Is the NHS really safe in Tory hands?

First topic message reminder :

Here is a news item from North Yorkshire which never made it onto the national headlines

A York-based practice has written to its patients offering them a range of minor treatments privately, claiming they are not funded by the local NHS.

Doctors' leaders said this could be the start of a worrying trend due to the squeeze on finances and NHS overhaul.

The letter, seen by the BBC, said local health chiefs had stopped funding a range of services, but added they could still have them done privately at a number of clinics, including one owned by the practice.

These included removing skin tags from £56.30 to treating benign tumours for £243.20.

Dr Richard Vautrey, of the British Medical Association, added: "The dire finances of many trusts means that many more NHS treatments are likely to become unavailable in the future".

Nice one OW,

Is the NHS safe with the Tories or the Lib Dems?

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Never safe under the Tories at all Ivan, is it only we on here that know that?

Due to lack of Tory cash inflow, would be the reason I do believe OW, so that they can privatise the service?

There is an interesting article here:

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Brief quote: Are five-hour waits for ambulances the sad state of our healthcare system?
A teenager lay in the road, groaning in pain. The response from the ambulance service raised troubling questions.

Statistics published by LAS hint at why this has happened: after years of reaching their benchmark of getting to 75% or more of the most serious calls within eight minutes, performance has dipped markedly . In May the figure across London was 69%; in October, it was 58%.

And my opinion: It's a case of what the 'government' (we should really stop deluding ourselves that Labour or Tory have different agendas, and simply refer to them all as the 'government') prioritise. It certainly doesn't seem to be the things that are important to the 'common people' - housing, health, education, a living wage, etc.

And yet hundreds of £billions were somehow found to bail out their pals/bosses in a failed neo-liberal banking system a few years ago (proving that that brand of capitalism does not work; but still they're persisting with it) - and no doubt they would bail them out again........meanwhile they allow other british citizens, and other starving/dying people around the world, to depend on charity to struggle through.
Like I say - look at what these tossers YOU elect prioritise.

No arguments from me sickchip.

Poll reveals scale of Tories’ NHS problem

From an article by Patrick Wintour:-

"Lord Ashcroft surveyed 20,000 voters and his research found that Labour’s shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, was more trusted to tell the truth about the NHS than either David Cameron or Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary.

Voters mostly think the coalition’s flagship health service reforms, piloted by Andrew Lansley in the early years of the government, were designed to save money. They also think they were more likely part of a plan to privatise the NHS than to cut bureaucracy or give more choice and control to patients.

When asked which party had the best approach to the NHS, nearly half (47%) said Labour, putting the party 18 points ahead of the Conservatives. Over the last five years of the coalition government, 51% of Britons think the health service has got worse, while 34% believe it has stayed the same. Only 15% think the NHS has got better."

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That's encouraging news for those of us planning to vote Labour - Andy Burnham has consistently to my thinking, done a sterling job representing the Labour position on the NHS, and by contrast Lansley and Hunt do look less respectable

Do any of them read the news in their newspapers? patients spending 3 days in a store room whilst being treated? any of those 34% that think it has stayed the same??? where are their eyes? up their arses.

Sorry I missed the 15% that thought the NHS had actually got better? was that survey for those 15% taken in a lunatic asylum?

NHS reorganisation was disastrous, says King's Fund

From an article by James Gallagher:-

The evaluation by the King's Fund think tank says the government's changes had wasted three years, failed patients, caused financial distress and left a strategic vacuum.

The behind-the-scenes changes may not have been immediately apparent to patients in GP surgeries. But they were described by NHS leaders as "so big you could see them from space" and provoked uproar in sections of the medical profession, in part over the role of potential privatisation of some services.

King's Fund chief executive Chris Ham commented: "People in the NHS focused on rearranging the deckchairs rather than the core business of improving patient care. That's contributed to the increasing waiting times and declining performance that patients are experiencing."

Ed Miliband said: "So now we know that every time patients wait longer for their test results, longer in A&E, longer to get an operation, the responsibility goes direct to David Cameron's door. And today he should personally apologise to the British people for having betrayed their trust, let them down and damaged our NHS."

Dr Mark Porter, head of the British Medical Association, said the changes were "opposed by patients, the public and NHS staff, but politicians pushed through the changes regardless. This report highlights the damage that has been done to the health service and the major shortcomings of the Act, which distracted attention from rising pressure on services and cost billions to introduce.”

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The NHS was not a "hot topic" at the recent coincidence of Cameron and Miliband on our TV screens, perhaps because it's tacitly acknowledged by Tory campaigners as Labour territory.

Not that it stops them burrowing away with their efforts to undermine the principle of universal healthcare, free at the point of need.  

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has encouraged GPs surgeries to introduce a cost-cutting measure designed to save up to £30,000 a year for each Doctor, by means of a telephone triage (initial diagnosis) before allocating an appointment.

150 surgeries, serving almost one-and-a-half million patients, have switched to the new system after "Training and advice by private companies."

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In another discipline, Judges have always preferred to see witnesses give evidence in person, as their demeanour and similar physical manifestations under cross-examination provide essential supplementary information to the mere words uttered.  A "phoned-in" testimony would not be an acceptable substitute in Court, so how can it be acceptable to the Medical Profession?

Actually, the surgery my mum goes to uses a 'triage' system for allocating appointments and she is quite pleased with it.
A nurse rings her back to discuss her symptoms and then either sets up an appointment or arranges for a prescription to be sent to the local chemist - a boon for an elderly person with a number of chronic and well-understood complaints - maybe for a younger and more active person - less so. I don't think it would suit me - smacks rather of being 'fobbed off'

My own GP practice will always give an appointment on the day, or arrange one for when your own personal GP is on duty - seeing a nurse often involves a longer wait.

My GP surgery has not started that system yet, will wait and see how long it is before they do, but the gps do not seem the type that would like it as they are family ones but you never know do you.

Here's the draft of a letter for Cameron to leave behind when he gets kicked out:-

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I am afraid Ivan the way things stand at the moment, that is 98% true IMHO.
which is the most disgusting thing about it.

Courage - the NHS was formed in less positive circumstances than these - all it takes is the political will to make it happen again

What emerges from media interviews today is that every politician is committed to spending on the NHS whatever it needs.

I never suspected that MPs had that much money.

The Tories are at it again, more smoke and mirrors. Osborne has pledged an extra 8 Billion Quid for the NHS by 2020, whoopee. Where it falls down is based on how the NHS is currently operating. When a patient calls on their GP, they are very often referred to a Hospital clinic with a Consultant in charge of your case, most if not all Consultants either work or have a financial interest in a Private Hospital, it is obviously well in their interest to then refer the patient to the Private Hospital as a NHS Patient. The NHS patient gets the same treatment as does a private patient, the difference comes when the paper work is dealt with, and a cost is put on absolutely everything they have done to you and on everything they use down to the last staple they use. After the accountant has finished it is all totalled up and a great big fat bill is sent to the NHS to pay.
Once that money has left the NHS, none of it is ever seen again as it ends up in the pockets of the owners/shareholders and Consultants of the Private Hospitals most of who are Tory Party Donors.
The little arsewipe Jeremy Hunt knows full well that much of the extra 8 Billion pounds promised will end up in the private sector, and great lumps of it will return to the Tory party by way of Donations, so for them it’s a win, win situation, mostly funded by the Plebs who pay their National Health contribution each and every week/month.
There is absolutely no way the NHS will be recognised for what it was on its conception in 1948 but will end up as a USA style health system, the only part of which will be recognisable will be its name “NHS”

Bobby, you're not wrong - as you say 'smoke and mirrors'

"Tories reveal full details of where they'll find the extra £8bn for the NHS." (David Schneider)

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20 reasons you should never trust the Tories on the NHS:-

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Well, it's a nice looking sofa - maybe there is £8 billion behind there - behind my sofa only crumbs, dog hairs and an old biro

Nice one Phil, but this is going to be the hard selling point and maybe the turning point on who wins the election, because the NHS is the peoples and we do not want it to turn like the USA do we? which is what will happen if the tories get another term in office will it not?

It certainly isn't.

My partner is quite ill and is suffering from mobility problems and HIV and even his consultant is at a loss to find out what the problem with his mobility problem is.

He has gone through the ATOS regime, where they have found him fit to work even though his GP and consultant disagreed. We won at tribunal and thankfully the DWP will have to leave him alone for another year.

I see that i post that i made on another thread has led to this being locked. Sorry for being so passionate, but imo it's right to screech tory scum at every turn, since they are to one's that continue to make my partners life a living misery, where the NHS funding has been cut and just to keep someone alive with anti viral drugs is enough and it doesn't matter further than that.

It's quite frightening what has happened to the NHS and the social security system in general and how quickly it has changed.

In the space of only 5 years, we have seen social security rebranded as 'welfare' and recipients demonised and hounded; the NHS has been starved of funds and sold off piecemeal to private enterprise, where only profitable illnesses (i.e nothing chronic or long term) will be prioritised.

Some quite simple measures, in a very short time, have come near to destroying two of the main planks of our civilised life - I only hope the Labour party's recovery plan will be robust enough to put us back on track.

It really worries me that if the Tories get back in, then there won't be much of an NHS left. Perhaps it's a good thing that times have changed and we now live in a time where coalition governments are becoming more the norm?

The Welsh and the Scots seem to have a more left wing attitude to things and very refreshing that is as well!

Official plans reveal Cameron will axe nearly 2,000 nurses over 4 years if he wins election

From an article by Vincent Moss:-

The document from Health Education England reveals hospital chiefs plan to cut nurse numbers over the next four years for reasons “mainly driven by affordability”. The paper, 'Workforce Plan for England 2015/16', shows hospital trusts needed to hire 4,000 more nurses this year just to meet guidelines to keep vacancies down to 5% of the workforce. Yet despite that intense pressure already on hospital wards, the report predicts a total reduction of 1,966 by 2019. The forecast includes 748 fewer staff in adult nursing and 131 fewer nurses helping people with learning difficulties. Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “We are deeply alarmed. Nurses play a critical role in providing care”.

David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt have tried to woo voters with an unfunded promise to pump an extra £8billion into the NHS by 2020. But the nurse figures show they already plan to leave hospitals short of key staff. It is claimed the reduction of 1,966 nurses would save the Tories up to £86 million. Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “The NHS simply cannot take five more years of David Cameron. It is clear the Tory NHS promises have an expiry date of May 8 stamped on them”.

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Not only that Ivan,because of less nurses especially in the crucial place like A + E, the waiting times have gone up enormously have they not?

General Election 2015: Tory election chief Lynton Crosby's firm planned to expand role of private healthcare in UK


A firm run by the Tories’ election chief, Lynton Crosby, devised a plan to lobby David Cameron to expand the role of private healthcare in the UK.

A strategy paper, drawn up by Mr Crosby’s firm CTF Partners and seen by The Independent, proposed targeting key government figures, including the Prime Minister, to enhance the “size, acceptability and profitability of the private healthcare market”. It also stated that “insufficient public funds” were a strategic “opportunity” for private healthcare firms. It added the campaign’s long-term strategy should be “achieving decision-maker recognition that health investment in the UK can only grow by expanding the role and contribution made by the private sector”.

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I find the following amusing given the style of campaign the torys have run so far.......

CTF Partners’ website says Mr Crosby’s “intuitive sense of delivering the results that are needed” has been “finely honed through his many years of providing high-level advice to prime ministers, premiers, and leaders of business”.

He will start the minute they get re-elected if that happens Astradt, just really hope they do not,as a friend of mine was looked after by private carers prior to him passing away, and they were useless to say the least as they spent so little time caring for him and more talking and smoking.

Sometime, someone is going to write a book explaining why Cameron's somewhat unambitious start to coalition government in 2010 suddenly became a determination to impose Tory dogma, by an all-out attack on the Welfare State.

Yet lied through his back teeth did he not OW on his election speeches saying that the Conservatives are going to look after the NHS.
Wonder what he means by "look after"?

29 NHS centres earmarked for closure

An NHS privatisation plan worth up to £1 billion is threatening to shut 29 centres across England, putting 800 jobs at risk.

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Nye Bevan explained how he had brought the Medical Establishment on board for a national health service "by stuffing their mouths with gold!"

This was a reference to permitting private practice to flourish alongside the public service, the result of which is that e.g. surgeons, anaesthetists and specialist nurses work in both fields.

What might be the result of now forcing a one-or-the-other choice?
That alternative might be better for everyone.

The stealthy encroachment of "out-sourcing" by the NHS is becoming apparent to the ordinary user. Previous complaints about the cost of "administration" may become dwarfed by the amount of "bolt-on" services now attaching themselves like limpets.

The website of my GP has becomes subsumed into a slick "standard" form of presentation which looks good until you realise that one size doesn't fit all. In addition, a brand new web service facilitates patients' re-ordering of habitual long-term medication. Why? Referrals to a Specialist are now handled by a centralised company in Milton Keynes, with lots of paper correspondence opportunities available to them. Another private company supplies emergency-call buttons for patients convalescing at home, but at what cost?

All designed to minimise direct face-to-face contact wherever possible

The cost will all be on the side of the patients who will be increasingly deprived of opportunities to actually talk to a human being about their symptoms