Nursing shortage to increase by 1

[wellyfish]

Patricia Hewitt former labour health minister when labour was in power, isn't doing too bad these days.

Alan Milburn is doing alright too.

Blair appointed him Health Secretary to push through the PFI.

Later he moved to Bridgepoint.
Then Bridgepoint bought Care UK.

You couldn't make it up.

 

[JohnD]

She said nothing suggest that she does her job to the best of her ability regardless

Did she say she didn't try to do her job?

 

[JohnD]

Part of the problem with the NHS is demand.

Yes, an aging population that has more ailments, and is ill more often, for longer, and more seriously, so needs more care.

Do you have any suggestions to reduce the numbers of such people?

 

[big-all]

Part of that job is to protect and respect her employers reputation and that of her profession. Do you think she did that?

She should have taken advice and issued the appropriate apology. People who vote conservative do not hate the NHS. Part of the problem with the NHS is demand. Too many people with self inflicted illnesses. Not to mention a fair bit of health tourism.

that would include contributory traffic accidents, any sports or leisure activity as thats a lifestyle choice

 

[motorbiking]

Are you aware of the NHS injury costs recovery scheme? They claim back a lot of the costs from road accidents.

We cannot fund the NHS on an unlimited basis - As with all public sector spend it has to managed. People have to do their best with the money available.

​

 

[wellyfish]

We cannot fund the NHS on an unlimited basis - As with all public sector spend it has to managed.

That's looking at things the wrong way round. Instead of starting with the question : "How many £s shall we create for the NHS?", we should be asking "What do we want the NHS to do?".

Once we have decided that, we can move on to figuring out what resources we'll need to achieve the aims we desire.
Once we figure out what resources we'll need we can figure out if/how we are going to release them from current use or create them.
Once we've done that we can figure out how many (of our inexhaustible supply of) £s we'll need to create and when we'll need to create them.

Start with function.

 

[motorbiking]

I disagree - all projects have a budget. Usually this determines what compromises need to be made to achieve the function.

I'd quite like a yacht with 6 luxury cabins that can cruise at 15kts. Unfortunately I don't have £3M to spend on it.

 

[JohnD]

People have to do their best with the money available.

As you say, we have to accept that quite a lot of people will not receive adequate treatment and some of them will die. Some health professionals find this distressing and unacceptable, contributing to the huge wastage in resignations.

Would it be better to stop treating the old people who need more care and have worse outcomes?

 

[motorbiking]

we can all play our part, not just by paying more taxes, but by eating better, controlling our weight and exercising regularly. We as a nation can get tougher on people who come here to exploit out free NHS and ensure the money spent is being spent properly. Thats 7Bn a year sorted.

 

[JohnD]

we can all play our part, not just by paying more taxes, but by eating better, controlling our weight and exercising regularly. We as a nation can get tougher on people who come here to exploit out free NHS and ensure the money spent is being spent properly. Thats 7Bn a year sorted.

Preventing people getting old would be a tremendous saving. How do you suggest we economise by reducing their numbers?

Healthy young migrant workers however are a positive benefit to the NHS and the care industry, where many of them work for low wages while paying tax and NI, but needing little treatment.

 

[Deleted member 294929]

Did she say she didn't try to do her job?

You or I could never get into her mind John so who's to say.. ai

 

[wellyfish]

I disagree - all projects have a budget. Usually this determines what compromises need to be made to achieve the function.

I'd quite like a yacht with 6 luxury cabins that can cruise at 15kts. Unfortunately I don't have £3M to spend on it.

I take your points about budgets and compromises.

I agree we can't have everything, we can only have what we can create with the resources we have or the resources we can create or acquire.

I can understand why you disagree. However, your disagreement is based on a false premise. That premise is: government faces the same constraints as you. It doesn't.

You are a currency user. If you want to have more £s your legal options are pretty limited - get another/better job, save up, borrow.

The government is a currency issuer. It has no such constraints. Whenever it spends it (simplified) instructs BoE to create new £s via keyboard and inject them into the banking system. It does this every day (cue the butt-hurts rolling up).

Hence my proposition:

. What do we want to do?
. What can we do?
. How do we get the resources to do it?
. Create the necessary £s to get it done.

 

[motorbiking]

Healthy young migrant workers however are a positive benefit to the NHS and the care industry, where many of them work for low wages while paying tax and NI, but needing little treatment.

I have no problem with skilled people coming to the UK to work, via the proper visa channels. It's those who come via the other "channel" illegally, because we have a generous NHS and benefits system that I'd prefer to reduce.

 

[Pat ex]

Not to mention a fair bit of health tourism.

Are you aware of the NHS injury costs recovery scheme? They claim back a lot of the costs from road accidents.

Are you aware of the Health Treatment costs for foreigners recovery scheme?

It’s difficult to put a figure on exactly how much “health tourism” costs the NHS. 0.3% reflects the upper end of the government’s rough estimates of “deliberate health tourism” and visitors “taking advantage” of the system.
The government estimates that normal use of the NHS, by people who aren’t “ordinarily resident”, but who don’t come to the UK specifically to use the NHS, is around £1.8 billion a year. This can include holiday makers who injure themselves while in the UK or someone who gets sick while in the UK for work temporarily.
Deliberate health tourism means those who come to the UK deliberately to use NHS services they’re not entitled to for free. Those taking advantage of the system are those who frequently come to the UK and are able to use GP services and other treatments like prescriptions. This could even include British expats who return to the UK to see a trusted doctor.
What can be recovered?

The government aims to recover £500 million a year by 2017/18 from all patients not eligible for free treatment on the NHS. In 2015/16 it charged £289 million, although we don’t know how much of this it received. It has also predicted that it won’t meet the 2017/18 aim and will charge £346 million that year.

Health tourism: what's the cost? – Full Fact

The government has previously estimated that "health tourism" costs the NHS around 0.3% of NHS spending allocated to specific services.

fullfact.org

 

[motorbiking]

I take your points about budgets and compromises.

I agree we can't have everything, we can only have what we can create with the resources we have or the resources we can create or acquire.

I can understand why you disagree. However, your disagreement is based on a false premise. That premise is: government faces the same constraints as you. It doesn't.

You are a currency user. If you want to have more £s your legal options are pretty limited - get another/better job, save up, borrow.

The government is a currency issuer. It has no such constraints. Whenever it spends it (simplified) instructs BoE to create new £s via keyboard and inject them into the banking system. It does this every day (cue the butt-hurts rolling up).

Hence my proposition:

. What do we want to do?
. What can we do?
. How do we get the resources to do it?
. Create the necessary £s to get it done.

Its not a closed loop economy, though is it? A lot of the cost are things that have to be paid for in other currency. The more you print/borrow, the lower the value of your currency, so the more you print and borrow.