whole "govt can't afford it" line is economic bullshit. Apart from the monetary fact that govt spending is not dependent on taxing and "borrowing", investment in the NHS would very largely pay for itself. Firstly, by dealing quickly with patient needs, there will be fewer days lost to sickness, as well as the fact that delays in treatment mean the eventual treatment ends up being more expensive.
In addition, a fully staffed, properly paid workforce will have money to spend into the economy, generating the growth the govt keep moaning about, and increasing the tax take.
Same with buildings and infrastructure. Public investment is a self-fuelling circle that austerity-doom economists just don't (or won't) understand.
I fear we are entering ‘end of times’ for the NHS. Now I’m a pensioner & therefore have no way of affording private healthcare and my OH has a long term health condition that, whilst stable at present could lead him to requiring expensive medication to achieve a remission leaves me scared for our future. I worked in the NHS for 38 years & met old colleagues yesterday for a get together. We know we worked during the best years of the NHS, which is now unlikely to be there for us. I tell people with pets that their vets bills will be nothing compared to what they will need to pay out for medical care if the NHS fails completely.
I remember polls in Tory times in which a considerable majority said they'd be absolutely happy with tax rises so long as the NHS was fixed. I get it, fixing the NHS will be expensive (very) and take time (quite a lot of time) which is tricky when we have an economy that's been hamstrung by Brexit.
But the relatively minor tax rises - even the hidden ones like tax thresholds remaining as is - that Reeves put forward in the November budget have been met with screams that can be heard from Pluto.
Really sorry to hear that Streeting is screwing it up but no real surprises there. Never did like the cut of that man's jib. I have never been able to figure why he joined the Labour Party when his attitude has always been distinctly Tory.
Dear Bear, I can hardly keep up with everything that you write. How on earth do you manage to deliver so many words with such great detail? I’d also give a great deal of credit to your husband for supporting your work and decision to leave the health service. He must be amazing. Good luck. Keep going. You make so much more sense than most everything else I read. Thank you.
My disillusionment with Labour is profound. The right wing press and right wing media are going to ‘scream’ at anything that Labour does. Reeves and Starmer are going to be panned whatever they propose, so they ought to stop being such cowards and start funding the NHS and Education properly before both systems collapse due to attrition. By their behaviour, you wouldn’t know they’ve got a massive parliamentary majority and years before a general election has to be called.
Enlightening, scary and very well written: didn't even once think about the length! ;-) But you could add to the story that in the end it always comes back to funding and the current government is also spectacularly timid about reversing the one, single, massive mistake that has sunk the UK economy no end: Brexit. If only by rejoining the common market the general economy would recover a lot of the financial base necessary for a rescue of the NHS. And helping fund Trumps overpaid pharmaceutical industry is just beyond the pale!
It was easy enough to open a shed and call it a hospital. Equipping and staffing was quite a different matter.
When Nightingale Hospitals (NH) were opened at the start of the pandemic, the NHS had 100,000 vacancies. Staff did not magically become available even to fill existing vacancies, so staffing NH involved drawing staff away from already established hospitals struggling with staff shortages. The result was that they were never used for more than a fraction of their capacity.
Writing off debt: great idea in principle. I would love it to happen. PFI was an extortionate scam. But in practice, there are two problems:
1. Once those contracts is broken, NOBODY will ever lend again, on any terms.
2. The nature of the contracts is such that it would result in a legal nightmare, and eventually it would cost far more in damages than it would save. I has to, in order to discourage any others who might have the same idea.
Can I suggest that those who pushed for PFI's be held financially accountable... seems fair to me... If I spend money on a car that ultimately cause's more & more to be spent on its upkeep then it is down to me... so why is it that those who run the establishment...think they can run the system and are proven to be totally incompetent not held responsible?... perhaps that way stupidity would be dis-encouraged...
Yes, I think that's fair comment. Nobody in their right mind would have agreed to take on these extortionate loans to balance their own personal finances. It was obvious that each of them was a deal deal heavily loaded in favour of the lender, the crippling interest payments a millstone round the borrower's neck for the foreseeable future, hedged about with contractual conditions and penalties that made escape impossible.
What made PFI possible was that the people who signed up our NHS for these extortionate loans had no skin in the game: I believe the jargon is that there was no "moral hazard". Ultimately they were not committing to spending their own money; they well knew that their actions were placing us, and future taxpayers, on the hook, but because there would be no consequence for them, they felt free to disregard any sense of responsibility toward their office. And the question of what incentives were offered to induce them to do so should also be open to question.
How easy it would be to recruit administrators and ministers who had the possibility of personal liability hanging over them is another question. There is an offence of Misconduct In Public Office, but it is notoriously difficult to prove under current legal definitions. Boris Johnson is a recent example of a politician who was charged, but as you would expect of someone whose skills of evasion have often been compared to the proverbial greased pig, he managed to wriggle free. This is surely an area where the law needs some reform.
Just as with the Nightingales first appearance who is going to staff them? If I remember correctly 4 people were treated in the Nightingales while the rest of the beds stood empty at a cost (to the NHS) of many millions of £s. There is still a shortage of medical personnel last time I looked.
I will read this later, after I’ve taken my antidepressants - because I know it’ll be depressing. I/we know that this wonderful institution: the NHS, introduced by the Labour Party (barely resembling the current version of the same) is struggling, underfunded, privatised, sold off in parts by previous politicians from the Blair era and is being starved to death.
They - Labour - wheel out “our wonderful NHS” (created by them: the Labour Party) to get some claps 👏 when times are hard for them politically.
May I be wrong about all of that, but tragically, I believe I’m probably right.
I feel that the less connection the NHS has, whether that be pharmaceutical or any other way, with the orange t*rd's US, the better. This government seems to think that sucking up to this ethical drain is frightfully important but, my feeling is that this is a bully best ignored until he's gone. Perhaps, this government would be better advised to build better relations with our closest neighbours and allies in Europe.
Speaking for myself as a pensioner who will soon be sucked back into the income tax system which, incidentally, I paid into my whole working life I would be more than happy to pay a little extra tax if it meant that the NHS could go back to the functioning system I once nursed in during the 1970s!
The NHS and a welfare state are anathema to the One Per Cent. If you doubt the veracity of that statement just check the front pages of the Daily Torygraph or Daily Wail. Old people in particular are seen as a "nuisance" as they are heavier users of the health service and, heaven forfend, actually expect a state pension. Not, as some journalists would have you believe, a "benefit" but something they have contributed to all their working lives. All of which explains the total neglect of the social care system for the elderly. Just look at the way care homes were treated during the covid pandemic. Nothing will change until we change the UK system of feudal governance.
The state ' benefit '.... sorry pension... was taken without consent... it was imposed... we had no choice.... yet those in private schemes performed so much better than the states unbelievably pathetic control even after the commissions removed by the financial advisors who paid their mortgages... sent their kids to private schools ... exotic holidays... ... so... what else explains having the lowest ' benefit ' payments in Europe but the states blind believe in the status quo with the feudal government... GAWD help the next generation...
In the UK, state pension contributions are used to prop up the state - there is no "UK Pension Fund" which is why it's called a 'benefit'. In the rest of Europe these contributions are ring-fenced and managed. This is one of the reasons that EU pensions are so much better than in the UK. And is also one of the financial reasons for Brexit - after the banks and super rich fears over regulation and tax transparency - as the deadline was approaching for the UK to move its "pension fund" to a ring-fenced invested fund in line with EU regulations.
Thank you for this clear & well defined explanation... which I intend to copy and share if you have no objection...
In a different time zone when part of the services ....a friend & I received a notification informing us that the company who looked after our no choice donations had came 37th in the list of financial operatives... so we decided to travel to Earls Court where the Financial Services Industry were having an exhibition to attract investors... and we were openly hostile to the staff of this listed 37th operator... the well suited suave staff chose not to offer us coffee or biccies from the well stocked display .... after we asked why they were rated at 37th and not 1st etc... but received no satisfactory answer...
However when we arrived back it our barracks... they had taken the chance to notify our commander and so we were put on a charge.... Now... I am in receipt of a service linked ' benefit ' that is a miserable £40 per week and due to the whims of the liebour gov has now been reduced even further due to falling into a Taxable ' benefit ' when added to my equally miserable state ' benefit '.... so I strongly advise anyone who will listen.... to avoid as best they can this state theft and pocket as much cash as they can by avoiding the westminster establishment's legalised theft... How this company was nominated by the M.o.D to look after our interests has always puzzled me...
All absolutely true!
I'd like to add a reminder. A well-funded NHS will require higher taxes to pay for it.
But the cost to individual tax payers of not paying the extra tax will be having to pay for MUCH more expensive (and often clinically poorer) private health care. Or getting/staying ill, even dying, unnecessarily. Funding the NHS properly will be cheaper.
The whole "govt can't afford it" line is economic bullshit. Apart from the monetary fact that govt spending is not dependent on taxing and "borrowing", investment in the NHS would very largely pay for itself. Firstly, by dealing quickly with patient needs, there will be fewer days lost to sickness, as well as the fact that delays in treatment mean the eventual treatment ends up being more expensive.
In addition, a fully staffed, properly paid workforce will have money to spend into the economy, generating the growth the govt keep moaning about, and increasing the tax take.
Same with buildings and infrastructure. Public investment is a self-fuelling circle that austerity-doom economists just don't (or won't) understand.
I fear we are entering ‘end of times’ for the NHS. Now I’m a pensioner & therefore have no way of affording private healthcare and my OH has a long term health condition that, whilst stable at present could lead him to requiring expensive medication to achieve a remission leaves me scared for our future. I worked in the NHS for 38 years & met old colleagues yesterday for a get together. We know we worked during the best years of the NHS, which is now unlikely to be there for us. I tell people with pets that their vets bills will be nothing compared to what they will need to pay out for medical care if the NHS fails completely.
I remember polls in Tory times in which a considerable majority said they'd be absolutely happy with tax rises so long as the NHS was fixed. I get it, fixing the NHS will be expensive (very) and take time (quite a lot of time) which is tricky when we have an economy that's been hamstrung by Brexit.
But the relatively minor tax rises - even the hidden ones like tax thresholds remaining as is - that Reeves put forward in the November budget have been met with screams that can be heard from Pluto.
Really sorry to hear that Streeting is screwing it up but no real surprises there. Never did like the cut of that man's jib. I have never been able to figure why he joined the Labour Party when his attitude has always been distinctly Tory.
Afternoon Bear.
Your analysis gets to the heart of a long and tragic set of events.
Long before the GE I had Streeting down as ‘not up to the job’. And thus he has proved. Absolute mendacious waste of space.
We need to add in Starmer and Reeves and their Blue Labour advisers.
At the heart of this is moral and political cowardice. This can all be fixed, incrementally starting with the allocation of adequate funding.
And the removal of the inadequates at the top of the Labour Party.
And raising taxes. 😈
Dear Bear, I can hardly keep up with everything that you write. How on earth do you manage to deliver so many words with such great detail? I’d also give a great deal of credit to your husband for supporting your work and decision to leave the health service. He must be amazing. Good luck. Keep going. You make so much more sense than most everything else I read. Thank you.
My disillusionment with Labour is profound. The right wing press and right wing media are going to ‘scream’ at anything that Labour does. Reeves and Starmer are going to be panned whatever they propose, so they ought to stop being such cowards and start funding the NHS and Education properly before both systems collapse due to attrition. By their behaviour, you wouldn’t know they’ve got a massive parliamentary majority and years before a general election has to be called.
Long but not winded..very informative & explains so much Bear🐯 why you took the path that you did.Good luck in your new endeavour.
Enlightening, scary and very well written: didn't even once think about the length! ;-) But you could add to the story that in the end it always comes back to funding and the current government is also spectacularly timid about reversing the one, single, massive mistake that has sunk the UK economy no end: Brexit. If only by rejoining the common market the general economy would recover a lot of the financial base necessary for a rescue of the NHS. And helping fund Trumps overpaid pharmaceutical industry is just beyond the pale!
Bravo Bear, should be essential reading for everyone.
It was easy enough to open a shed and call it a hospital. Equipping and staffing was quite a different matter.
When Nightingale Hospitals (NH) were opened at the start of the pandemic, the NHS had 100,000 vacancies. Staff did not magically become available even to fill existing vacancies, so staffing NH involved drawing staff away from already established hospitals struggling with staff shortages. The result was that they were never used for more than a fraction of their capacity.
Writing off debt: great idea in principle. I would love it to happen. PFI was an extortionate scam. But in practice, there are two problems:
1. Once those contracts is broken, NOBODY will ever lend again, on any terms.
2. The nature of the contracts is such that it would result in a legal nightmare, and eventually it would cost far more in damages than it would save. I has to, in order to discourage any others who might have the same idea.
Can I suggest that those who pushed for PFI's be held financially accountable... seems fair to me... If I spend money on a car that ultimately cause's more & more to be spent on its upkeep then it is down to me... so why is it that those who run the establishment...think they can run the system and are proven to be totally incompetent not held responsible?... perhaps that way stupidity would be dis-encouraged...
Yes, I think that's fair comment. Nobody in their right mind would have agreed to take on these extortionate loans to balance their own personal finances. It was obvious that each of them was a deal deal heavily loaded in favour of the lender, the crippling interest payments a millstone round the borrower's neck for the foreseeable future, hedged about with contractual conditions and penalties that made escape impossible.
What made PFI possible was that the people who signed up our NHS for these extortionate loans had no skin in the game: I believe the jargon is that there was no "moral hazard". Ultimately they were not committing to spending their own money; they well knew that their actions were placing us, and future taxpayers, on the hook, but because there would be no consequence for them, they felt free to disregard any sense of responsibility toward their office. And the question of what incentives were offered to induce them to do so should also be open to question.
How easy it would be to recruit administrators and ministers who had the possibility of personal liability hanging over them is another question. There is an offence of Misconduct In Public Office, but it is notoriously difficult to prove under current legal definitions. Boris Johnson is a recent example of a politician who was charged, but as you would expect of someone whose skills of evasion have often been compared to the proverbial greased pig, he managed to wriggle free. This is surely an area where the law needs some reform.
Can they not reactivate the Nightingale Hospitals just for flu patients? Also, it’s not impossible that Labour right-off the PFI debts.
Just as with the Nightingales first appearance who is going to staff them? If I remember correctly 4 people were treated in the Nightingales while the rest of the beds stood empty at a cost (to the NHS) of many millions of £s. There is still a shortage of medical personnel last time I looked.
Yes, I’m aware of that, but it might ease corridor treatments where staff can give people dignity. Flu sufferers shouldn’t need frequent observation.
They might not all need ICU
care but they still need nurses and doctors. From which magician's top hat are the NHS going to produce them?
Exeter Nightingale was repurposed and is running and has been since it opened.
Doing sterling work, despite being short staffed.
https://nightingale-exeter.nhs.uk
I will read this later, after I’ve taken my antidepressants - because I know it’ll be depressing. I/we know that this wonderful institution: the NHS, introduced by the Labour Party (barely resembling the current version of the same) is struggling, underfunded, privatised, sold off in parts by previous politicians from the Blair era and is being starved to death.
They - Labour - wheel out “our wonderful NHS” (created by them: the Labour Party) to get some claps 👏 when times are hard for them politically.
May I be wrong about all of that, but tragically, I believe I’m probably right.