The Referendum Thread

[saintnextlifetime]

My postal voting card arrived today. f**king Royal Mail, its taken them 307 years to deliver it...

Bloody typical. .

Never mind , once we are a free country again. .

[Guest TPAFKATS]

What taxpayer, as was pointed out previously, if the Westminster Government doesn't spend the money on the NHS then they don't send the money to Scotland. Scotland wouldn't get the money to spend on the private heath care.

It should be understandable from the first sentence I quoted. Let's try it in bold type and italics this time and see if it helps anyone:-

Did you know that in England the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 made the most fundamental change to the English NHS in since its inception by removing the UK government’s obligation to provide universal healthcare?

[zurich_allan]

My postal voting card arrived today. f**king Royal Mail, its taken them 307 years to deliver it...

That's average for second class post.... :-)

[Stuart Dickson]

It should be understandable from the first sentence I quoted. Let's try it in bold type and italics this time and see if it helps anyone:-

Did you know that in England the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 made the most fundamental change to the English NHS in since its inception by removing the UK government’s obligation to provide universal healthcare?

Well you'll need to excuse me if, as a layman, I refuse to believe Natsi propaganda on that point.

[saintnextlifetime]

Did you know that in England the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 made the most fundamental change to the English NHS in since its inception by removing the UK government’s obligation to provide universal healthcare?

Did you know that in England the biggest contract ever tendered in the history of the NHS in England is a £1.2 billion pound deal to sell off cancer services and care for the dying?

And did you know that over 200 Westminster MPs and members of the House of Lords have financial interests in health care companies in England?

The privatisation of the NHS in England is now rapidly increasing. With the Health and Social Care Act of 2012, for the first time since 1947 the Secretary of State not only abdicated his responsibility to provide healthcare for all in England but has got the legal powers to introduce a market, allowing providers to pick and choose which patients will get care and what will be charged for and also to introduce insurance structures similar to those in the USA.

Michael Portillo confirmed in a TV interview that these plans were deliberately kept out of the Conservative manifesto because of the risk of losing votes. And it’s not just the Conservatives who are in on this plan. Andy Burnham, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, signed off the privatisation of Hinchingbrooke Hospital during Labour’s final year in power and told Holyrood magazine, “Let’s get health policies that can be consistent across England, Scotland and Wales”. But with an impending election he has changed his mind and calls for a pause in privatisation. In his latest speech Andy Burnham now says “If things stay as they are, the competition framework foisted on the NHS will in the end break it up. It won’t survive five more years of this.”

What is the source of that info , Tony. .

[Stuart Dickson]

Where exactly did I say a private contractor worked for free?

I'll save you looking, I didn't.

I wrote that when the UK Government doesn't spend money on the NHS, they then reduce the money they send to the Scottish Government for it to spend on the NHS in Scotland or any private health service contractor.

As for picking a fight, what do you suggest. An imaginary egg throwing fight.

So the latest Yes Campaign scare story is that Westminster is about to scrap the NHS. That's almost as believable as Alex Salmonds story about an Alien invasion...

[Guest TPAFKATS]

What is the source of that info , Tony. .

It was written by a Dr Nancy Burge who is a GP on the Isle of Skye

[saintnextlifetime]

It was written by a Dr Nancy Burge who is a GP on the Isle of Skye

Cheers. .

[oaksoft]

British voters don't.

Not if Scotland walks out.

Why should they?

Non Scottish voters will have no say in the matter.

[oaksoft]

You really love this

I am always amused by people who constantly provoke others and somehow convince themselves that they are using their intellect when they are really just being persistently nasty

Why do people who think they have the power of words think that goading people into a gut reaction is clever?

In fairness it's probably worth bearing in mind that Stuart is going through a divorce at the moment which will in all likelihood result in him living in a cardboard box under the arches of the nearest railway station.

This forum is clearly the only thing keeping him going and posting provocative nonsense is his way of crying for help. The loneliness must be crushing him.

A bit of compassion people.

Mind you he could just try actually ASKING for help and a bit of company.

[oaksoft]

What the f**k are you talking about? Power of words? Bluto, amongst many others, will point out that as a victim of Scotland's shite state funded education system I can't even spell properly.

No willingness to accept personal responsibility.

Everyone else is wrong except you.

Nobody else does a decent job except you.

If only everyone would follow your ideas the world would be a better place.

Seriously I can't understand why your wife left you for another man.

[oaksoft]

So the latest Yes Campaign scare story is that Westminster is about to scrap the NHS. That's almost as believable as Alex Salmonds story about an Alien invasion...

I'd like to help you Stuart.

Seriously.

I'd like to help you afford the annual fee for membership of cupid.com

I'll even write your profile for you seeing as how you admit to being inarticulate.

You need a woman.

You may even need a man.

You certainly need someone.

Is the following OK as a profile stab?

"Venomous, poisonous c**t seeks similar for a life of brooding hatred of everything with a pulse and a substantial list of things without a pulse. Looks and age unimportant. Blackness of attitude and bleakness of outlook on life essential. Unquestioning obedience required as is healthy bout of hero worshipping at my feet. Must passionately hate Stewart Gilmour. Knowledge of Stewart Gilmour not important as full training will be given. GSOH optional. No cuddlers or time wasters please. No hoofs please although full body hair might be acceptable under certain conditions."

Edited August 19, 2014 by oaksoft

[bluto]

There will be a currency union.

Full stop.

End of.

You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.

Most voters believe it should, must and will happen.

British voters don't.

Not if Scotland walks out.

Why should they?

Eta

Anyway.... You said the vote wasn't about logic, economics or facts for you.

"It was a gut feeling."

Go with it... but having brains for guts certainly discounts your credibility, which is why I usually don't bother responding.

Non Scottish voters will have no say in the matter.

Oh.... Do keep up, oaky!

This is a fine example of why your posts are so irrelevant.

If (I don't know why I am treating the possibility with respect) Scotland voted Yes, then British voters would not allow their representatives to bend over wrt Currency Union.

Why would British voters allow their representatives to seek to underpin your zany venture.?!

You really want Freedom? Go for it by all means, but don't expect the British currency to guarantee all the Fairy Dust goodies that Eck has promised, that are unavailable to the Great British Public. It wullnae happen.

Like pensions at 65, student grants, with your better quality postcode health treatments and care...

Scotland should have all these things, but Scotland and its currency/tax system should finance them, without the rUK being where the buck stops.

It will be your money to choose what you want to be done. And that's a good thing. A courageous thing...

But it matters not to oaky cos he has a gut feeling....

Which is why, I guess, he's resorting to base personal attacks on Herr Dixon.

[saintnextlifetime]

Here is this guy again , l'm sure he was posted before but still relevant. .

I think the point here is that , if England loses around 10% of its GDP in a relatively short period , then that could be destabilizing for the currency .

Even , if independence , was voted for in the referendum , it would be 18months before the actual changes take place. I suppose the way the London Government bailed out Eire , gives an indication of how England's neighbours are important to them. The London Government will say anything to keep us sweet/united. .

The Union has ran its course . . it was good for Scotland , once , that is true without a doubt and now it is time to move on. .

[smcc]

So the latest Yes Campaign scare story is that Westminster is about to scrap the NHS. That's almost as believable as Alex Salmonds story about an Alien invasion...

Unfortunately many of the doctors working in NHS England have been seeing the deterioration caused by increasing privatisation for years. Perhaps you might read this piece by Professor Allyson Pollock, professor of public health research and policy at Queen Mary University of London and rethink your comment.

NHS privatisation keeps on failing patients – despite a decade of warnings

The UK’s medical professional bodies have repeatedly told governments that marketisation brings problems, yet we are still paying the bill for private healthcare errors.

We have learned this week that the NHS is footing the bill for dozens of people left damaged by eye operations provided by private healthcare operations. This comes as no surprise to those of us who have been following the disastrous implications of the privatisation of public health services.

Since 2003, government policy in England has been to divert more than £5bn of scarce NHS funds to the for-profit private sector under a policy known as the independent sector treatment centre programme (ISTC). Doctors have been warning about how catastrophic the policy is for the NHS, for quality of care and above all for the safety of patients. For the private sector and their shareholders it is a dream scenario: the NHS trains and educates the junior doctors and nurses at taxpayer expense who, together with NHS consultants, may then moonlight in the private sector; the taxpayer underwrites the risks and costs of care allowing the private sector to cherrypick the profitable patients, ie the healthy ones with no complications; and the NHS takes back the risks when things go wrong as the private sector doesn’t have the intensive care facilities.

The NHS also takes on the legal liability when patients sue the facility. The private sector quite simply offloads the revisions, readmissions, emergency treatments and clinical follow-up and law suits to the NHS and the taxpayer. And to crown it all the private sector has a poor record of doing the work it is contracted to do, with the NHS paying for work that the private sector has not performed.

However, the multimillion-pound contracts which have been awarded to companies such as Care UK and Ramsey Health Care UK are confidential and rarely audited. There is a great deal of evidence that the NHS is paying for work regardless of whether it is done or not: with one contract, Netcare did not perform nearly 40% of the work it had been contracted to do, receiving £35.1m for patients it never treated. And as for safety, Netcare’s medical director Dr Dinesh Verma resigned (after only six months in October 2004), having “repeatedly raised concerns about on-call cover, continuity of care and access to complete outcome data for audit”, as reported by Hospital Doctor.

The diversion of scarce funds out of the NHS destabilises NHS services. This leads to service closure and staff redundancies, undermining the training of juniors and quality of care, and erodes access for all patients. This in turn fuels waiting lists and public discontent. The Royal Colleges and Medical Associations have been sounding the alarm bells about the policy since 2006, when Bernard Ribeiro, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, told the Health Select Committee: “ISTCs have had a negative effect on existing NHS facilities. ISTCs are leaving NHS facilities under-utilised with a concurrent deleterious effect on fragile NHS Trust financial balances.”

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists also told the government back in 2006 that it had evidence of outdated practices with adverse results for patients. They warned that ISTC procedures by overseas visiting teams have had to be raised to UK standards, and that there was also a complete lack of training in any ophthalmic ISTC. The programmes had limited training responsibilities and only accepted the “simplest cases”.

The Royal College ended by saying the diversion of funds away from NHS hospital eye services to ISTCs is threatening the provision of comprehensive ophthalmic care for whole communities – emergency care for injuries or retinal detachments, and the management of chronic blinding conditions such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, macular degeneration, children’s eye problems and so on.

Some NHS eye units are contracting (instead of replacing ophthalmologists who retire) and may become unviable, requiring patients – mainly children, the elderly and visually impaired people – to travel further for care. The local hospital is also accommodating patients who suffer adverse incidents at the ISTCs, often requiring months of ongoing care, and sometimes further surgery to prevent blindness.

The Royal College of Surgeons has been equally damning: “Imbalances are occurring with destabilisation of existing NHS facilities. There has been no evidence of innovative technical advance in the ISTCs established in the First Wave programme. Primary Care Trusts have expended significant sums of public money in the advance purchase of surgical procedures which have not been taken up. There is clear evidence from a number of areas that triaging arrangements has diverted patients into ISTCs leaving existing NHS facilities under-utilised with a concurrent deleterious effect on fragile NHS Trust financial balances. There is also evidence to show that training of surgeons in adjacent NHS hospitals has suffered.”

The British Orthopaedic Association states categorically that private sector ISTCs have had an adverse effect on NHS services in their areas.

For more than a decade governments have been warned repeatedly by medical professional bodies throughout the land of the disastrous effects of its policies of marketisation of NHS care. There are now a number of high-profile deaths in the private sector where the NHS has had to pay out compensation to the families, rather than expose the truth about the policy. So much for the government’s new requirement of a duty of candour.

Edited August 19, 2014 by smcc

[saintnextlifetime]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi14SC7EcO4

[Bud the Baker]

Over 100 posts on this thread yesterday - has anyone changed their opinion?

[saintnextlifetime]

Over 100 posts on this thread yesterday - has anyone changed their opinion?

Nope , I still think Herr Dixon is a dick. .

[beyond our ken]

How many private contractors do you know work for free? If you've got names of companies can you forward them on. I might have some work for them.

Cockles this is a shit topic to pick a fight on. The Yes Campaign is only going to look even more silly.

of course they are not working for free, the plan is to reduce the state burden by moving us on to insurance based schemes that will pay the health contractors instead of the government

[Bobby_F]

So the latest Yes Campaign scare story is that Westminster is about to scrap the NHS. That's almost as believable as Alex Salmonds story about an Alien invasion...

The back door privatisation of the NHS is not a scare story, it's a fact.

Good god, even the BBC covered it on last night's news.

It's not an independence story per se, it's a national story.

It just so happens that this is what the UK government is doing, and it's a very good example of why most people want Independence.

The Scots by and large would choose to raise and spend their money in a different way than Westminster would.

Simples.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Bobby_F

[Bobby_F]

of course they are not working for free, the plan is to reduce the state burden by moving us on to insurance based schemes that will pay the health contractors instead of the government

Certainly works well in America......

[oaksoft]

Oh.... Do keep up, oaky!

This is a fine example of why your posts are so irrelevant.

If (I don't know why I am treating the possibility with respect) Scotland voted Yes, then British voters would not allow their representatives to bend over wrt Currency Union.

Why would British voters allow their representatives to seek to underpin your zany venture.?!

You really want Freedom? Go for it by all means, but don't expect the British currency to guarantee all the Fairy Dust goodies that Eck has promised, that are unavailable to the Great British Public. It wullnae happen.

Like pensions at 65, student grants, with your better quality postcode health treatments and care...

Scotland should have all these things, but Scotland and its currency/tax system should finance them, without the rUK being where the buck stops.

It will be your money to choose what you want to be done. And that's a good thing. A courageous thing...

But it matters not to oaky cos he has a gut feeling....

Which is why, I guess, he's resorting to base personal attacks on Herr Dixon.

The British voter won't allow it?

How exactly are they going to perform that miracle?

By voting UKIP?

Because that's the only party loopy enough to actually stick to their guns on no CU.

Good luck with that BTW. Not a racist party at all. What was it that Asian woman was called again a couple of days ago by one of their lovely members?

[Ayrshire Saints]

Certainly works well in America......

Exactly one look at the Obamacare project in the USA should be enough to put anyone off privatisation of the NHS for life.

[Stuart Dickson]

Unfortunately many of the doctors working in NHS England have been seeing the deterioration caused by increasing privatisation for years. Perhaps you might read this piece by Professor Allyson Pollock, professor of public health research and policy at Queen Mary University of London and rethink your comment.

NHS privatisation keeps on failing patients – despite a decade of warnings

The UK’s medical professional bodies have repeatedly told governments that marketisation brings problems, yet we are still paying the bill for private healthcare errors.

We have learned this week that the NHS is footing the bill for dozens of people left damaged by eye operations provided by private healthcare operations. This comes as no surprise to those of us who have been following the disastrous implications of the privatisation of public health services.

Since 2003, government policy in England has been to divert more than £5bn of scarce NHS funds to the for-profit private sector under a policy known as the independent sector treatment centre programme (ISTC). Doctors have been warning about how catastrophic the policy is for the NHS, for quality of care and above all for the safety of patients. For the private sector and their shareholders it is a dream scenario: the NHS trains and educates the junior doctors and nurses at taxpayer expense who, together with NHS consultants, may then moonlight in the private sector; the taxpayer underwrites the risks and costs of care allowing the private sector to cherrypick the profitable patients, ie the healthy ones with no complications; and the NHS takes back the risks when things go wrong as the private sector doesn’t have the intensive care facilities.

The NHS also takes on the legal liability when patients sue the facility. The private sector quite simply offloads the revisions, readmissions, emergency treatments and clinical follow-up and law suits to the NHS and the taxpayer. And to crown it all the private sector has a poor record of doing the work it is contracted to do, with the NHS paying for work that the private sector has not performed.

However, the multimillion-pound contracts which have been awarded to companies such as Care UK and Ramsey Health Care UK are confidential and rarely audited. There is a great deal of evidence that the NHS is paying for work regardless of whether it is done or not: with one contract, Netcare did not perform nearly 40% of the work it had been contracted to do, receiving £35.1m for patients it never treated. And as for safety, Netcare’s medical director Dr Dinesh Verma resigned (after only six months in October 2004), having “repeatedly raised concerns about on-call cover, continuity of care and access to complete outcome data for audit”, as reported by Hospital Doctor.

The diversion of scarce funds out of the NHS destabilises NHS services. This leads to service closure and staff redundancies, undermining the training of juniors and quality of care, and erodes access for all patients. This in turn fuels waiting lists and public discontent. The Royal Colleges and Medical Associations have been sounding the alarm bells about the policy since 2006, when Bernard Ribeiro, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, told the Health Select Committee: “ISTCs have had a negative effect on existing NHS facilities. ISTCs are leaving NHS facilities under-utilised with a concurrent deleterious effect on fragile NHS Trust financial balances.”

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists also told the government back in 2006 that it had evidence of outdated practices with adverse results for patients. They warned that ISTC procedures by overseas visiting teams have had to be raised to UK standards, and that there was also a complete lack of training in any ophthalmic ISTC. The programmes had limited training responsibilities and only accepted the “simplest cases”.

The Royal College ended by saying the diversion of funds away from NHS hospital eye services to ISTCs is threatening the provision of comprehensive ophthalmic care for whole communities – emergency care for injuries or retinal detachments, and the management of chronic blinding conditions such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, macular degeneration, children’s eye problems and so on.

Some NHS eye units are contracting (instead of replacing ophthalmologists who retire) and may become unviable, requiring patients – mainly children, the elderly and visually impaired people – to travel further for care. The local hospital is also accommodating patients who suffer adverse incidents at the ISTCs, often requiring months of ongoing care, and sometimes further surgery to prevent blindness.

The Royal College of Surgeons has been equally damning: “Imbalances are occurring with destabilisation of existing NHS facilities. There has been no evidence of innovative technical advance in the ISTCs established in the First Wave programme. Primary Care Trusts have expended significant sums of public money in the advance purchase of surgical procedures which have not been taken up. There is clear evidence from a number of areas that triaging arrangements has diverted patients into ISTCs leaving existing NHS facilities under-utilised with a concurrent deleterious effect on fragile NHS Trust financial balances. There is also evidence to show that training of surgeons in adjacent NHS hospitals has suffered.”

The British Orthopaedic Association states categorically that private sector ISTCs have had an adverse effect on NHS services in their areas.

For more than a decade governments have been warned repeatedly by medical professional bodies throughout the land of the disastrous effects of its policies of marketisation of NHS care. There are now a number of high-profile deaths in the private sector where the NHS has had to pay out compensation to the families, rather than expose the truth about the policy. So much for the government’s new requirement of a duty of candour.

Oh FFS - the NHS record is far worse.

5% of hospital deaths are preventable.

Each year 850,000 patients in England are harmed or nearly harmed by NHS

£213m paid out in compensation by NHS Scotland over negligence claims

Hand Hygience Audit on NHS Scotland shows only 68% of staff in hospital wash their hands properly

I could go on and on and on with links to NHS Scotland and NHS UK failures and you know it. This demonisation of private health care services is utter nonsense and it smacks of complete desperation by the Yes Campaign, especially when you consider that the SNP's record in Scottish Government has shown that they are no stranger to introducing private contractors into the NHS themselves.

[Stuart Dickson]

Again you make something up, where did I write that Westminster is about to scrap the NHS?

And again I'll save you the bother of looking. I didn't.

Just remember to take the pills. We wouldn't want you to lose it completely before you witness us becoming Independent.

Ok, help me out then. If the private contractors aren't working for free, and if the UK Government isn't scrapping the NHS how would they be able to "not spend the money" whilst offering the service?

Please let me know - there's aliens from Mars watching cause they haven't managed to work out the answer to that one either