Failing NHS caused by the Tories?

[El Cid]

I've paid taxes for over 45 years and I still have to pay for dental treatment so why should she pay less as opposed to someone else.

 

Most people pay taxes, but overall they are subsidised by the rich, all our public services are very expensive, libraries, schools, roads, NHS, Parliament, its the rich that pay most in taxes.

[unbeliever]

Most people pay taxes, but overall they are subsidised by the rich, all our public services are very expensive, libraries, schools, roads, NHS, Parliament, its the rich that pay most in taxes.

 

That's as it should be. But as we get the rich to pay most of the bills perhaps we could do it without berating them for earning so much. If they don't earn, we don't get our cut.

[Cyclone]

Are you confusing blaming the Tories for the NHS crisis with "berating the rich"?

[El Cid]

That's as it should be. But as we get the rich to pay most of the bills perhaps we could do it without berating them for earning so much. If they don't earn, we don't get our cut.

 

Yes, but people forget.

 

As our living standards improve the NHS should receive more in funding, funding has been flat in recent years.

Not easy to reduce our debt and keep people happy.

[Cyclone]

It needs more funding because of aging and diabetes, not because living standards improved.

[I1L2T3]

tinfoilhat;11574268]But if it's centrally funded it can distributed better (in theory I guess) and more importantly the government is responsible for it rather than palming it off to councils.

 

I would tend to agree it should by adequately centrally funded.

 

My personal experience is from when my dad was dying. He lived one mile from the boundary with another council where all social care was provided at no charge. Where he lived it was means tested. We moved my dad into the lounge he was too weak to get up the stairs. We had a situation where he was lying there quite literally dying while a council busy body was in the room going through all his financial details, bank statements, bills etc... working out how much he could pay towards the patchy and meagre care they were providing. Their decision letter arrived a week before he died. They wanted £450 a month. We werent coping well as a family all through it. He really needed a space in a home or hospice but they were all rammed. I could have so easily driven him to A&E and made it their problem. I didn't because we wanted to keep him out of a clinical hospital environment in his last days but other people will fall back onto the NHS when they are struggling.

 

The whole system in many areas is a balls-up now.

[Harrystottle]

Bad decisions have been made by both parties, and one of the biggest is to use the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) to build new hospitals.

 

When Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield was knocked down and rebuilt, they built the new hospital with fewer beds! At a time when the population is going up and demand for beds is inevitably going up, the beds available have gone down.

 

So er, yeah, we have a NHS beds crisis in Wakefield. As most local people predicted.

 

But it doesn't end there. The repayments on the PFI deal are such that the cost of building the hospital will be far exceeded by the repayments. It's a great deal for the private sector. The hospitals at Wakefield and Pontefract were built by Balfour Beattie. In 2014 they sold their remaining 50% stake in the hospitals to a subsiduary of HSBC for £61.5 million, a profit of £42 million!

 

Details like this don't make the TV news but they seem to me to be rather important details.

[Sidonica]

Most people pay taxes, but overall they are subsidised by the rich, all our public services are very expensive, libraries, schools, roads, NHS, Parliament, its the rich that pay most in taxes.

 

Proportionally the poor pay more in taxes than the rich

[Guest]

Proportionally the poor pay more in taxes than the rich

 

No, I don't think that's right.

[unbeliever]

Proportionally the poor pay more in taxes than the rich

 

You have to engage in some very creative maths to make it come out like that. The poorest in the country pay less in taxes than they receive in benefits without even accounting for the public services they use.