The final blow?

Miranda Rose Smith

Well, I suppose that means it’s finally curtains for the NHS, then.

Why?

elixelx

Melanie, how-sitting-on-the-fence of you!
You opine definitively on practically everything else, so why so tendentious on this?
The NHS is an aged dependent, now useless for work, requiring only ever-scarcer sustenance and the kindness of Govt.
It can die slowly but surely, or can be put down with a strong lethal injection.
I favour this last; it's a horrible thing to see the old model die, but it's long past its obsolescence date!
Fare thee well, Granny! You served us well!
So now on to Auntie, who is also long past her sell-by date, whose once-excellent service is but a dim memory, and whose more recent contributions have been near-universally malign! !
By-By BeeBeeCee, we knew thee well, but you are now a stranger to us!

Jack Marking

@Miranda Rose Smith

Apparently, Oliver Letwin stated in 2004 that the NHS would no longer exist within five years of a Tory election victory.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/letwin-nhs-will-not-exist-under-tories-731278.html

jose garcia

more pay rises for gps!!!!!

SAM ARMSTRONG

Jack Marking
December 8th, 2010 1:15pm

This was not a Tory victory. It was a hung parliament. I don't trust this government.

TomTom

Kaiser Permanente and KPMG, Boots, Aviva are all lining up "to help" Andrew Lansley privatise the NHS just as Willetts helps privatise Universities

Mjolnir de Jersiaise

So that's where England's headed in 2010; back to Dickensian times. Can we bring back workhouses as well?

Verity

Sam Armstrong ... you and me both.

Re the NHS, they could keep it alive, but only through voluntary donations. The National Insurance deductions should stand, but the salary-earner should be able to nominate which health care provider he wants the payment to go to. In other words, kill off the NHS monopoly on healthcare insurance deductions.

I would also suggest that people who have never paid for any insurance should not be eligible to receive health care except that financed by charities, as of old. Churches and the Salvation Army and ... these days, the islamics, as in mosques and the Muslim Council or whatever it's called, could kick in for their own people.

Universal health care provided by people who work for a living to cover those who don't work (save pensioners who paid in during their working lives) is absurd.

cyllan

no no no

the NHS will be kept exactly as it is or very similar, if there is a word that is totally unsayble in england is "privatice" together with NHS, SORRY aint going to happen

Michael White

I wonder whether the NHS has too much money. When a £400,000 72ft yacht to help jobless teenagers make better lifestyle choices is even considered for purchase with part NHS funding, something is seriously afoot.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3195750/NHS-trust-to-buy-400000-yacht.html

That you can get breast enlargements on the NHS (if you can prove depression) suggests that the accounts are not critical, only the management of those accounts.

And the way that NHS quangos are elevated as in this example, only reinforces that concern.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/13/nhs-quango-heads-new-roles

Why is tattoo removal an NHS cost? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article609160.ece

Or management away days? To say that “The wellbeing of our staff is very important to us and we need to ensure that as a good employer, staff feel supported in their work.” Should not require such extravagance. http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home/Taxpayers-fork-out-50k-for-NHS-away-days-at-hall.htm

And the NHS always have time and money to indoctrinate children when it comes to sex. http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2009/07/nhs-orgasm-day-keeps-doctor-away.html

The NHS does need radical re-generation, but the tellers at the till need to get a grasp on priorities first.

TomTom

"Can we bring back workhouses as well?"

No. Most NHS hospitals in Northern cities are former workhouses - viz St James in Leeds, St Luke's in BRadford

daniel maris

I've never understood why the NHS puts GPs in as a barrier to the public seeing doctors who actually know what they are doing. These days if you have the internet, you probably know as much as your GP about most diseases.

Would be much better to have a small number of walk in centres operating as satellites of general hospitals.

kate b

I agree with verity. People have been having holidays for healthcare for years. They get married, literally by other people to get free healthcare, and get months and months supply of drugs to take home. This has got to stop. And we don't need a costly survey to find out what makes Britain happy, that's self evident.