NHS better in Labour's hands?

Question

Better pay for our nurses?

Answer 1

Having just left working for the NHS having been there since Major was in charge of government, I can say that NHS is no better off in Labour or Tory hands.
The NHS needs radical change. I left because I had become a pen pusher, and not a health care professional!
Pay is better, but still has a long way to go!

Answer 2

Nurses, unless in Scotland, have not yet received this improved pay that labour offered.

More money has been pumped into the NHS with labour but it has had to go into stupid projects to qualify for it, like art work instead of machinery. Also it the local NHS trust\authority make a profit at the end of year they have the amount given to them reduced. Whilst any that over spend get an increase.

Most NHS hospitals aren't modern and have very little room to expand. The staff that work in them are some of the best in the world with numerous world leaders in there fields. It's this reason that foreign leaders come to Britain.

I have spent a lot of time in NHS hospitals and never had a problem with any of the staff or the neglect as stated by Michael B but hospitals are ranked and those that fail to make the grade have the top level removed and replaced, more money pumped into them and independent inquiry into why they have failing.

Personally after visiting an American hospital, although only an ER department, I would say that i personally prefer the NHS non money hungry approach.

Answer 3

I know first hand that the NHS is in dire straits under New Labour. My missus is an A&E nurse and I'm a diagnostic radiographer so I think I can reflect on the current wage structure. Yes I agree with the person above who says we should look at standrards of care, but you can't ignore paying the 'rightful' wages of clinical staff. If you did, then public health would suffer as droves of health professionals, myself included would just jump ship into the private sector. And then what would the country have, inadequate staff or cheap foreign labour. Labour's policies are riddled with eye catching incentives that realistically are a disgrace. No one is saying that nurses should be paid a fortune, but it should reflect the time it takes to gain the correct qualifications whilst comparing with other public sectors, like teachers (how much time off over the year do teachers get for a lot more money). I could rant forever, but too answer your question, no the NHS, as with the armed forces is not better off under Labour. The pay rise of 1.5% they recieved at the time was a full % under inflation, whilst nurses in Scotland got 2.5% (spooky that with Brown at the helm). If people get on here and say differently, they are lying because I worked in an NHS hospital in Scotland only 6 weeks ago so I know I'm right. As with everything else, Labour is obsessed with recruiting beauratic staff and mangers for this mangers for that, whilst sacking porters to save cash. How many porters wages can be saved to pay for ONE 'manager', I'll tell you 9. That's why we have ended up fetching our own patients from wards to x-ray them. No it is not the end of the world, but alas under Labour I am not insured to transport patients around, madness political correctness has took over the asylum mate. The scare of infection, pay for more cleaners, you don't need a manager to watch over cleaners on 80,000 pa, that's 8 more cleaners at our hospital, and we could do with them as well

Answer 4

Don't look at the pay for the workers - look at the service.

1).....My dying mother was left for days in her own blood; floor, bed, skin all fouled, the intercostal drain leaking and the drain bottle under the bed full, overflowing and not changed. The nurses just giggled when I pointed it all out.

2).....My best friend went in for a routine operation on his leg. The whole leg became putrid; they're still filling him full of antibiotics to try to save it, but things look grim.

3).....My daughter had a baby in hospital. Like my friend she came out with a hospital-caused infection which took so long to clear up that my grandson was off the breast and having puréed normal food before she could feel normal again.

Three different hospitals, three areas. Other friends report similar cases. Also, waiting lists are alleged to have come down, but a relative who works in the local hospital is scathing about this; there are wellknown tactics to apparently meet targets while in fact denying treatment.

When the hospitals are pigsties, treatment is denied or delayed and the GP is unavailable outside surgery hours - if you can get an appointment - I don't see how anyone can claim the service is better.

The plain fact is that if a supermarket is filthy we go to another. With our health, unless we are wealthy, we have no choice. If we could choose, the NHS would be out of business.

Answer 5

No and what a shame to have to say that as they were instrumental in setting it up. Like another of your contributors, i had a lovely mum-in-law who endured disgusting 'care' at the hands of some horrible female 'nurses' who should have been horsewhipped! What some people are not aware of is that even though you may be able to pay for private health care, sometimes your illness is not covered and you have to revert to public care - for which you have already paid over the years. Mum-in-laws' illness meant that she was hospitalised four times in five years and each time we had to complain about the filth in the wards, the repulsive smell, dirty dressings from previous patients left under beds and even one day when she was taken down to theatre she returned to find a new patient in her bed - being looked after by the ward sister - it beggared belief! The worst was this last December when she had to be taken to the theatre to realign her collar bone - damaged when she slipped on another patients waste in the ward toilet - the orderly who took her to theatre forcibly removed her favourite ring which had been taped over, and when she came back from theatre neither he nor the ring were to be seen. Despite numerous appeals they never got it back for her and she died in that ward on the 8th of January this year. Nothing has been seen of the ring since but they have sent my father-in-law a form to claim compensation - you can imagine what he did with that ! The thief is still working there. I had a uncle who died three years ago from cancer and during his stay in that same filthy place they took him for an x-ray one day at 9.30 in the morning and he was found in a terrible state at 5pm by his son, strapped onto the trolley but outside a neurological ward on the ground floor instead of being three floors higher. The staff hadn't tried to find him and he had neither had food nor a drink in all that time, but he had been sick and toileted - he was distraught ! What response did my cousin get ? Lessons have been learned! Two days later myself and my aunt watched a 'cleaner' push a pile of contaminated rubbish along the coridoor outside his room, move the food trolley containing lunch for the patients, sweep the rubbish further then move the trolley back so that it was hidden ! The sisters response was that unfortunately some of the staff were basically 3rd world and didn't understand hygiene - the offender was chinese. Labour had a no blame policy, but if you cannot blame someone then you cannot ever get them to understand that they have to follow the training that they have been given or they must lose their job. Everyone should be accountable especially in services as important as this one is. The hospital concerned is one of the highly starred type - ????
When the staff get their act together and sort out their own 'industry' to the satisfaction of the majority of their customers then i would be in favour of giving them a decent pay rise - and sacking a raft of idle pen-pushing 'managers'.

Answer 6

I do not believe party political influence from any party does anything other than damage the NHS Lioke education it has become a footbal and the only people who suffer is those it should serve. In the NHS the patients and in Education the children and others using the service

Answer 7

Fancy the Tories again?

Four million unemployed without any long term prospects.
Most jobs paying £2.10 per hour.
Backbreaking hours of work, if you had any.
Massive wealth gulf between the North and the South.
Record home repossessions.
Health service in total chaos and up for privatisation. Moving towards no money, no treatment.
Poll Tax, Prison for those who didn't pay.
Lower Tax rates for the more well off.
Manufacturing base all but destroyed.
Zero rights in the work place: complain and be sacked.
National Coal Board destroyed.
Factory closures nationwide.
Prospects for University leavers ground zero.
Employers choosy enough to decide between a person who sends a job application by first class post or second class post.
Being constantly reminded by employers that you did as you were ordered to do as he had four million people on the dole to choose from. Great Britain was perfect for the Yuppies who had, according to Harry Enfield, 'Loadsa Money!

Norman Tebbit's famous contribution to great British politics was to tell the unployed masses to, "get on yer bike to find work," because that's what his father had to do in the thirties.
One MP of the day instructed people, who were hungry, to go into the countryside and pick berries to supplement their diet.

Homelessness on a shamefully high level with people begging on the streets and living in cardboard boxes, named cardboard cities. You either had it or you didn't, it was as simple as that.

Ambulance operators were described as being nothing more than professional drivers and they didn't even revise that label when they attended the Brighton bombing by the IRA. As a matter of interest, the trapped Mr Norman Tebbit asked one of those professional drivers to hold his hand because eh was absolutely crapping himself.

This present government leaves a lot to be desired and I do think that a lot of people are rightfully angry about immigration and the gross unfairness of the system but we still have a voice and there is always the ballot box when the next general election comes along. Therefore, it up to everyone to vote with their consciences and make sure we do not take a nose dive into conditions of hellish proportions, which something none of you younger people will not have experienced.

The health service is shattered at the moment because the country does seem to have gone down a road which, perhaps, it shouldn't have done and the strain on medical provisions are at breaking point. Obviously, Immigration has played a major part in the miseries of this country and, like it or like it not, we are lumbered with what we already have here and there are more immigrants to come.

Violation notices and threats to delete profiles and such does not do anything else but infuriate those who are supposed to be offended people of a differing caste and it makes things much worse. I, for one, will not stop exercising my right to free speach, exactly like Abu Hamza did but he did not have snivelling little towrags grassing you up to the Yahoo support team. Now, which blackshirted regime encouraged its supporters to squeal on their families and friends?

Answer 8

ALL public services are better out of the hands of the tories. The NHS was literally on its last legs when Major left government, labour have got waiting times down significantly, generally improved service and increased pay.

Answer 9

I'm with Michael B. Just because you are a nurse, does not mean that you are some kind of angel who should be beatified. There are a lot of nurses who are thoughtless and not very good at their jobs.

Answer 10

well i for one think so imagine if it was a tory goverment i am posative that the nhs would be privatised thus ending free medical tretment for all for all its problems i think the nhs is better with labour