The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[chrisp65]

27 minutes ago, meregreen said:

Far too much capacity within NHS hospitals is being utilised by consultants doing private work. No NHS facilities should be used privately while a huge NHS backlog is in place. I speak as someone who is in that backlog.

Bingo!

Many of these private surgeons and doctors are in fact NHS staff. If they increase their private hours to fill an NHS demand, they’ll be doing less NHS hours.

There’s a reason private facilities have unused physical capacity, they don’t have the staff.

To suggest that the private sector can backfill 8 million problems in short order is either dumb or ideological, and I don’t think Streeting is dumb.

When my surgeon wasn’t available for 4 months to talk to me for 30 minutes about future care, I was offered a private consultation with the same guy in 2 weeks time, but for £220. Streeting is suggesting the answer to the problem is that the NHS pay that £220.

 

 

[blandy]

45 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Many of these private surgeons and doctors are in fact NHS staff. If they increase their private hours to fill an NHS demand, they’ll be doing less NHS hours.

If they are employed by the NHS they have to meet their contracted hours. Consultants and senior doctors may have contracts that are for a smaller number of hours, but most staff, including nurses and Junior doctors are full time. There are huge numbers of vacancies. Brexit and also the better ts&cs and lifestyle in places like Aus have seen a huge outflow of trained staff.

I was in a situation similar to yours. Wait 6 months for an MRI scan on the NHS, or pay and have it done in less than 2 weeks. I paid. It was done in an NHS facility, but in the evening after the NHS had finished for the day.

I later had another scan (different body part) done on the NHS. It went like this: See physio at work, because knee ****. Physio says, yep, it’s ****, you need a scan. Go to your GP, say I referred you, say you need a scan and they’ll sort it out. Wait a month to see GP. GP says “ok” I’ll get you a scan. I Wait a month, a letter comes with a time to book an appointment in another 2 weeks. After 2 weeks I phone the number to book the appointment. The appointment is then set for another month later. Then I get another letter reminding me not to miss my appointment for an appointment. Then I go get scanned. They tell me to take a cd of the scan to my GP. So then I book another appointment to see the GP. 2 weeks on, I see the GP, who says “I know nothing about knees, you need to see the specialist, book an appointment with him. So I do. Wait another couple of months, see specialist. “Yeah, your knees ****”. I know.

The only bits of the process that weren’t hugely inefficient were the company physio and the tiny company the NHS sent me to who did the scan. The rest was nearly 6 months of waiting, pointless appointments, duplicate letters and all the admin the various folk had to do to pass me from one person to the next.

The private MRI scan on my head cost me IIRC 200 quid, was done and dusted, including getting a diagnosis in 2 weeks. They made (I assume) some profit from that. The hours I spent occupying NHS people because of the ludicrous inefficiency would undoubtedly have cost way more than that for a simpler scan of a knee.

The NHS is broken. The Tories broke it. Labour needs to fix it, but wedding themselves to 1970s ideology won’t work.  It’s a long term fix and using private capacity while they do the fixing will at least see people treated in the interim in greater numbers.

[chrisp65]

The way to fix a broken NHS admin process is not to sub contract around it. If that is more ideological than going private, well I guess we’re lucky to have Wes Streeting on the horizon.

[meregreen]

Consultants making time to see patients privately is one thing, using NHS facilities for that work is another. If they want to do private work after they have fulfilled their contracted hours, fine. Let them use private facilities then. It’s an issue of principle for me. I haven’t paid my taxes to enable their private moonlighting.

 

[Seat68]

I am on 3 different waiting lists. Weighing up which one to go private with. 

[limpid]

32 minutes ago, meregreen said:

Consultants making time to see patients privately is one thing, using NHS facilities for that work is another. If they want to do private work after they have fulfilled their contracted hours, fine. Let them use private facilities then. It’s an issue of principle for me. I haven’t paid my taxes to enable their private moonlighting.

If the NHS aren't able to use them for what ever reason, I'd rather they were rented out for use. I don't know whether this is the case or not.

[blandy]

37 minutes ago, meregreen said:

Consultants making time to see patients privately is one thing, using NHS facilities for that work is another. If they want to do private work after they have fulfilled their contracted hours, fine. Let them use private facilities then.

They pay to use the facilities for their private work, don’t they? It raises money for the NHS as I understand it.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

The way to fix a broken NHS admin process is not to sub contract around it. If that is more ideological than going private, well I guess we’re lucky to have Wes Streeting on the horizon.

You can (Labour can) do both. Fixing the unwieldy admin is a non-instant thing. Sending Fred to an unused private bed to get his hip replaced and take him out of a 9 month waiting list, moving everyone forward is pretty much instantaneous.

[chrisp65]

10 minutes ago, blandy said:

You can (Labour can) do both. Fixing the unwieldy admin is a non-instant thing. Sending Fred to an unused private bed to get his hip replaced and take him out of a 9 month waiting list, moving everyone forward is pretty much instantaneous.

Oh yeah, I completely get that. That would be a sensible strategy to blend the two and not have to signal allegiance to an ideology.

Let’s circle back in 3 or 4 years time and see what happened.

 

[Wainy316]

 

[wishywashy]

No comment.

[Genie]

On 12/04/2024 at 15:25, chrisp65 said:

Bingo!

Many of these private surgeons and doctors are in fact NHS staff. If they increase their private hours to fill an NHS demand, they’ll be doing less NHS hours.

There’s a reason private facilities have unused physical capacity, they don’t have the staff.

To suggest that the private sector can backfill 8 million problems in short order is either dumb or ideological, and I don’t think Streeting is dumb.

When my surgeon wasn’t available for 4 months to talk to me for 30 minutes about future care, I was offered a private consultation with the same guy in 2 weeks time, but for £220. Streeting is suggesting the answer to the problem is that the NHS pay that £220.

 

 

I remember the opposite scenario years back. I had private health care with my then employer. I had an ongoing issue and was seeing this doctor at a private hospital. I then changed jobs and lost the healthcare and mentioned to him I’d be moving on as couldn’t afford the fees to see him on my own.

No problem he said, he does 2 days a week at my local NHS hospital, he’ll get me added to his list as an NHS patient. Crazy really. The appointments were exactly the same with the same guy but just in a different (closer) place.

On a related note to the original point my son has a slight overbite and has been recommended for a brace to help his jaw alignment. After a bit of waiting we have the appointment and it’s at a local private dental surgery, not the NHS dental hospital we were told. So I guess they’ll do the work and invoice the NHS.

[Wainy316]

 

[bickster]

Promising to nationalise the railways within 5 years apparently

How very centrist of them

[icouldtelltheworld]

8 hours ago, bickster said:

Promising to nationalise the railways within 5 years apparently

How very centrist of them

How long until Starmer u-turns on this pledge?

[Jareth]

I'd quite like this nationalising policy. if it wasn't already deemed to be an entirely safe thing to say with a full spreadsheet of rebuttal lines to tory attacks based on the fact that the tories were also offering it. But I'll snaffle anything along these lines. Let's do water companies next.

[chrisp65]

11 hours ago, bickster said:

Promising to nationalise the railways within 5 years apparently

How very centrist of them

If the flip flopping on this stops here, yes it would be nice.

I wonder what has happened that he is prepared to offer a point of difference between him and the tories on this?

Fingers crossed for some more radicalism.

 

[limpid]

12 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

If the flip flopping on this stops here, yes it would be nice.

I wonder what has happened that he is prepared to offer a point of difference between him and the tories on this?

Fingers crossed for some more radicalism.

Is there a point of difference? Taking back the franchises is already happening but the tories won't call it nationalising.

[bickster]

15 minutes ago, limpid said:

Is there a point of difference? Taking back the franchises is already happening but the tories won't call it nationalising.

Yes the difference is Labour are going to enable the GBR project that the Tories envisaged but sat on.

[Jareth]

I think most died in the wool tories will be quite terrified by this, because it kicks off a new government term with a nationalisation project front and centre, and one which isn't scaring the masses. They'll fear creeping national permission for similar ideas.