A PROBLEM WITH THE UK's NHS

[Dryhill]

While I am very grateful for the NHS, in that I have never had to worry about the cost of being treated for our exciting disease, there is one major problem with it - Government interference. Due to the terrible financial situation, the highly unqualified idiots running this country have got to make savings and one of their great ideas is to start playing around with government employee pensions.

So on 21st June UK doctors are going to go on strike for one day! They will still deal with emergancies and urgent cases, but routine stuff will have to be re-scheduled, luckily for me I am seeing my consultant on the 19th (phew close call). I must admit that a lot of doctors will retire with pensions many times what I am earning, but the government has not reduced pensions for MP's by anything like the proposed changes to doctors pensions. My comment is quite simple "Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, keep your thieving hands off!"

Jim

[Al]

....My comment is quite simple "Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, keep your thieving hands off!"

Jim

Thievery will find a way. As I've said on other occasions, Jim, there is no perfect system--and there are always thieves around regardless. Not sure, but I may prefer the bumbling, stumbling sort of crook you find in government bureaucracies to the efficient and cold-blooded and rip-offs you get from commercial schemes. Each has its drawbacks, though....

Al

[crackers]

i agree with you jim,these modern day robber barons must not be allowed to disassemble the greatest thing that this country has ever produced.they are already reducing the numbers of frontline staff by backdoor methods.my wife is a health care assistant in the nhs and she was offered something called Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme.this entails staff agreeing to leave the nhs for less than a years pay regardless of length of service.a nice way of getting rid of staff cheaply without using the "R" word which is potential political suicide.
john

[Dryhill]

Al, your " bumbling, stumbling" is a perfect description of the leadership in this country. Perhaps I should have called them Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. There are a pair of youngish enterainers in this country called Ant and Dec, it generally acknowledged that my generation can recognize them but do not know which is Ant and which is Dec. Personally I find the same with our Prime Minister and his deputy.

Jim

Jim

[Al]

Al, your " bumbling, stumbling" is a perfect description of the leadership in this country. Perhaps I should have called them Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. There are a pair of youngish enterainers in this country called Ant and Dec, it generally acknowledged that my generation can recognize them but do not know which is Ant and which is Dec. Personally I find the same with our Prime Minister and his deputy.
Jim

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who's the Tweedle Dumbest of them all?

Al

[Dryhill]

i agree with you jim,these modern day robber barons must not be allowed to disassemble the greatest thing that this country has ever produced.they are already reducing the numbers of frontline staff by backdoor methods.my wife is a health care assistant in the nhs and she was offered something called Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme.this entails staff agreeing to leave the nhs for less than a years pay regardless of length of service.a nice way of getting rid of staff cheaply without using the "R" word which is potential political suicide.

john

John, I love the expression "Mutually Agreed". That just make me think of some great big bloke twisting a smaller persons arm up their back, whilst giving them a "chinese burn" at the same time.

A few days ago I cabbed a young lady who had literary just completed her finals to be a physiotherapist. But when I asked her about her job prospects, she told me they were virtually nil in the NHS and the privqte sector only wanted experianced physio's.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who's the Tweedle Dumbest of them all?

Al

Thank you Al, I really needed a good laugh.

Jim

[freakyschizogirl]

I got a lot of gripe for the way the NHS is funded and for some particular doctors i have seen pre and post diagnosis who had NO idea how to treat someone with my disease but thought they'd take a stab at it. I know these two issues are far apart.

£7 from every £100 i pay in tax goes to fund the NHS. It makes me mad to see people i know and people on this forum refused treatments like RTX because their Primary Care Trust feels its too expensive or ran out of money. A friend of mine who was 25 at the time was refused funding for a treatment and was told her next option was Cyclo - she wants to have children one day and so appealed and won and got her treatment in the end. I dont know how they can offer a woman of child bearing age a treatment that would take this from her. And all to save money.

[pberggren1]

Only 7% in the UK? Hmmm, we pay about 25%.

[Dryhill]

I got a lot of gripe for the way the NHS is funded and for some particular doctors i have seen pre and post diagnosis who had NO idea how to treat someone with my disease but thought they'd take a stab at it. I know these two issues are far apart.

£7 from every £100 i pay in tax goes to fund the NHS. It makes me mad to see people i know and people on this forum refused treatments like RTX because their Primary Care Trust feels its too expensive or ran out of money. A friend of mine who was 25 at the time was refused funding for a treatment and was told her next option was Cyclo - she wants to have children one day and so appealed and won and got her treatment in the end. I dont know how they can offer a woman of child bearing age a treatment that would take this from her. And all to save money.

Exactly like my situation Sam, my consultant wanted me to have four infusions of rtx, but the hospital would only allow two, yet they are spending £250,000 to make the main entrance "more user friendly". Luckily I seem to be responding well to the two infusions.

Only 7% in the UK? Hmmm, we pay about 25%.

Yes Phil, that is why the NHS is struggling. We did not have anything like the current problems back in the 1970's but then Margaret Thatcher cut our basic tax rate from 32% to 25% and now it is down to 20%. Of course if we tax payers were sensible we should have put the savings into a private health plan, but of course we didn't. The only way to resolve funding the NHS is to put taxes back up, but any government that does that will not win the next election.

But not to worry when Sam and I take over running the country we will sort it all out!

Jim