NHS. Time to go?

[TimberWolf]

Is it time it was scrapped? It's turned into a job for life culture where patient care comes second to earning stupid amounts of money in a job for life environment of self interest (IMO).

A far cry from its early days and lofty ideals and the country can't afford it. Is it time we switch off the state support system?

Labour ruined it. Of course we will still be paying their massive pensions for generations to come regardless.

[Old Greg]

Is it time it was scrapped? It's turned into a job for life culture where patient care comes second to earning stupid amounts of money in a job for life environment of self interest (IMO).

A far cry from its early days and lofty ideals and the country can't afford it. Is it time we switch off the state support system?

Labour ruined it. Of course we will still be paying their massive pensions for generations to come regardless.

Hospitals are not in general as you describe and neither are mental health and community providers.

PCTs and SHAs are crappy jobsworth organisations and good riddance to them. CCGs well be just as bad I expect.

[VectraMan]

I was reading the article on the BBC News last week about how the NHS is not actually the third biggest employer in the world, but the fifth. But it's still a pretty astonishing statistic. How can any one organisation restricted to our our pokey little island possibly rank that highly in a world of 7 billion people?

There has to be a better way of providing free health care to the masses, even if we accept as red that's what we need.

[TimberWolf]

There has to be a better way of providing free health care to the masses, even if we accept as red that's what we need.

I think the NHS is, or was, a good way, it's just been taken over by greed and by unions and public sentiment so strong that politicians won't touch them. A fair wage in a job for life should have been enough, but now it's bankrupting us.

[Old Greg]

I was reading the article on the BBC News last week about how the NHS is not actually the third biggest employer in the world, but the fifth. But it's still a pretty astonishing statistic. How can any one organisation restricted to our our pokey little island possibly rank that highly in a world of 7 billion people?

There has to be a better way of providing free health care to the masses, even if we accept as red that's what we need.

Nobody is really employed by the NHS, but by one of a thousand statutory bodies.

[amcdonald]

I was reading the article on the BBC News last week about how the NHS is not actually the third biggest employer in the world, but the fifth. But it's still a pretty astonishing statistic. How can any one organisation restricted to our our pokey little island possibly rank that highly in a world of 7 billion people?

There has to be a better way of providing free health care to the masses, even if we accept as red that's what we need.

Easy provide, a limit every year you can claim for maximum, and once an op etc has been approved by their doctor let hospitals bid on fixed price contracts for the work

Make the NHS hospitals compete with the private ones for the money, if they fail tough

[TimberWolf]

Easy provide, a limit every year you can claim for maximum, and once an op etc has been approved by their doctor let hospitals bid on fixed price contracts for the work

Make the NHS hospitals compete with the private ones for the money, if they fail tough

I'd prefer a reformed system in which patient care isn't compromised, and privatisation ala CONLIB is a concern on that front, as it seems to hand yet more power and tax payers money to doctors and other money makers.

[Old Greg]

Here's a graph of international expenditure on healthcare. Our system is reasonably cheap.

[Fishface]

try live in a place with no 'NHS' such as the USA or Latin America.

You will tulip yourself when you get sick or pregnant or break a leg - because you will have very little idea if you are covered and by which network and what is the co-pay and what are the hospital fees and how many staff fees do you need to cover etc etc etc. Price of medication . It is awful.

...and the free stuff medicare/medicaid - get up early and join a long long queue to get seen, maybe.

The NHS really is worth saving or reforming NOT scrapping.

[NickFitz]

You are a moron. Here's why I think that. HTH, HAND.