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Fund the NHS adequately

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Most of us need it for ourselves and our family.

The populations health and welfare is a top priority and I am fed up of successive governments insisting that they support the NHS whilst allowing our services to decline.

No criticism of our doctors and nurses here.

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How much more tax do you want to pay? An extra 20p on fuel? 40% VAT? 20% rise in council tax - as governments and councils are finally starting to twig, unless you improve social care as well, the NHS will still buckle a bit. But all of that can be yours if we all pay much much more.

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Then we should all pay a bit more, BUT will it be spent wisely?

 

How many times have we heard that X amount extra is going into the NHS, but things only seem to get worse? We need some major reform, and some joined up thinking. I'd also like to see ideas come from the people who work in the profession, and not just a diktat from on high.

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It just needs managing better:

 

So does that mean we can assume money that goes to the front line is well spent? No. In fact, this has been the subject of a recent government-commissioned review by Labour peer Lord Carter.

 

He identified £5bn of savings he believes hospitals can make by 2020, including through:

better management of staff (sickness rates can vary widely)

 

more intelligent procurement of goods and services

 

more efficient use of space (he found one trust that used only a third of its estate for care)

 

greater use of cheaper generic medicines

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I wouldnt worry, once we are fully out of the EU it frees up an extra £350m a week that I am 100% sure will all be used to fund the NHS....

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Quite happy to pay additional tax if neede because without our physical and mental health ,life is difficult to impossible.

 

Having said that there is the question of priorities and when I see the costs of high speed trains I wonder why?

Just get our NHS back up to ring fenced priority number one.Itshould never be a casualty of austerity measures.

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We've had many discussions over the NHS - the point is simple. On an average salary of 26k you pay £1100 into the NHS.

So medical care provided to anyone under or over working age is provided with no contribution whatsoever.

 

Every time people are asked what they want by a new Government they inevitably want to pay less tax.

 

Reduce vat to 10% and increase personal taxation for the NHS by 5% or council tax for social care by 5% - if we can have proof its reaching the target.

 

Why not introduce an ID system so that only registered users get to use the free NHS?

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On an average salary of 26k you pay £1100 into the NHS.

 

For comparision, annual premiums in America average $18,142 for a family. That's about £3,600 per person - more than three times as much as we pay.

 

Why not introduce an ID system so that only registered users get to use the free NHS?

 

We have one but it is under utilised -- everyone has a NHS number.

 

Beyond that, the National ID Card project got scrapped when the public caught on about how it would be used to build up a database of their daily movements. But the project was costing many many times more than is spent on health tourism.

 

The health tourism bill only about 0.3% of NHS spending. Whatever hospitals choose to do, they need to keep it in context and low cost.

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We've had many discussions over the NHS - the point is simple. On an average salary of 26k you pay £1100 into the NHS.

So medical care provided to anyone under or over working age is provided with no contribution whatsoever.

 

Every time people are asked what they want by a new Government they inevitably want to pay less tax.

 

Reduce vat to 10% and increase personal taxation for the NHS by 5% or council tax for social care by 5% - if we can have proof its reaching the target.

 

Why not introduce an ID system so that only registered users get to use the free NHS?

 

The national ID card scheme which was scraped in 2010 cost £5bn and we never even got to see a card out of it. The annual (unrecovered) cost to the NHS is somewhere in the region of £200m so it's not exactly a proportional response. In any case, the majority of that unrecovered cost is actually expats coming back to the UK to see their 'family' GP.

 

On the other hand, our ageing population added approximately £1.2bn in costs to the NHS last year.

 

It is increasingly becoming clear, those in the older generation who 'paid into the system' to get their benefits at retirement didn't pay in nearly enough for the standard and breadth of care they are now demanding.

 

Therefore I propose the fairest way would be to pay for the increase in NHS costs with an NHS fees at retirement. You would pay your NHS fees up front, say £9k/year out of a loan, and then pay back out of your pension once your income is above a certain level. Something like 15% of income above £15k/year seems fair. Then we can sell off the pensioner loan book to foreign investors.

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It just needs managing better:

 

I agree with what you've said there. The waste in the NHS is shocking.

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The French use/used a card scheme which meant they paid for a GP appointment etc under their NHS guidelines and then were reimbursed from the social funds(NHS funds in our case i suppose). Just as an example.

 

I fully agree with the rest of the comments made in response to my post - some people don't have a grasp on reality as to what the true costs are and how little we really do contribute.

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I agree with what you've said there. The waste in the NHS is shocking.

 

But it doesn't "just "need managing better does it.

There is no doubt room for better management,and probably less managers.

In the best companies that I have worked for there has been a little slack in the system so that there is capacity to fulfil the work required when there is an extreme load.

This is not the case in hospitals.

Wards are closed,hospitals are merged leaving some areas with inadequate cover.Ambulance workers cannot be recruited in sufficient numbers.

The demand on the NHS and social services increases year on year as people live longer,more treatments are available,growing population etc.

Those on the front line at the hospitals are constantly under stress due to lack of staff and beds.

 

They are the ones who daily have to face irate patients and relatives .

We don't train enough doctors or nurses,and what happens in the future when Brexit bites.

Jeremy Hunts latest headline grabber regarding charging health tourists,whilst right and proper,is a minor issue compared to the sum required.

Regarding taxation,if the major parties are sincere in their support of the NHS then us voters would have no choice but to either pay the extra taxation required or have a greater interest in how the existing revenue is apportioned.

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