Helen, You’re correct you do have a bigger insight to the NHS and

Comment on General Election 2010 Poll Results by Sarah in the Desert.

Helen,

You’re correct you do have a bigger insight to the NHS and also an ingrained loyalty to it as you work for it. I have been a reluctant partaker and opted to go private.

“To be fair doctors doing private work often fulfil their NHS contract and their private one without compromise (their NHS patients simply wait longer)” – you’ll have to explain this one to me.. they fulfill both their contracts without compromise but at the same time their NHS patients wait longer, I don’t understand this.

“You did clarify your point to David about support with childcare in 1997, but in your comments to me you still seem to think of the NHS, the DSS, and the Labour party as the same entity. You claimed that the Labour party are the source of my income and haven’t clarified that to me.”

The NHS and the DSS are the entities that any new Government inherits and has to then manage and control, in effect their new employers (hence, your employers). Government policy changes directly affects both in the direction that they have to take (assuming of course, that the new Government has a majority house, which Labour does at present with a house representation of 346).

“You also haven’t answered my question about your proposed health service:
Your NHS ideas don’t include “…those with hereditary or long-term illnesses that are through no fault.”. It would be interesting to see how you would legislate for this if you have time to summarise?”

I’m going post another thread for my ideal of the NHS because of the questions you and David have put forward otherwise this would be a mammoth post!

“An example: In the UK, if your GP thinks you have symptoms suggesting a possible cancer, you wait no longer than 2 weeks to see an NHS specialist. If a hospital fails to meet the two week target (which very occasionally happens usually because of human error), it gets fined.”

If I even suspect I may have cancer I don’t want to wait for up to 5-6 days to see my GP and then another 2 weeks to see a Consultant (who occasionally may not be able to do so), I want to see someone within a day or two, 3 at most! What a horrendous 2 weeks that would be for anyone!

“You are out of touch with the NHS and are blind to the progress it has made. “ Obviously I am, I just don’t think it’s good enough, my expectations are a lot higher probably because I have experienced better (even in Government hospitals here in the ME).

“I haven’t got a problem with those who choose to go private for healthcare, that is everyone’s perogative” – you really don’t sound like it!

“I’d be really interested to know how your proposed healthcare system in the UK, only for those who are not ill through anything they have self inflicted (how do you define this?), would be rolled out to the general population without any waiting lists, and how we would expect normal people to fund this if you also advocate “allowing people to keep more of the money they work for”?”

I would define self-inflicted ailments to be those directly as a result of general self-abuse such as smoking, heavy drinking, drug-taking, obesity (through own fault) and sporting activities with a high risk of incidence.

“Oh, and who would be making a big fat profit out of this new health model?” Why is this such an issue for you? Organisations with profits pay employees (who pay tax and spend their earnings), have money to invest, grow and expand thereby creating more jobs and more tax, are generally more competitive and generally more cost efficient. Private Sector companies are not generally governed to use the EU Procurement Directives so it would be easier to work longer term with their preferred suppliers and reduce costs to supply and maintain the services.

The “right investment” that you have previously mentioned is not “investment” it’s more public money paid out of taxes and national insurance. It’s throwing good money after bad.

From David, “When it comes to the NHS there’s no comparison between Labour and the Conservatives, Labour actually care about the NHS. “ I’m really not disagreeing with you here. However, all political parties know that the NHS in its present form cannot continue forever, it has to change, the problem is that no one party has the guts to stand up there and do it because it’s such an emotive element and would be hugely unpopular if people start to think that they may have to start paying at least a proportion for their treatment.

“I’m afraid in this instance you’ve been away from the country too long to understand what it’s like now Sarah. “ Maybe, but can so much be different in 5 years? I suppose I have now other perspectives on how much better it could be if the systems were changed.

We made a choice of what kind of life we were prepared to accept for our hard work and unfortunately the one in the UK was not it, I do miss the UK but I just wouldn’t be prepared to live there again under a Labour government when all we were doing is paying into the system and not really getting anything positive out of it it made us think about why we were doing it.