If you held the health budget(UK)What would be your priorities?

Question

First thing that springs to mind is cancer ,but what about mental health

Or see this :

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20080618/tuk-call-to-boost-dementia-funding-6323e80.html

Answer 1

Get rid of some of the bureaucrats.

We need some management:  However, there seems to be too many Cheifs and not enough Indians.

Answer 2

Any illnesses that specifically affect children first of all because they have their whole lives ahead of them and most of us don't.

Answer 3

Almost an impossible question to answer, but I guess preventive medicine would be high on the list, including dentistry. I'd rid the system of all the private companies that milk the system. Then hope the ministers would take notice of those with experience of working in the system instead of relying on sound bites and spin that never delivers.

Answer 4

There’s lot’s to do before I would even want a budget.

This could only come from the very top of political parties.

There has to be an agreed strategy set out for the next 20 years for the NHS i.e. beyond the life of any one government (and /or political party) term.

A clear statement of what the NHS is (and isn’t) all about should be made.

The NHS cannot by definition be ‘all things to all people’ – people’s expectations need to be managed.

Once we know what we’re trying to achieve then we would have a much better idea of how much we need to spend – that minimum amount money should then be ring-fenced.

The strategy should be reviewed annually.

The ‘tinkering around’ must stop. As must the boom and bust funding of the NHS.

An arterial bleed isn't staunched by an Elastoplast  - to get a bit medical.

Unfortunately, people’s health is an emotive subject and the politicians know it and use it not only against their political rivals but the populace as a whole. As in your news item.

There should be a minimum standard set across the whole of the UK – the post code lottery and the attitude of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ and ‘fire-fighting’ should stop.

We have the issue of free prescriptions in Scotland, being paid to stop smoking etc.

When the National Health Service was set up it supposed to be for the Nation i.e. UK unfortunately is has been allowed to become a truly ‘national’ Service with different rules in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland – and all for the sake of politics.

(I’ve only just noticed that they are actually called different names i.e. NHS England, NHS Scotland etc. – how the h**l was that allowed to happen!)

The problem is of course, that when that ‘national standard’ was published it would be a surprise to the electorate how ‘basic’ that would be – political suicide.

Then there’s the rather strange rule (an attempt at ‘equality’ I suppose) that you’re not allowed to spend your own money on drugs to help your own health – or if you do you are no longer entitled to ‘free’ NHS treatment.

(Exactly the same applies to education by the way!)

It would take a master political figure to be able to achieve this – I don’t think we really have a politician with the vision, courage, integrity etc to do this at the moment.

Poor old William Beveridge, Aneurin Bevin and Clement Atlee – I’m sure they wouldn’t have wanted it to have ended up this way!!

BTW - there was an excellent article in the Sunday Telegraph this week - there were comments from former Health Ministers from Frank Dobson to Patricia Hewitt - with the attitudes that they display about the job now they are out of office it's little wonder we have ended up where we are.

Answer 5

Stop the waste.  

Huge amounts of money are wasted on quangos, unworkable computer systems. hiring agency workers, employing administrative staff so far above requirements that in some hospitals they out number medical staff.   Hair brained schemes like the newest brainwave Polyclinics.

Stop free treatment for people from overseas known as medical/health tourists

Spend this on patient care and better wages and conditions for nursing and emergency workers.  And there will even be enough money left in the pot to ensure the end of the post code lottery when it comes to life saving drug therapy. Maybe there will even be enough left over for funding of better mental healthcare enabling people to live a quality life with the right kind of mental health treatment.  

No one should be left without proper care and attention whatever their mental or physical health needs, or  in fact their age.

Answer 6

No its not cancer its heart disease.

Answer 7

I don't know how they divide the budget at the moment and for the sake of answering the question without bias let's set aside current debts and things like PFI and similar where debt is off set against future tax receipts.

The NHS now has areas of responsibility and achievement that no one would have foreseen 60 years ago. We had a two tier system then those who could afford it and those who couldn't.

My own priorities would be to restructure what could reasonably be expected of the health service and I would sub-divide its budget into specific areas instead of into the trusts.

First I would have a budget for infrastructure. These are contracts I would put out to specialist companies. (no detail here as it makes the answer too long) the general idea being a standard that could be audited also by outside contractors.

Next I would have a budget for equipment. There would never be enough but again the aim would be centred around the ideal/needs and a minimum standard (starter pack if you like)

A third budget would exist for staff costs which would be given to the trusts/hospitals to manage. (This would include training costs)

As would the next budget for medicines/drugs.

The structure would then be GP and consultant driven with the NHS responsible for the basic and emergency care.

I would change the way NI is operate with 1/3 of all contributions ring fenced to the NHS. (even that may not be enough)

A further 10% would be used as actual insurance payments to the industry to deal with long term health care claims.

There would be some exceptions. Those with wealth in excess of £500,000 (reviewed every 5 years as a figure) would be expect to pay for their costs until their assets fell below that figure.

Also I would not extend treatment beyond emergency care to any none British nationals (that would require leaving the EU at some point as health care harmonisation is a long term goal of the EU)

This of course is only the outline but to enable the Doctors and nurses to focus on what they want to do it would be necessary to remove huge amounts of the admin of providing and maintaining infrastucture and equipment out of the equation.

I would want to provide much more funding for the Hospice area to help with the paliative care.

Research would not even be a part of the NHS budget as such nor under the health minister directly. I would remove this element into a separate department (perhaps a revamped NICE?) I would want to structure research around the clinical need so would contribute funding into private companies/universities on issues that were of importance from a health/treatment view and not necessarily the profit side. In particular areas identified as ongoing like cancer research I would end the claim your tax back and replace with a matched funding programme.

Then I would negotiate a way to make certain drugs under license for our own needs instead of buying them in.

For example pain killers once a range had been selected as optimum then we need to make these ourselves this would allow long term cost savings.

Once I'd costed that lot I would put it to the people as part of a manifesto at an election.