“Labour has said there will be no rises in income tax or National Insurance if it wins the general election - but some spending cuts have not been ruled out”
…The UK has be ransacked, looted & vandalised by the tories for the last 14 years
@JorisBohnsonPM apparently #reeves and #starmer have discovered a big red button in the treasury somewhere that will immediately deliver growth - with mo investment required
That growth will apparently fund everything good and not trickle upwards to private health providers, landlords and shareholders - despite there being no changes in tax or utility ownership or funding for the #NHS
Its absolute bollox of course,
but, hey, at least they're not wearing blue rosettes /s
Austerity, Brexit, Covid Lockdown Parties, PPE Scandal, Raw Sewage in UK Waterways & Coastal Areas, Economic Crash, Record Inflation, Record Interest Rates, Cost of Living Crisis, Pensions Decimated, Mortgage Rises, NHS in Crisis, Schools Crumbling, Housing Crisis...
In 1997, there were clear priorities which needed to be tackled. The state of the #NHS, our crumbling schools & the UK's outdated infrastructure. Renationalisation took a back seat.
HOWEVER, #Starmer's #Labour are creating #GBEnergy as a way of righting these wrongs, but he can't do it all in his first parliament. He has to be pragmatic & prioritise the most urgent needs first, & hopefully get around to our public services after.
Is the answer to 'dental deserts' to force newly trained dentists to work for the NHS for the first years of their career (or to pay back the costs of their training)?
Well, unless Labour adopt such an approach we may never know, but the crisis in NHS dentistry might be alleviated by some form of national service requirement from dentists (alongside a better funding model!)?.
It may not be the best answer, but these are desperate times in dentistry.
"The billions of our pounds that have been used to subsidise the weapons going to #Israel, that have been used to slaughter people in #Gaza, should be going into social housing, into our schools, into our #NHS", says #AndrewFeinstein
"More training is needed for frontline NHS staff, I feel like the trans community is often required to educate the people who are gatekeeping their access to the services they need. The waiting times are maddening! Three years or more of waiting is is not acceptable, especially when gender dysphoria is your daily companion." Liv
Scan went smoothly and the #nhs radiographers were lovely as always. Will be around a week before I hear what the results were, and seeing my consultant in a fortnight :)
He can shake the magic reform tree all he likes, but the "efficiencies" he's after can't be achieved without spending money. Want to free up bed space? Fund social care properly. Want more homegrown doctors and nurses? Give universities the money to train them (and stop overworking existing staff to the point of quitting) #NHS#UKPolitics
#BBCLauraK just stated that there are terrible problems with the #Scottish#NHS. What's she on about - of course there are problems after 14 years of Tory mismanagement and corruption but we haven't even had strikes here unlike the rest of UK.
Election campaigning is in full swing. And #Hunt is busy trying to get credit for ‘solutions’ to the #Blood Scandal. Of course as Health minster he contributed to the destruction of the #NHS (his family are heavily involved in private healthcare) and will in due course tell us how he saved it. Pass the sick bag Alice 🤢
Trans inclusive healthcare starts with you. But don't worry, TransActual are here to help. If you're a healthcare professional we now offer access to our highly rated introductory courses. We're running An Introduction to Trans Inclusive Care for GPs on Wednesday 29th May at 1pm. For more info and to book, or to find dates of other upcoming courses, go to https://www.transactual.org.uk/training
So, the theory being put forward by #ReformUK is a 20% tax relief on all private healthcare and insurance. The inference being that if more people take up private healthcare, there will be less demand on the #nhs. Sounds logical, right? The only problem is that we all know what will happen. If demand falls, so will the funding. Another "innovative?" idea is: "𝘊𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘜𝘒 & 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴." so basically shipping our sick and injured to another country. #politics
In 2019, the Conservatives promised 40 new hospitals by 2030. So far, two have been completed, and five are still under construction. There are currently 124,000 job vacancies in the #nhs. The problem isn't money; our national health system is failing because it lacks the capacity to cater to an exploding population and because nobody wants to work in healthcare.
It takes a special kind of dedication to want to nurse sick and injured people, so while yes, healthcare workers should be paid a decent wage, offering huge salaries doesn't necessarily mean the vacancies will be filled overnight.
Leaving aside the fact that (as always UK is synonymous with England and hence the whole of Britain), who is surprised. With c ompanies such as Palentir involved, and no doubts brown paper envelopes to senior managers and a Westminster government ruling the roost it is inevitable.
So now cash-strapped NHS trusts are being required to balance their books, and as such are being forced to choose between repairing buildings or retaining staff.
This engineered crisis of the NHS looks to be accelerating as the Tories use their last months in Govt. to squeeze the health service some more & ensure the maximum mess for Labour to deal with on gaining power (a mess so big the Tories will soon start blaming Labour for not clearing it up).
You'll be unsurprised that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed 'extra' NHS spending promised by the Tories was eaten up by inflation;
this is what happens when the focus is no nominal not real (inflation-adjusted) values.
Its been obvious that the defunding of the NHS was at least partly achieved by being publicly obscure (with media collusion) about inflation-adjusted funding & instead trumpeting absolute/nominal funding increases.
The NHS is great but it has limits: yesterday was the first time I've ever heard a GP drop their official demeanour to let their anger at a lack-of-resource situation show.
My local area has very limited provision for mental health services related to Autism or ADHD; he got angry that they were failing patients, having to tell them to go private. (Meaning me in this instance, and another two people last week).
Camilla Cavendish is too cynical about the BMA & its handling of the doctors' strike.
But she's right on the button when she points out much of 'junior' Doctor disquiet is not about wages but about working conditions.
And this, local Trusts can do something about by offering subsidised meals, free parking & better rests facilities (as has been done in Milton Keynes).
As she concludes, if we want Doctors 'to take care of us, we need to look after them'
Its not just the availability of staff, or of beds/equipment that lies behind the NHS crisis, its a shortage of drugs too....
The Tories wrecking strategy has been multi-dimensional & has come together compounding each element to put us in the position where the political clients of private healthcare can ensure they can profit from the chaos (see earlier post on agency nurses)
The NHS is in real & present danger... and (now) not just from the right!