Quote:
Originally Posted by Ignitionnet
There are going to be way more than four millionaires who financially support the party, just as there were way more than that that supported Labour before they deserted the sinking ship.
Where's the evidence? What do you think this health care company is bidding on? If it's NHS contracts why is this such a surprise, they are after all a health care company? Do you realise that these internal markets within the NHS were brought in by Labour? Who really gives two hoots how it's done so long as services improve and those who can't afford to pay continue to receive them for free at point of delivery?
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If your last sentence where to become reality it opens the spectre of means testing which as far as I am aware is the way of determining ability to pay. Affordability against income\resources can easily become moving goalposts where the old
"asset rich, cash poor argument is raised" .
A factor that concerns me deeply is GP's are already showing a strong tendency towards part time working and the supposed idea of job sharing females with children is obviously not the reason. Private healthcare is where many spend a lot of their time earning supplementary income that dwarfs NHS pay on a pro rata basis.
As a doctor friend told me some time ago, GP practices are turning into businesses as opposed to services with the old relationships denigrated to 10 minutes of responsibility as opposed to a lifelong commitments.
A question that needs thinking through after discounting political spin is why switch funding control from bureaucrats to GP's. Strong links already exist between the NHS and private health with many within the NHS working in both sectors. For government there could be no better place to initiate change and as the objective is save money someone pays and the GP is best placed to offer options which could involve co-pay.
In theory hospitals will have to compete for services which has the possibility of cost efficiency and improved outcomes for patients. In practice it may well be that GP's select what is in their best interests and hospitals that do not conform to the almighty budget holders go to the wall.
Hospitals are grossly inefficient simply because they are so large and have a deeply ingrained culture which defies efficiency. Many will not see their hundreds of millions of needed income materialise from GP's. The net result is likely to be the end of the NHS as we know it with what were hospitals converted into housing estates.
The era of the old Victorian mega hospitals has gone and I believe we are at the threshold of changes which herald the end of everything the Welfare state was created for. Whether it will happen depends on how long it takes the public to wake up to reality but to take a mandate to save money and morph it into the destruction of what is held as a given within society is miles from the initial brief.
As an aside... A conservative door knocking councillor told me that the Liberals are not fielding many candidates in the May elections. If true they are hiding to avoid a hiding. Indeed a clever ploy to avoid decimation but I wonder how many were happy to fall on their own sword
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Arthur,
I do passionately believe in the NHS but have seen the folly in supporting it in the manner that is rapidly becoming the past. I am involved in the administration of a trust fund where the eventual recipient will be a hospital. Having seen the bull dozing of so many hospitals with wards, equipment etc donated in memory of XXX, I intend to, given the opportunity to invoke a clause in the trust which alters the destiny of the funds. If the well intentioned relative was still alive, he would be appalled and wouldn't want his legacy ending up in a skip along with the NHS he knew.