Would that be the same IT system produced by Fujitsu of Post Office fame and will happily take another 40% of the £2.5 billion as profit?
Just asking.
Maybe I’m cynical, but someone is getting that £2.5bn and it won’t be a fucking nurse.
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I suspect Hammersmith hospital isn’t representative of the majority of hospitals. Even so, there will probably be changes they can make which will help improve the system.
Unless you use nurses to upgrade your IT, then probably not.
The point still stands though. I suspect if we ask people who work in the NHS what they would like to spend 2.5bn on, it wouldn’t be a new IT system.
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From what I understand from NHS former colleagues, there aren’t enough staff to care for patients. In ICU, it used to be 1 nurse per patient, it is now 2-3 patients per nurse. They are run off their feet. I have seen it myself, my friend was in hospital having her part of her pancreas removed, she was in ICU for 3 days. The nurse was like going from one patient to another nonstop, checking vital signs, giving medication, putting tube lines in the neck, changing the urine bag etc.
My uni friend just took early retirement this month, she is a Biomedical Scientist ( Dept of Pathology- Histology), she said that the workload is too much to check and not enough staff to do it. The medical personnel are just getting burned out, taking early retirement or leaving the NHS to work elsewhere and outside the UK. These kind of skilled roles you need a trained medical person, to specially prepare patient cells biopsies, where you need a person with a trained eye to check for cancer cells.
They need medically trained staff for clinical procedures, this is what i mean.
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Yes, but it doesnt make it correct, though does it. If (and i say if because i have no idea whether the figures are accurate) the IT changes do free up significant resources and get waiting lists down the spending is justified.
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None of which i am disputing. But any potential improvement to the NHS is to be welcomed.
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The NHS should receive a fixed percentage of the public purse, and then an apolitical body should run it. It is too valuable an asset to be treated as a political football.
The fixed percentage should be debated by the various parties, and settled via a vote, so it is sacrosanct, and then a long term plan can be enacted for the good of the NHS, regardless of who is in power.
If it needs an IT overhaul, or more doctors, or nurses, or beds, or medicines, or whatever… a serious overseeing body, well funded by the public purse because we value the NHS, can address the issues in its perceived order of priority, with the budget at its disposal.
They would of course have the people on the ground well represented, and they would be abreast of all the issues, and would set about working a short term, mid term, and long term plan until everything was world class.
It is doable, if the desire is there.
Until that happens the whole thing feels like points scoring, or doing favours for my cronies to give them a back hander before leaving office, and so on.
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Simple solution for someone in their mid 20’s.
Buy a less expensive house and drive an older car.
Save up for the nicer things which will come down the line if you’re sensible.
But no, people want it big and want it now!
I didn’t own a property (mortgaged) until I was 40, and didn’t drive a car that wasn’t at least 10 years old until much later
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So it’s still their fault for buying a house they could afford but can’t anymore because of government policy?
Really?
This is exactly what they want. They want your money so their buddies can increase their already abhorrent wealth.
And we just suck it up and say it’s your own fault. Governments job is to protect it’s citizens, not milk them like a sea cow from a really crap star wars sequel
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I’m not apportioning blame.
I’m saying Scott could/should have been more sensible.
Many others have agreed he’s over spending.
Rightly or wrongly mortgage/interest rates can go up.
Buy a house that you can afford in the worst case, and nope you don’t need an expensive new car.
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But isn’t the squeeze proportional for everyone? At least everyone who doesn’t have a sweet inheritance deal and own their house outright?
Interest rate rises hit everyone. But I can see situations where the wealthier you are, the greater % of your wage you will put toward a mortgage since living costs won’t necessarily be proportional to wage.
The article doesn’t surprise me at all.
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2 questions.
What has changed that makes a house unaffordable all of a sudden please?
And what drove that change?
So what you are saying is that the worst case scenario we should all be planning for is the Tory’s destroying the economy?
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I’m sympathetic but tend to side with @Dane on this. His expectations may be a little out of sync. We dont have the full details as to his monthly costs and my maths may be a little wrong but he is earning more than double the UK average (which gives him about £4100 after tax?).
Usual rule of thumb for housing costs is around 25% i think, he’s at 33% (most likely temporary situation as rates fall).
That still leaves nearly £3k (around £2800?) a month for everything else which is probably close to what people on average in the UK earn before tax (around £34k or 36k?).
Student loan (£300) and groceries (£500) account for a further £800. He is left with £300 at month’s end, so he is spending around another £1700 on stuff. He is leasing a car which is usually a more expensive option, but what else?
He mentions a pension. I am curious how much he is putting away for that.
It’s probably common for home buyers to find things a little tight for the first few years and find things more comfortable as time progresses. He may have underestimated the impact of this, and then increased living costs added to that
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It isnt unaffordable. He has £300 a month left over from all of his monthly expenditures.
It wouldnt surprise me if the impact from his wife giving up work has been a major factor - there spending previously would have probably been much higher.
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Wealthy people don’t need mortgages, they buy outright.
UK’s situation is really grim, sort of like Canada circa 1984. The percentage of GDP consumed by the government is staggeringly high - higher than in the pre-Thatcher era. Yet public services seem to be nowhere near that level. Any significant increases in taxes would be a disaster, but cuts in spending would also seem likely to push aggregate demand down badly. There isn’t a clear way forward.
Truss in particular did a stunning amount of damage for someone whose tenure is measured by a head of lettuce.
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Interest rates increased, and are now decreasing.
COVID, Brexit, Tory leadership.
As I said, not apportioning blame, but when Scott took out his mortgage, let’s assume 4 or 5 years ago at the end of his further education, did he really think there was no possibility of interest rate fluctuation?
Rates have come down, gone up and are coming back down again in that period.
Yes, we all know the Tories have fucked the country up, it’s mentioned about 1000 times every day in here, but Scott seems a classic new ager, buy big & new early in life, all on tick.
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