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NHS.
Jon Ison - 16/3/08 at 09:18 PM

We hear all this moaning.

Drive through Mansfield, billions been spent on new hospital.

Derby, a stones throw away, billions more on a new hospital.

There just the two i know about locally.

My missus took a turn for the worse today, still recovering from major surgery abroad last year.

2 mins after speaking to NHS direct a paramedic is at the door, 3 mins later an ambulance is at the door.

Paramedic stays for over an hour doing all sorts of tests etc and could not have been more helpful and reassuring.

NHS in decline ?


And to continue even though its O/T

M1, widening Luton area.
M1 widening Nottingham, Mansfield thru to M18 area.
A1 Loads of roundabouts disappearing with flyovers bypass's been built.

These a just a few off the cuff observations.

Moan all you like guys but don't forget the 15% mortgage rates, could you cope ?

nitram38 - 16/3/08 at 09:21 PM

That was a party political broadcast for the......................

Seriously, I remember the bad stuff and it is easy to forget when life is going so well.

oadamo - 16/3/08 at 09:22 PM

my other half just been told that the parking fees will now be a % of how much they earn. the more you earn the more parking fees you pay. i think it takes the pee. they said its to get more funds in because its in the c7ap .
adam

DarrenW - 16/3/08 at 09:25 PM

imho oppinion the NHS is quite remakable. They have looked after my wife and kids superbly. And me when i had tonsils out. I think they do a great job and even reckon those pioneering surgeons will never earn enough. Also the ambulance and paramedics bods are awesome.

Sorry to hear she is going through the mill still. My thoughts are with you all - fingers crossed for speedy recovery.

Jon Ison - 16/3/08 at 09:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by nitram38
That was a party political broadcast for the......................

Seriously, I remember the bad stuff and it is easy to forget when life is going so well.


No it was just the truth, just thinking out aloud I guess, I was very impressed by the response we got to day from the NHS, end of.


People only want to hear horror storeys these days, teenagers for example, I know hundreds of the iccle buggers, 99.9% of them are great, who do we hear about, the odd one who is off the rails, not the hundreds who are sound.

BenB - 16/3/08 at 09:26 PM

You mean they're building a new hospital in Mansfield?

What's wrong with the old one??.... (Kings Mill)

Apart from the fact that they didn't design it to have opening windows (because they were going to have A/C) but then ran out of money to install the A/C.

That south facing ward used to get to 40degC easily!!!! Not the best conditions for someone having a heart-attack!!

paulf - 16/3/08 at 09:29 PM

The service is not to bad once they get organised but it still seems slow when you are waiting for appointments and results etc.
I dont understand how prescriptions can be free in Wales and Scotland and yet cost a fortune in England when we are all supposed to live in the same UK seems to me we are subsidising the rest of the UK
Paul.

Bigheppy - 16/3/08 at 09:35 PM

Dont get me started on the NHS (No Hope Service) my wife is still suffering after being BUTCHERED 15 years ago. From our personal experiences Dont trust them Dont believe them when they've had enough of you they refer you to go PRIVATE. We went private for the third time and told the surgeon how we had been refered to him (private medicine) he did not charge us but has not sent an appointment (nhs) within the timescale he assured us he would. sorry to be a pain i'm feeling the stress and having a bottle of wine. Rant over Sorry

Bigheppy - 16/3/08 at 09:37 PM

quote:
Originally posted by paulf
The service is not to bad once they get organised but it still seems slow when you are waiting for appointments and results etc.
I dont understand how prescriptions can be free in Wales and Scotland and yet cost a fortune in England when we are all supposed to live in the same UK seems to me we are subsidising the rest of the UK
Paul.


They must see a NEW patient within a set time scale. But once in the system they can delay you forever and a day !

caber - 16/3/08 at 09:44 PM

Prescriptions not free in Scotland yet though they may be soon. As for who is subsidising who where does the NORTH SEA oil come from?

Caber

paulbeyer - 16/3/08 at 09:50 PM

quote:
Originally posted by caber
Prescriptions not free in Scotland yet though they may be soon. As for who is subsidising who where does the NORTH SEA oil come from?

Caber


Uh, from the North Sea?

paulf - 16/3/08 at 10:09 PM

From the north sea that belongs to the UK,
I just cant understand why Wales gets free prescriptions and i see are know thinking of axing there hospital parking charges also.Surely the same goverment T*****s are in charge of them, i dont remember crossing a border with imigration controls last time i went to Wales or Scotland.
Paul

quote:
Originally posted by caber
Prescriptions not free in Scotland yet though they may be soon. As for who is subsidising who where does the NORTH SEA oil come from?

Caber

Confused but excited. - 16/3/08 at 10:37 PM

quote:
Originally posted by paulf
From the north sea that belongs to the UK,
I just cant understand why Wales gets free prescriptions and i see are know thinking of axing there hospital parking charges also.Surely the same goverment T*****s are in charge of them, i dont remember crossing a border with imigration controls last time i went to Wales or Scotland.
Paul
quote:
Originally posted by caber
Prescriptions not free in Scotland yet though they may be soon. As for who is subsidising who where does the NORTH SEA oil come from?

Caber


Hospitals and the so called NHS are run by Local Area Health Authorities, not central government.
The down side in wales is that if you are entitled to travelling costs you only get 11p/mile. Doesn't even cover your petrol.
The medical staff in the NHS are heroes, it's the bean counters that cock it all up.

smart51 - 16/3/08 at 10:42 PM

They're building a nice new hospital down the road from me in Birmingham too. Aside from waiting, I can't fault the service I've had from the NHS.

The NHS' clinical outcomes ( read: people getting better) are very good by all standards, and they're quite cost effective compared with, say, the USA. The problem here is that we don't want to pay tax and we moan like only the British can when we're asked to do so. Yet we expect the NHS to treat us instantly, no waiting, in the spare beds they have just waiting for us to be ill. We expect the most expensive drugs to be given to us at the first sign of illness and we don't seem to be able to link the two together.

The NHS is run at the minimum size possible to maintain our health. That is 100% bed occupancy and a waiting list. At busy times the wait goes up and at quiet times the list goes down, but never as far as zero because then tax payers would have to pay for empty beds and under worked nurses. We also ration treatments and use cheaper, if less effective medicines to keep the costs down further. They even cut costs with cleaning in some parts of the country just to stop tax payers bleating.

despite paying for a 1st division health service, we get a premiership standard health, albeit a mid table one because of the wait and still we whinge. You don't get fast service and top of the range drugs for what we pay.

True, over the last 5 years or so, the NHS has got more money than the previous decade or more, and look at all the new hospitals that we've noticed they're building for us. Do you really wonder where the extra money's going? I remember the early 90's when hospital wards were being closed because there was no money to repair the falling masonry from ceilings due to long term lack of maintenance. That's where your extra money's going.

worX - 16/3/08 at 11:05 PM

I know this adding a relatively un-intelligible post, but the reason quoted below is why I will not watch the news nor read a newspaper.
I am fed up of sensationalist findings that are done for the sake of selling papers etc.
I also don't qish to hear daily about the atrocities of this world.
Steve

quote:
Originally posted by Jon Ison
People only want to hear horror storeys these days, teenagers for example, I know hundreds of the iccle buggers, 99.9% of them are great, who do we hear about, the odd one who is off the rails, not the hundreds who are sound.

JoelP - 16/3/08 at 11:12 PM

aye, we love to moan. Im lucky enough to be in good health and havent even seen a doctor in many years. I would moan about having no dentist but truth be told, i wouldnt visit him even if it was free.

However, theres no point in giving ourselves a hard time; there are many things we should be moaning about louder! I personally would choose sentancing guidelines as my favourite niggle at the minute, but YMMV.

BenB - 17/3/08 at 09:04 AM

As much as the NHS needs change, it doesn't necessarily need the creeping privatisation that is currently occurring. It's pretty subtly done but believe me- it's happening!
Within 5 years the NHS with be made up of so many privatised parts it'll be solely a private provider with the government paying the annual premium. The next step is pretty obvious- get the people to pay direct. At least the bloody tories were up-front about their desire to privatise it and you imagine they'd get a good price for some bits of it and re-invest it in the country. "Labour" are trying to do it nice and quietly so no-one notices, and all the money that the public has invested into the NHS (after all WE own the hospitals, infrastructure etc) is being given out to people with MBAs and sharp suits to secure the deposit on their house in Mauritius...

The government doesn't give a monkeys about the health of the people other than if it means votes or people staying on the hamster-wheel of the economy.

And if you think privatisation is going to make things better- think again. I recently went to a meeting with a private company (you know what they say about keeping your enemies closest) about providing services for the NHS (normally this is done in house).

The company was prepared to pump-prime the service to the tune of about 6k but from then on they wanted 50% of profit. We could re-invest our half in the service but they wanted their 50%!!!

why not just cut the wrists of the health service and watch it bleed.......

sorry if that's a depressing point of view on the NHS but it's the view from the rockface.... For the doctors, nurses, paramedics, physiotherapists etc and for the patients the NHS is sometimes to fight for. To the government it's just a financial burden they want to try and get rid of. And for the men-in-suits it's a new mercedes and a 7-figure bonus.

DaveFJ - 17/3/08 at 09:14 AM

The problem is we, in England, are not represented! The Welsh and Scottish have their own representation through their own parliaments over which the English MPs have no control and yet the English are controlled by the Parliament in london where all MPs have a say...

So... An English MP can say nothing about Welsh prescription charges but a welsh M<P could block it happing in England!

Daft!

stevebubs - 17/3/08 at 09:29 AM

Strange that.....traditional Labour strongholds have been "devolved".....

brynhamlet - 17/3/08 at 01:32 PM

quote:
Originally posted by caber
Prescriptions not free in Scotland yet though they may be soon. As for who is subsidising who where does the NORTH SEA oil come from?


The North Sea, doah!!!
If you work for any oil related company in Aberdeen you will find a high percentage of staff are English and Scotland doesn't have any oil companies, that I know. Companies like BP may have offices there for convenience, but without the revenue, gained from many places, except Scotland, much of which comes from America, there would not been any oil exploration in the first place. The only reason the oil is in Scotland is because it is cheaper to land it in Scotland by pipeline, than transport direct to the refinaries in ENGLAND to process it. The oil isn't Scottish, it belongs to the whole of the UK

jlparsons - 17/3/08 at 02:02 PM

I agree entirely. I've lived abroad and had the misfortune to have needed the services of the police and health services elsewhere. After that I'll never knock our NHS, and our police are bloody saints.

Schrodinger - 17/3/08 at 03:22 PM

[Caber



Hospitals and the so called NHS are run by Local Area Health Authorities, not central government.
The down side in wales is that if you are entitled to travelling costs you only get 11p/mile. Doesn't even cover your petrol.
The medical staff in the NHS are heroes, it's the bean counters that cock it all up.


They may be run by Area Health Authorities in Wales but they are not in England the Hospitals are run by Hospital Trusts and the secondary care is purchased by the Primary Care Trusts from them they also purchase the care from GPs and GDPs (both of which are not NHS employees they are independant contractors).
However, the Dept of Health is good at telling the Primary Care Trusts what to do and how to do it. The Idea was that PCTs should be autonomous and make the decisions about what care should be provided for the local population taking into account the needs of that population, then when the PCTs do this they then get into the "Post Code Lottery" accusations and the DoH "know better" . There are also some fairly serious equality of funding issues to be tackled for the PCTs.

Rant Over from former PCT employee.

Schrodinger - 17/3/08 at 03:33 PM

quote:
Originally posted by brynhamlet
quote:
Originally posted by caber
Prescriptions not free in Scotland yet though they may be soon. As for who is subsidising who where does the NORTH SEA oil come from?


The North Sea, doah!!!
If you work for any oil related company in Aberdeen you will find a high percentage of staff are English and Scotland doesn't have any oil companies, that I know. Companies like BP may have offices there for convenience, but without the revenue, gained from many places, except Scotland, much of which comes from America, there would not been any oil exploration in the first place. The only reason the oil is in Scotland is because it is cheaper to land it in Scotland by pipeline, than transport direct to the refinaries in ENGLAND to process it. The oil isn't Scottish, it belongs to the whole of the UK


And most of those companies now in Aberdeen where based in Gt Yarmouth when the Southern Fields in the North Sea were being developed. When the NS Oil runs out and the companies move elsewhere whose oil fields will they be then?
BTW the new oil is mostly off Shetland who do not see themselves as Scots and want devolution from Scotland.

smart51 - 17/3/08 at 03:57 PM

quote:
Originally posted by brynhamletThe oil isn't Scottish, it belongs to the whole of the UK


Try telling the SNP that. Their plans for Scottish independance float entirely on north sea oil. Their calculations (disputed by teh Scottish Andew Marr) state that the UK's subsidy of Scotland is equal to the revenue from north sea oil. Therefore if all the oil is Scotish, they can afford to be independant from the UK.

The Welsh assembly and Scottish parliament's spending boost on the NHS has to come from somewhere. They'll find out the hard way that they don't want to afford it.