If you needed the NHS would you continue to vote Tory?

[pdq1]

http://www.dailymail....oning-operations.html

In the same week the government is to spend £bns on upgrading our nuclear weapons comes the story that people will die because of the lack of NHS treatment. Why do they give the NHS such little priority?

[Davethedog]

Because rich people can afford private medicine, so why should they subsidise the poor, ordinary, middle England, unless they can make money put of us?

[VHG]

Yes skinflints they only give the Department of Health about 100 billion pounds a year to run the NHS.

[VHG]

We should also be aware that thousands of people fly into the UK for "free" health treatment and very very few of them ever pay anything towards it.

I used to live in Hillingdon (near Heathrow airport) and the local hospitals were full of women who flew here near the end of their pregnancy just to get their chldren born for free in a UK hospital.

If we continue to treat the rest of the world for free then we must expect the cost to keep going up and up (or the service go down and down).

News item from a couple of years ago

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7379891.stm

[MoonRocker]

If you are looking for where the money is spent I'd start asking questions about why this particular expensive item, 1.5 times the NHS budget, 3 times the defence budget, seems to be untouchable, anyone guess what it might be?

[Davethedog]

Yea VHG absoloutly right, let people die, whilst the rich get richer off peoples misery.

[NOX]

VHG- do you not understand the difference between spending money on those in need of medical assistance to upgrading nuclear weapons? Is it so difficult to get one's priorities right? Apparently so.
To answer the question I would never vote Tory for a myriad of reasons, this being one of them.

[emmie]

The NHS is a bloated leviathan and needs some sharp pruning, preferably the paper shufflers, and some of the don't give a damn medical staff. Then get the managers, and why have so many in these hospital trusts, to start by treating the NHS as though it's a business, where accountability is king, not as your little fiefdom, where you can spend, spend, spend.
While we are at it, and so far no one has made a comment, the armed forces are being severely cut, boots on the ground are going, so if the MOD or whoever is responsible is buying in, upgrading nuclear weapons, one would like to know why, is it at the expense of those servicemen and women, that would seem a terrible exchange.

[emmie]

and what makes anyone think that the Labour bods would be any different.

[dave50]

The NHS is a bottomless pit that will swallow however much money is poured into it.

[emmie]

and so it has. One of our local hospitals was built with PFI
but the cost of the annual maintenance is 450 million.

[NOX]

You can never spend too much money on the NHS or education.

[pdq1]

They promised to maintain spending in real terms on the NHS but in a number of areas are falling short. Labour for all its faults were getting the NHS in good shape but trying to turn round a tanker takes a lot of doing. This government is intent on crashing the tanker on the rocks.

The Tories are either liers or very incompetent!

[factor-fiction]

So has spending on the NHS fallen in the last few years, pdq1?

[factor-fiction]

"You can never spend too much money on the NHS or education."
Sorry Nox, I don't understand that one at all.

[pdq1]

factor30 if the spending hasn't actually fell then its down to incompetence.

[factor-fiction]

So if it goes up or stays the same it's Tory incompetence and if it falls it's cruel Tory cuts?

[factor-fiction]

Sorry, are you saying there was never rationing/prioritisation under previous governments?

[tamborine]

Not much point in worrying about hospitals when Iran sends us missiles

[emmie]

tambourine, when would that be?

[tamborine]

if I knew that, we wouldn't need defence