oldie
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Post by oldie on Apr 22, 2022 8:18:43 GMT
Ok, for context, I am holed up in Cwmbran hospital, The Grange. The experiences I am about to detail are personal to my life and of course not necessarily replicated nor representative of all.
I will work backwards.
On Tuesday I had an accident at work. I snapped both my Tibia and Fibula about six inches above my right ankle. It hurt, badly, as you can imagine. Staff immediately called 999. I then had to wait 4 hours for the paramedic and crew to arrive. I was laying across a door threshold, half on the concrete floor of the car park, half inside the store room, the threshold digging into my side. My leg trapped beneath me the foot pointed at 180 degrees the wrong way. Taken to a local community hospital (no A&E) where they did the best they could. At 8pm, (accident was 09:30) I was taken to Cwmbran. A 20 minute drive away. I then lay in the ambulance in the carpark until 4am. I was then wheeled inside and asked to sit in a chair for 4 hours.8am, nearly 24 hours later.
I then lay on a trolley in A&E until Thursday evening. Pumped full of Morphine etc obviously. Last night I had the OP, to put my leg back together. So that's 09:30 Tuesday until 17:30 Thursday.
In Feb 2014 my GP referred me to Urology. By early June Prostate cancer had been confirmed, MRI, biopsy, the whole gamut of medical interventions. The consultant sat in front of me offering me my options. I chose Radical Laparoscopic Prostatectomy. He got his diary out and we agreed a date. August 21st.
It was a success, limp dick aside.
After 2002 Labour under Blair increased NHS spending to 9% of GDP, the EU average. From the King's Fund analysis
"Labour’s main treatment targets are a two-week maximum wait from ‘urgent’ referral by a GP to first outpatient appointment, and one-month maximum wait from diagnosis to treatment. By the end of 2005, the target is a two-month wait from ‘urgent’ referral to treatment, and this will fall to one month by 2008.
Official data suggest compliance with the first of these targets is now 99.5%. The Government has invested heavily in staff, equipment and service ‘redesign’ to try and meet the rest of the targets"
Between 2011/12 and 2018/19 the Tories increased spending by 12.8% in total for that period.
Compounded inflation for that period was nearly 30%.
Although inflation is not equal across all areas you can deduce quite quickly that funding over that period was REDUCED by 17% during that period.
The outcomes of each policy precisely reflected in my experiences.
You get what you vote for, although for far to many, no idea what they vote for, other than a flag.
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Post by Nobbygas on Apr 22, 2022 8:58:26 GMT
Sorry to hear about your accident Oldie. Hope you are up and about pretty quickly. If you end up with a peg leg though you can claim to be a real Pirate :-) NHS Wales is ran by Labour. Your numbers are being a bit economical with the truth though. Let's look at the current Kings Fund figures that you seem keen to quote.... From 2018/19 you seem to have overlooked the huge increase in spending from 141.4 billion to the planned level of 173.8 billion in 2022/23. It's difficult to work out the exact spending in the years 2020/21 & 2021/222 due to Covid but during this period spending rose to 191 billion. With the NHS I think it is widely accepted that it is not necessarily the amount of money you pour into it, but the way that money is spent/used. We all know the NHS structure is not fit for purpose in the current age. As long as Labour and the media keep worshipping "our NHS" nothing will change. You could increase NHS spending tomorrow to 200 billion a year, and nothing would change. Kings Fund Website |
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oldie
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Post by oldie on Apr 22, 2022 10:22:04 GMT
Sorry to hear about your accident Oldie. Hope you are up and about pretty quickly. If you end up with a peg leg though you can claim to be a real Pirate :-) NHS Wales is ran by Labour. Your numbers are being a bit economical with the truth though. Let's look at the current Kings Fund figures that you seem keen to quote.... From 2018/19 you seem to have overlooked the huge increase in spending from 141.4 billion to the planned level of 173.8 billion in 2022/23. It's difficult to work out the exact spending in the years 2020/21 & 2021/222 due to Covid but during this period spending rose to 191 billion. With the NHS I think it is widely accepted that it is not necessarily the amount of money you pour into it, but the way that money is spent/used. We all know the NHS structure is not fit for purpose in the current age. As long as Labour and the media keep worshipping "our NHS" nothing will change. You could increase NHS spending tomorrow to 200 billion a year, and nothing would change. Kings Fund WebsiteYou are right, I had been reading the King's Fund. I deliberately did not go beyond 2019 because covid distorts everything. For everyone, it's not the extremes but what happens day to day. In terms of your statement "nothing will change" well things did change after 2003 as the King's Fund provides evidence to. Appreciate the best wishes, appreciated. |
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eppinggas
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Post by eppinggas on Apr 22, 2022 10:28:21 GMT
Wishing you a speedy recovery oldie. Sorry to hear about your accident. I broke my collar bone a couple of months ago, swiftly followed by pneumonia and deep vein thrombosis in my arm. Have to say on the whole the NHS did a great job. Barring one visit for the DVT. Had an ultrasound and was told about the blood thinning treatment required. Waited 9 hours for a doctor to tell me exactly what I was told 9 hours earlier. That summed it up for me. The backbone of a great service. With a large dose of gross inefficiency thrown in for good measure. It's not how much you spend, it's how efficiently you allocate resources. |
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oldie
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Post by oldie on Apr 22, 2022 11:30:10 GMT
Wishing you a speedy recovery oldie. Sorry to hear about your accident. I broke my collar bone a couple of months ago, swiftly followed by pneumonia and deep vein thrombosis in my arm. Have to say on the whole the NHS did a great job. Barring one visit for the DVT. Had an ultrasound and was told about the blood thinning treatment required. Waited 9 hours for a doctor to tell me exactly what I was told 9 hours earlier. That summed it up for me. The backbone of a great service. With a large dose of gross inefficiency thrown in for good measure. It's not how much you spend, it's how efficiently you allocate resources. Thanks Epping. I don't buy this "efficiency" arguments, within the context of what we are discussing. Take education as an example. Announcing research into how we get our kids caught up post covid. The Parliamentary select committee, after a full study, said we needed to spend £15 billion. This Government (Tories) allocated £5 billion. They then appointed Randstad to deliver one on one coaching for our kids. Randstad are an outsourcing / HR company. About a month ago they were sacked. Because they failed. The previous Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, who vies for most stupid member of Parliament with Rees - Mogg, was promoted to the House of Lords. Is this the efficiency you so crave? |
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Post by eppinggas on Apr 22, 2022 13:49:36 GMT
Wishing you a speedy recovery oldie . Sorry to hear about your accident. I broke my collar bone a couple of months ago, swiftly followed by pneumonia and deep vein thrombosis in my arm. Have to say on the whole the NHS did a great job. Barring one visit for the DVT. Had an ultrasound and was told about the blood thinning treatment required. Waited 9 hours for a doctor to tell me exactly what I was told 9 hours earlier. That summed it up for me. The backbone of a great service. With a large dose of gross inefficiency thrown in for good measure. It's not how much you spend, it's how efficiently you allocate resources. Thanks Epping. I don't buy this "efficiency" arguments, within the context of what we are discussing. Take education as an example. Announcing research into how we get our kids caught up post covid. The Parliamentary select committee, after a full study, said we needed to spend £15 billion. This Government (Tories) allocated £5 billion. They then appointed Randstad to deliver one on one coaching for our kids. Randstad are an outsourcing / HR company. About a month ago they were sacked. Because they failed. The previous Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, who vies for most stupid member of Parliament with Rees - Mogg, was promoted to the House of Lords. Is this the efficiency you so crave? Just throwing money at the NHS is brainless. It needs reform. Education is a whole different conversation. As for the 'most stupid member of Parliament' - you are suggesting Eton educated Jacob Rees-Mogg who has an upper second from Trinity College and a successful career in investment banking. Eh? Come on Sir, you can do better than that. Are you still on Co-codamol? It can play havoc with the thought process. Honestly wish you better! |
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oldie
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Post by oldie on Apr 22, 2022 15:34:18 GMT
Thanks Epping. I don't buy this "efficiency" arguments, within the context of what we are discussing. Take education as an example. Announcing research into how we get our kids caught up post covid. The Parliamentary select committee, after a full study, said we needed to spend £15 billion. This Government (Tories) allocated £5 billion. They then appointed Randstad to deliver one on one coaching for our kids. Randstad are an outsourcing / HR company. About a month ago they were sacked. Because they failed. The previous Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, who vies for most stupid member of Parliament with Rees - Mogg, was promoted to the House of Lords. Is this the efficiency you so crave? Just throwing money at the NHS is brainless. It needs reform. Education is a whole different conversation. As for the 'most stupid member of Parliament' - you are suggesting Eton educated Jacob Rees-Mogg who has an upper second from Trinity College and a successful career in investment banking. Eh? Come on Sir, you can do better than that. Are you still on Co-codamol? It can play havoc with the thought process. Honestly wish you better! I know you and I know you do. Thanks. Contracts that have a defined outcome are always subject to delivering in an efficient manner, regardless of product or service. I will try again. You cannot deliver efficiently if the operation is horribly underfunded. In our world, it's the same isn't it? Shareholders want us to be honest and deliver returns as promised. They don't say " we will underfund your capital requirements by 60% but we still want the returns." Do they. On Rees-Mogg. Education is not an indicator of intelligence. Just look at Johnson. Although I would say Johnson is, but he is a malevolent force. Rees- Mogg is a complete joke, a characature of a mature man who actually knows f**k all. |
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Post by baselswh on Apr 22, 2022 15:54:52 GMT
Just throwing money at the NHS is brainless. It needs reform. Education is a whole different conversation. As for the 'most stupid member of Parliament' - you are suggesting Eton educated Jacob Rees-Mogg who has an upper second from Trinity College and a successful career in investment banking. Eh? Come on Sir, you can do better than that. Are you still on Co-codamol? It can play havoc with the thought process. Honestly wish you better! I know you and I know you do. Thanks. Contracts that have a defined outcome are always subject to delivering in an efficient manner, regardless of product or service. I will try again. You cannot deliver efficiently if the operation is horribly underfunded. In our world, it's the same isn't it? Shareholders want us to be honest and deliver returns as promised. They don't say " we will underfund your capital requirements by 60% but we still want the returns." Do they. On Rees-Mogg. Education is not an indicator of intelligence. Just look at Johnson. Although I would say Johnson is, but he is a malevolent force. Rees- Mogg is a complete joke, a characature of a mature man who actually knows f**k all. I assume you meant 'caricature' Oldie. I've broken and dislocated bones and so I know that's not very nice. I winced at reading your leg 'position'. Be careful you silly bugger. |
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oldie
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Post by oldie on Apr 22, 2022 16:41:43 GMT
I know you and I know you do. Thanks. Contracts that have a defined outcome are always subject to delivering in an efficient manner, regardless of product or service. I will try again. You cannot deliver efficiently if the operation is horribly underfunded. In our world, it's the same isn't it? Shareholders want us to be honest and deliver returns as promised. They don't say " we will underfund your capital requirements by 60% but we still want the returns." Do they. On Rees-Mogg. Education is not an indicator of intelligence. Just look at Johnson. Although I would say Johnson is, but he is a malevolent force. Rees- Mogg is a complete joke, a characature of a mature man who actually knows f**k all. I assume you meant 'caricature' Oldie. I've broken and dislocated bones and so I know that's not very nice. I winced at reading your leg 'position'. Be careful you silly bugger. I did 🤭🤭🤭 It's the Morphine... |
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Post by baselswh on Apr 22, 2022 17:27:49 GMT
I assume you meant 'caricature' Oldie. I've broken and dislocated bones and so I know that's not very nice. I winced at reading your leg 'position'. Be careful you silly bugger. I did 🤭🤭🤭 It's the Morphine... Maybe a good time to get the Pink Floyd collection out. |
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Post by eppinggas on Apr 23, 2022 8:46:57 GMT
I did 🤭🤭🤭 It's the Morphine... Maybe a good time to get the Pink Floyd collection out. I suggest reading "The British in India" written by... David Gilmore! A good cure for insomnia. A book which takes about 1000 different personal testimonies by people who spent time in Injaa - East India Company, Servicemen, Indian Civil Servants and civillians. Covers the 'good' things the British did, and the 'bad'. Without preaching. Astonishingly both did occur. Red rag, bull. |
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Post by oldie on Apr 23, 2022 10:45:02 GMT
Maybe a good time to get the Pink Floyd collection out. I suggest reading "The British in India" written by... David Gilmore! A good cure for insomnia. A book which takes about 1000 different personal testimonies by people who spent time in Injaa - East India Company, Servicemen, Indian Civil Servants and civillians. Covers the 'good' things the British did, and the 'bad'. Without preaching. Astonishingly both did occur. Red rag, bull. Hardly "Gilmour has chosen to write about the extremely diverse lives of British colonials in India. It is emphatically a social history, not an economic or political one and, as he writes, he “has not tried to … make a particular argument”. I found the decision not to engage in the current debate on empire frustrating, and it is a book that contains far fewer Indians and far fewer Indian perspectives than it should." And "The British in India has been published only one year after Shashi Tharoor’s wonderfully accessible Inglorious Empire popularised three decades of postcolonial criticism of empire, making compelling the argument that the whole enterprise of the Raj was a vast British-run exercise in loot and plunder that reduced a previously great and wealthy nation to beggary and despair. This debate has now bounced back to the ivory towers of our universities, where passions are running high over the legacy of Cecil Rhodes and over often uncritical teaching of British imperialism." Well precisely. A nice bit of confirmation bias there Epping in your suggestion. Meanwhile, back to today in the UK, how's it going. A morally bankrupt government, a nasty ignorant home secretary, queues at food banks, chaos on Brexit implementation (🤭🤭), people cannot afford their rent. 12 years of Tory rule. Who would have thought |
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Post by Nobbygas on Apr 23, 2022 17:46:24 GMT
Oldie - Maybe you should read it and make your own mind up instead of reading obviously biased views. I have the book. It is good and doesn't pull any punches.
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Post by oldie on Apr 23, 2022 20:54:28 GMT
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Post by eppinggas on Apr 24, 2022 9:06:19 GMT
I suggest reading "The British in India" written by... David Gilmore! A good cure for insomnia. A book which takes about 1000 different personal testimonies by people who spent time in Injaa - East India Company, Servicemen, Indian Civil Servants and civillians. Covers the 'good' things the British did, and the 'bad'. Without preaching. Astonishingly both did occur. Red rag, bull. Hardly "Gilmour has chosen to write about the extremely diverse lives of British colonials in India. It is emphatically a social history, not an economic or political one and, as he writes, he “has not tried to … make a particular argument”. I found the decision not to engage in the current debate on empire frustrating, and it is a book that contains far fewer Indians and far fewer Indian perspectives than it should." And "The British in India has been published only one year after Shashi Tharoor’s wonderfully accessible Inglorious Empire popularised three decades of postcolonial criticism of empire, making compelling the argument that the whole enterprise of the Raj was a vast British-run exercise in loot and plunder that reduced a previously great and wealthy nation to beggary and despair. This debate has now bounced back to the ivory towers of our universities, where passions are running high over the legacy of Cecil Rhodes and over often uncritical teaching of British imperialism." Well precisely. A nice bit of confirmation bias there Epping in your suggestion. Meanwhile, back to today in the UK, how's it going. A morally bankrupt government, a nasty ignorant home secretary, queues at food banks, chaos on Brexit implementation (🤭🤭), people cannot afford their rent. 12 years of Tory rule. Who would have thought British in India - I've actually read it (well about 80 pages to go). Give it a go. You could actually form your own opinion rather than cherry picking from the (who would believe it - surprisingly biased) grauniad review of the book. |
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Post by eppinggas on Apr 24, 2022 9:32:08 GMT
I'll leave you with this quote oldie. It concludes the book, and is from Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005: "Today, with the balance and perspective offered by the passage of time it is possible for an Indian Prime Minister to assert that India's experience with Britain had it's beneficial consequences too. Our notions of the rule of law, of a Constitutional government, of a free press, of a professional civil service, of modern universities and research libraries, have all been fashioned in the crucible where an age old civilization of India met the dominant Empire of the day. These are all elements which we still value and cherish. Our judiciary, our legal system, our bureaucracy, and our police are all great institutions, derived from British-Indian administration, and they have served our country exceedingly well." I'll check with my two Sikh friends later and see if they concur. |
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Post by oldie on Apr 24, 2022 9:44:23 GMT
Hardly "Gilmour has chosen to write about the extremely diverse lives of British colonials in India. It is emphatically a social history, not an economic or political one and, as he writes, he “has not tried to … make a particular argument”. I found the decision not to engage in the current debate on empire frustrating, and it is a book that contains far fewer Indians and far fewer Indian perspectives than it should." And "The British in India has been published only one year after Shashi Tharoor’s wonderfully accessible Inglorious Empire popularised three decades of postcolonial criticism of empire, making compelling the argument that the whole enterprise of the Raj was a vast British-run exercise in loot and plunder that reduced a previously great and wealthy nation to beggary and despair. This debate has now bounced back to the ivory towers of our universities, where passions are running high over the legacy of Cecil Rhodes and over often uncritical teaching of British imperialism." Well precisely. A nice bit of confirmation bias there Epping in your suggestion. Meanwhile, back to today in the UK, how's it going. A morally bankrupt government, a nasty ignorant home secretary, queues at food banks, chaos on Brexit implementation (🤭🤭), people cannot afford their rent. 12 years of Tory rule. Who would have thought British in India - I've actually read it (well about 80 pages to go). Give it a go. You could actually form your own opinion rather than cherry picking from the (who would believe it - surprisingly biased) grauniad review of the book. As I said to Nobby, it's impossible to read everything so by necessity you make choices. Taking your recommendation I searched for some reviews and none were particularly flattering. This from a review by the London School of Economics. "Increasingly, India was being judged by British middle-class standards. All this may make the reader wonder what the Indians thought of the British. But that would be to ask for another book." There you go. So if anyone is interested in British social history and the influence of empire I am sure this is an interesting read. If however one looks for a more holistic view of empire, one which embraces the impact on and views of the indigenous population, then this definitely not the book to read. More of a Daphne du Maurier version of "Carry on up the Empire" |
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Post by eppinggas on Apr 24, 2022 13:39:21 GMT
"All this may make the reader wonder what the Indians thought of the British".
I refer my learned colleague to the words of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005. (above).
QED.
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oldie
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Post by oldie on Apr 24, 2022 14:16:18 GMT
"All this may make the reader wonder what the Indians thought of the British". I refer my learned colleague to the words of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005. (above). QED. Don't keep making me do it Epping |
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Post by oldie on Apr 25, 2022 13:04:04 GMT
Back to those lovely Tories
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