Live Labour broadcast on the future of the NHS

Colin Warnek said:
This is the sensible answer., unfortunately too many just use the NHS as a political football and think it should all be public or we’ll end up like the US
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It should be public because it's a universal service. The private sector can't provide that.

Just as one, non-clinical, example - how many MRSA infections could have been avoided over the years if cleaning had been done in-house as opposed to being given to the lowest bidder?

There was a study done years ago that showed that NHS Surgeons made the best cleaners because they knew what needed doing. By outsourcing the work, the surgeons didn't have the input they'd had previously and standards slipped. Yes, someone somewhere made a profit but at what expense?


Andy_W said:
It doesn't need to be non-profit to actually work on budget (the right budget) and with the right amount of manpower. The main problem it seems to have recently had is that the client underbudgeted it, let manpower go, and didn't replace them. There are literally thousands of companies which have had takeovers or been split up in order to succeed.

The key problem is who the client is, if it's run/ funded by Tories, then Tories are going to Tory, but Labour may be able to manage it ok, better than actually managing it and doing it. The problem is of course if and when the Tories get back into power, they'll wreck it that way, like how they wrecked it in private hands for the last 13 years.

The problem with gas and water was that who we sold it to was basically the new client, there wasn't much other control over them, other than through regulation and as always, adding on regulation adds on cost, which then of course gets passed on to us lot.

I wouldn't want the funding to be taken away, as with that we lose control, so we need to continue with the tax-based way, so it's 100% free for everyone.

Agree on the capitalism thing, but you can also do better by improving efficiency. You can treat people better or treat more people by managing better. Put the risk of managing it better on the contractors, for the same target price.

The value of a heart operation is that if you can do 10, instead of 9, then another person lives.

I'm 100% against not charging for use of the NHS, where people are using the right service. But to be honest, if people were using the wrong service then I think a small means-tested charge could be applied. There's a lot of time wasted in A&E and Doctors, by people who don't need to be there, from what my friends in A&E say, as well as a receptionist I know well in my doctors. Whether this could be made better through education, or even additional services or both, who knows.

I think some aspects could be run privately and run well, maybe more the niche aspects, or aspects where there could be a lot of competition so we can get good value.
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You fundamentally misunderstand the concepts involved. It's non-profit because there isn't anything that generates value. You have to pay for everything which requires government funding. There is no capitalist function within the NHS. You provide a service and there isn't anything to give back (at a basic level). Yes, there will be some niche areas where a small amount of profit can be generated but invariably this will be offset against some other social loss (e.g. selling patient data to US health companies).

How does doing 10 operations instead of 9 generate value that can be turned into profit? You can't start using a different definition of value when your main argument is that we should use 'value' to provide 'profit' for private enterprise.

Why can't you manage better in the public sector? How would you get better management when some part of any funding would alway be taken out of the system for shareholders?

How do patients know what their needs are without access to medical practitioners? People can't "use the wrong service". The NHS doesn't work like that.

And, for the umpteenth time, taxes don't pay for the NHS (or any other government initiative). That's not how government spending works.
 
SuperStu said:
The first 4 bullet points all seem to be different ways of describing the same single policy.

And since Starmer is now saying he doesn't want to increase income tax, maybe that whole plan has gone down the swanny.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1660540612754522112
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I held off from pointing out the extra training places (Marts Labour post) were originally being paid for by a return to a tax on the wealthiest aka the 45p tax which was expected to raise around £3 billion or so a year

And Rachel Reeves told radio 4 last month no taxes (including the 45% tax) will be increased UNTIL there's sustained growth

So to sum up Labour have promised extra NHS staff paid for by tax rises

Then later said they won't raise taxes

Are we getting the extra staff or not?
 
exiledinboro said:
I held off from pointing out the extra training places (Marts Labour post) were originally being paid for by a return to a tax on the wealthiest aka the 45p tax which was expected to raise around £3 billion or so a year

And Rachel Reeves told radio 4 last month no taxes (including the 45% tax) will be increased UNTIL there's sustained growth

So to sum up Labour have promised extra NHS staff paid for by tax rises

Then later said they won't raise taxes

Are we getting the extra staff or not?
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I suspect that what that means is, yes, we will, when we’ve sorted the economy enough to afford it. Ie growth helps all of us, and services have to be costed we all know the game, the Tories and red tops will play the “tax increase card” and the “unbudgetted spending” card if there isnt some element of holding back on this.

What I do know is that there is more chance of services being funded better under Labour and there are no viable alternatives that will spend more.
 
BoroMart said:
I suspect that what that means is, yes, we will, when we’ve sorted the economy enough to afford it. Ie growth helps all of us, and services have to be costed we all know the game, the Tories and red tops will play the “tax increase card” and the “unbudgetted spending” card if there isnt some element of holding back on this.

What I do know is that there is more chance of services being funded better under Labour and there are no viable alternatives that will spend more.
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There's a word for not doing anything until we sort out the economy. Austerity - the thing that hasn't worked for the last thirteen years.
This country can create enough money right now to fix the NHS and more.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
There's a word for not doing anything until we sort out the economy. Austerity - the thing that hasn't worked for the last thirteen years.
This country can create enough money right now to fix the NHS and more.
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Nobody is claiming that labour will do nothing, only that they can't fix everything in one term.

The Tories have FUBARed so much, no service is working optimally or even adequately. Schools, police, NHS, roads, council funding, the economy are all ruined. On top of that national debt has increased staggeringly since the tories came to power. So I'm happy for you to explain how we invest and repair the damage done by tories, immediately, without an astronomical and unsustainable increase in our debt levels, and without increasing revenue into the exchequer through increasing the economic output. Or are you claiming we should pursue quantitive easing, leading to hyper inflation. When labour come in, we will have had 14 years of Tories running every public service into the ground. Do you seriously think that can be turned around in 5 years with negligible impact to the economy?

There's the challenge, I await your realistic strategic approach...
 
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Regardless of approach what starmer said was give concrete targets for the nhs which he was adamant Labour would achieve. They were the targets in the last Labour government.

Quicker ambulances will save thousands of lives every year, alone.
 
BoroMart said:
Nobody is claiming that labour will do nothing, only that they can't fix everything in one term.

The Tories have FUBARed so much, no service is working optimally or even adequately. Schools, police, NHS, roads, council funding, the economy are all ruined. On top of that national debt has increased staggeringly since the tories came to power. So I'm happy for you to explain how we invest and repair the damage done by tories, immediately, without an astronomical and unsustainable increase in our debt levels, and without increasing revenue into the exchequer through increasing the economic output. Or are you claiming we should pursue quantitive easing, leading to hyper inflation. When labour come in, we will have had 14 years of Tories running every public service into the ground. Do you seriously think that can be turned around in 5 years with negligible impact to the economy?

There's the challenge, I await your realistic strategic approach...
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The worst debt that this country has ever been in during modern times was right after WWII and on the back of that we built millions of council houses and we created the welfare system and the NHS. It is nigh on impossible for a country such as ours to increase our debts to unsustainable levels because for one, the country creates its own money and borrows from itself, and secondly, unlike a bank loan or a mortgage that you might take out, it never has to be paid back. In fact the country has been in continuous debt since the 1600s and in 1815 the debt amounted to 300% of GDP.

It is also a fallacy that the government spends taxpayers money, it doesn't It spends money first and then collects tax to control inflation.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
The worst debt that this country has ever been in during modern times was right after WWII and on the back of that we built millions of council houses and we created the welfare system and the NHS. It is nigh on impossible for a country such as ours to increase our debts to unsustainable levels because for one, the country creates its own money and borrows from itself, and secondly, unlike a bank loan or a mortgage that you might take out, it never has to be paid back. In fact the country has been in continuous debt since the 1600s and in 1815 the debt amounted to 300% of GDP.
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Debt in 1945 and debt today are not really comparable. Economy was run very differently then, service industry didn't exist and anyway, within 20 years the country was financially sick as a dog.

As for being able to print our own money, as I said, that doesn't come without consequence, the money that we would need to print would lead to hyper inflation. The value of the pound would tank, and that would kill us importing all our food.

You are alluding that printing money and loaning it to the government because we never have to pay it back is some kind of silver bullet solution, but that is naive.

BlindBoyGrunt said:
It is also a fallacy that the government spends taxpayers money, it doesn't It spends money first and then collects tax to control inflation.
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Agreed, but money needs to be on the back of value creation linked to tangible assets, otherwise its just a means of devaluing the currency.

We seem to agree that all our services have been underfunded and are currently FUBARed and that massive investment is required to turn them around. I asked for your solution to this, and the answer you gave appears to be print trillions of pounds loan it to the government and fix everything all at once and this can be done without any negative consequences.

So my challenge now is for you to explain why no UK government has ever gone down this route before. Because, lets face it, the tories could have done this, and solved all our problems years ago. So why didn't they....
 
BoroMart said:
As for being able to print our own money, as I said, that doesn't come without consequence, the money that we would need to print would lead to hyper inflation. The value of the pound would tank, and that would kill us importing all our food.
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The government don't actually create very much money, only about 3% of the total created. New money is created all day and every day by commercial banks. Every time someone receives a bank loan or mortgage the money is created out of thin air. We can spend what we like and will not hit hyperinflation as long as there is unemployment. However building houses, employing more doctors and nurses and paying them better, and creating more medical courses in our universities are all growth and all put more money in circulation.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
The government don't actually create very much money, only about 3% of the total created. New money is created all day and every day by commercial banks. Every time someone receives a bank loan or mortgage the money is created out of thin air. We can spend what we like and will not hit hyperinflation as long as there is unemployment. However building houses, employing more doctors and nurses and paying them better, and creating more medical courses in our universities are all growth and all put more money in circulation.
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So explain why this Tory government haven't done it and why labour won't do it, because investing in all those services would be a huge vote winner.....
 
Lol the Tories have printed more money than any other UK Government. EVER

As BBG says the problem is they view QE as a means to protect wealth and capital when the economic system fails which it keeps doing lately.

The better solution is to use borrowed money AND then invest.

Austerity has been completely discredited and it doesn't work.

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BoroMart said:
So explain why this Tory government haven't done it and why labour won't do it, because investing in all those services would be a huge vote winner.....
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exiledinboro said:
Lol the Tories have printed more money than any other UK Government. EVER

As BBG says the problem is they view QE as a means to protect wealth and capital when the economic system fails which it keeps doing lately.

The better solution is to use borrowed money AND then invest
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Here is a twitter thread by Richard Murphy, a political economist and professor at Sheffield University which explains exactly what exiled is saying, that QE can actually be used to transform the economy and create growth. It also touches on why it should not be a cause of austerity or cause unsustainable debt.
 
exiledinboro said:
Lol the Tories have printed more money than any other UK Government. EVER
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Agreed, but that isn’t what BBG is saying. He’s claiming it’s a silver bullet to fix all problems. It isn’t, using to invest in infra projects is great. It creates valuable assets. Using it to finance government services Is bad, as much of it will end up in the hands of employees, this creating an imbalance of cash to goods and creating inflation.
exiledinboro said:
Austerity has been completely discredited and it doesn't work.
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I don’t see anyone arguing for austerity, this is a BBG allusion that simply wasn’t implied.
BlindBoyGrunt said:
that QE can actually be used to transform the economy and create growth. It also touches on why it should not be a cause of austerity or cause unsustainable debt.
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See my previous comments it can, but it isn’t a silver bullet to fix all problems. As soon as it starts to put wealth in peoples hands without creating valuable assets then it creates inflation. There are thousands of economists that will tell you that.

What we need is some QA, some borrowing and some patience to fix the broken system.
 
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