The NHS under the Tories !

[Papaumau]

After Thatcher ripped into the NHS and tried to make it accountable only to the open market and filled it with bean-counters and non-clinical managers here we see this ersatz Tory government STILL desperate to fiddle with it.

Cameron has said that they want to make the NHS more efficient by getting rid of the managers that Thatcher put in ( even if he did not phrase it like that ), and he now wants to hand over all of the NHS cash to the individual GPs in the area of the hospital trusts.

Be aware that this, ( in England at least ), is going to throw the NHS into chaos and it will probably cost more money in the long run as the managers that are sacked from the hospitals are re-hired by the GPs.

It is a crazy idea and one that can only do patient-care a disservice.

Many of us that value the NHS also see this as a typical Tory ploy to privatise this wonderful institution by the back door.

This is the thin end of the wedge and we should resist it with all of our might !

Opinions please.....

[Hugh]

Hello Papa, I must agree with you the NHS could well be privatised in the near future.
Staffing of the NHS really needs sorting out far to many highly paid managers which could pay for a greater number of nurses. Ask any nurse and they will tell you the same story.
Giving the funds to the GPs to use is quite a strange idea just hope they know what they are doing.
All we can do at the moment is watch and hope they do a good job, we can do nothing about it untill we vote again. 

[Papaumau]

Hugh....

Most doctors and nurses in the NHS, ( especially in the hospitals ) are against the wasteful levels of bureaucracy that exist in the NHS and I think that most of the people outside the NHS think this too.

All that needs to be done is that the levels of bureaucracy WITHIN the NHS need to be done away with without moving the funding away from the hospitals and into the GP's hands.

What is in fact happening as the Tories fiddle with the NHS is that by doing this they are going to virtually privatise it via this cash-removal route and they are going to make the GPs far too powerful.

It is a recipe for disaster and anyone with an ounce of reason should be able to see that.

I hope that when this comes to a commons vote that it is defeated by the Lib Dems going against their Tory masters and voting it down with the rest.

We shall see I guess.

[Hugh]

Hi Papa I am pretty sure there is discussions going on behind the scenes on this very subject and will never come to a vote unless they are pretty sure it won't get defeated. But funding s will certainly be changed that's for sure

[Papaumau]

Hugh......

I for one would love to be a fly on the wall of the cabinet office !

The thing is that the Tories know only too well that they muck about with the NHS at their peril.

I think that this is going to be the litmus test for the coalition as the Liberal Democrats are dead against the privatisation of the NHS.

More to come here I suspect !

[Hugh]

Have you noticed shares in BUPA and alike have started to rise in-expectation of a wind fall.

[Papaumau]

No, I hadn't noticed that, Hugh, but thankyou for bringing the fact to my/our attention !

Of course the private, ( profit-driven ), medical sector will be expecting a share of that money once it has been ripped out of the hands of the NHS hospital trusts.

I for one hope that we will never come to that and I hope that the Lib Dem partners in the coalition have the bottle to kill this one off in it's tracks.

[Hugh]

Labours bright idea of getting private enterprise to build hospitals as laid the foundations for NHS service to be privatised. Will the lib dems have the power or the will to stop it going a head that remains to seen. I cannot see the labour party getting back into power in my life time.

[BillB]

I think you gentlemen need to read 'The Orange Book' As my M.P. is David Laws the recently disgraced Lib/Dem. He has advocated an insurance scheme for the NHS. So not much chance of the Lib/Dem's taking on the Tories on that one or anything else. They have conceded all their major election proposals to get their feet under the table at No10. The group now leading the Lib/Dem's are to the right of the Tories on economic policy. They are as keen as anyone to privatize. BillB

[Papaumau]

Labours bright idea of getting private enterprise to build hospitals as laid the foundations for NHS service to be privatised. Will the lib dems have the power or the will to stop it going a head that remains to seen. I cannot see the labour party getting back into power in my life time.

Again Hugh, you are going to have to separate New-Labour from Labour as the two are NOT the same.

Yes, it WAS Blair that encouraged the PPP and the PFI building schemes which we will be paying through the nose for for the next 30 years or so and it WAS Blair that introduced the "privatised" Academies which are now syphoning off the money saved by not rebuilding the rotten schools all around the poorer areas.

The Tories are just continuing the vision that Blair had of privatising anything that does not move and by the time that they get kicked out of power in five years there will be a heluva lot of damage to fix.

[Papaumau]

I think you gentlemen need to read 'The Orange Book' As my M.P. is David Laws the recently disgraced Lib/Dem. He has advocated an insurance scheme for the NHS. So not much chance of the Lib/Dem's taking on the Tories on that one or anything else. They have conceded all their major election proposals to get their feet under the table at No10. The group now leading the Lib/Dem's are to the right of the Tories on economic policy. They are as keen as anyone to privatize. BillB

Hi again BillB.....

Sadly, you are right that the bought-and-sold Lib-Dems do not have the courage of their convictions in order to temper the right-wing agenda of their Tory partners.

It did not take long for them to be swallowed up by the Tory machine and I doubt very much if we will ever hear anything of note from Clegg again.

We MAY see a revolution in the Liberal Democrat party-roots that could rip the party apart, but that will not do much good in helping the encumbent Lib-Dem minority in the Tory partnership to do truly Liberal Democrat things again.

[Hugh]

Interesting point when labour supporters vote next time. just what will they be voting for, and how will they know? if they are going to get more of the same New labour Right wing or old labour left. ?
Depending on which party people support many would say it will take 5 years or more to undo the damage created by new labour.

[Papaumau]

Of course there will always be a hard core of detractors after ANY government has been in power for two or three terms and this government will be no different. ( Remember what happened to the Tories after they had had their chance before Blair came in with two landslide victories. ) They were decimated at the polls !

 Hugh said:

"How will we recognise true Labour if it comes back again !"

A very good question !

I think that the true Labourites will set out their stall very clearly before the next GE and even IF some of them will have been past New-Labourites I don't think that New-Labour - as such - will have a hope of getting elected after the Tories are wiped out again. As you said, it did too much damage while it was in power as it tried to be some kind of ersatz Tory party.

The next party to get into power will be a true party of the people, I hope !