Reform, and the death of the Tory Party

[BoldonLad]

"eg having a nurse drive round to separately attend individuals in their home might not be considered "efficient" but as a public service you can't just decide to stop doing it."

At the moment the nurse probably drives from one side of town to the other, then back then off in another direction and then back, rather than the most efficient route between patients. So there might be an easy efficiency saving there.

Having spent some time with West Australians recently, they can't understand why the UK government aren't more in favour of private healthcare and private education as it reduces the burden on the state significantly, whilst you are still paying for the state service through taxation.

Using education as an example, let's say is costs £5,000 pa for the state to educate a child. They would subsidise private education by say £2,000 pa, so the state is saving £3,000 pa on educating the child, with the parents picking up the rest of the cost. It's such a different mindset to the envy of the UK. Nationally, around 37% of students go to private schools in Australia!

That MAY make sense to the Government, but, to the voters?, it is not possible to say from your numbers, we would need to know, at least:

- how much is it going to cost to educate the child privately?

- by how much will the parents'. tax burden reduce?

 

[Beebo]

O’Brien nails why Reform are doing so well at the moment.
They right wing establishment have ruined the Conservative Party, so have now moved all their propaganda to Reform.


View: https://youtu.be/qgYm_4rIAnA?si=wKTmyV_06JPVGAq3

 

[Pross]

"eg having a nurse drive round to separately attend individuals in their home might not be considered "efficient" but as a public service you can't just decide to stop doing it."

At the moment the nurse probably drives from one side of town to the other, then back then off in another direction and then back, rather than the most efficient route between patients. So there might be an easy efficiency saving there.

Having spent some time with West Australians recently, they can't understand why the UK government aren't more in favour of private healthcare and private education as it reduces the burden on the state significantly, whilst you are still paying for the state service through taxation.

Using education as an example, let's say is costs £5,000 pa for the state to educate a child. They would subsidise private education by say £2,000 pa, so the state is saving £3,000 pa on educating the child, with the parents picking up the rest of the cost. It's such a different mindset to the envy of the UK. Nationally, around 37% of students go to private schools in Australia!

I don't necessarily disagree in principle, I've always found it odd that you pay more tax if you have private healthcare as a work benefit. However, the issue with private healthcare is always

a) Where do the staff come from? Will they continue to be NHS staff working on the side and, if so, will an increase in private patients impact negatively on their availability to work with NHS patients? In this world where immigration is bad it's going to be hard to provide additional cover
b) Will private companies be obliged to do all the stuff the NHS does or can they just cherry pick and leave their patients to the NHS on the more costly, less profitable elements?

I see fewer downsides with education but with one of the benefits supposedly being smaller class sizes we would need more teachers and there are supposedly already shortages in many subjects (possibly counteracted by more people being prepared to become teachers outside of the state system). Also, if a large proportion of kids in an area go to private schools will there be enough left to justify the state schools or will kids who can't afford private education have to travel further afield to ensure schools are full?

 

[Beebo]

That MAY make sense to the Government, but, to the voters?, it is not possible to say from your numbers, we would need to know, at least:

- how much is it going to cost to educate the child privately?

- by how much will the parents'. tax burden reduce?

Im not sure subsidies for private schools is the answer.
This just perpetuates the class system and people get stuck in a cycle of poverty.
Improving state education for all is the best option.

 

[icowden]

"eg having a nurse drive round to separately attend individuals in their home might not be considered "efficient" but as a public service you can't just decide to stop doing it."

At the moment the nurse probably drives from one side of town to the other, then back then off in another direction and then back, rather than the most efficient route between patients. So there might be an easy efficiency saving there.

I actually worked on that for an NHS Trust. We wanted to add the capability to plot the District Nursing calls for each day on a map to help Team Leaders assign calls to the Nurses. The problem is that it's a bit more complicated than it seems.

Yes, you want to minimise travel, but you also have to take into account that different District Nurses have different capabilities. So you might need a more senior nurse to do IVs or administer injections, or a specialist wound care nurse for patients with more difficult wounds.

The other issue we ran into is that this was for a central London Trust where many patients live in tower blocks. Thus you might just get a big blob of say 10 patients over certain locations, but you might need 3 different nurses to administer that blob.

What *did* help efficiency but was unpopular with the nurses, was the rollout of mobile software so that Team Leaders and managers could see movements for the day and check how much of that movement was in the local coffee shops.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Im not sure subsidies for private schools is the answer.
This just perpetuates the class system and people get stuck in a cycle of poverty.
Improving state education for all is the best option.

I think many Aussies would disagree with that, hence 37% going private.
Not all private schools are like Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc., in fact they are a small minority.

I find the contrast in attitude very interesting - both the people I have discussed this with in depth are primary state school teachers in WA, one being a deputy head, so hardly biased towards the private sector.

 

[icowden]

Im not sure subsidies for private schools is the answer.
This just perpetuates the class system and people get stuck in a cycle of poverty.
Improving state education for all is the best option.

That's not going to happen though, because the state doesn't want to pay for it.

I've said this before - Finland invest £10,495 for primary pupils and £9,342 for secondary pupils. In the UK we spend £4,610 and £5995 for secondary (basic funding - additional money is available for EAL and additional needs pupils). This investment means that average class sizes are 13 for primary and 9 for secondary.

In an odd coincidence, Private schools usually have class sizes of no more than 20 children.

The first step to getting rid of private schools is to make state schools better. Spend more money, reduce class sizes, improve resources. I can guarantee you that the number of pupils attending private school would halve if there were better state provision.

Next look at learning studies and create more single sex schools. Girls in particular do much better in single sex schools and are much more likely to study STEM subjects than in state.

There is so much the Government could do, but they go for easy ignorant headline options like "let's put VAT on fees - those rich people can afford it" without even bothering to notice that Private Schools are now pretty much the only providers of small settings.

 

[BoldonLad]

Im not sure subsidies for private schools is the answer.
This just perpetuates the class system and people get stuck in a cycle of poverty.
Improving state education for all is the best option.

a) I wasn't supporting the idea, I was querying the sparse information provided

b) my interpretation, correctly or otherwise, was that State provision would cease, and, be replaced with private provision (again, not saying I agree with that, simply saying that is how I interpreted the OP)

 

[Mr Celine]

At the moment the nurse probably drives from one side of town to the other, then back then off in another direction and then back, rather than the most efficient route between patients. So there might be an easy efficiency saving there.

With my union steward hat on I was representing a member with a grievance resulting from a new way of arranging homecare visits which was recommended to the council's arms-length care agency by private sector consultants.
I pointed out several occasions where the new system had him in three different places, several miles apart, at the same time.
The system tried to save travelling time by combining service users' two daily visits in to one, eg the morning and evening medication visits.

As a result of the chaos and overspends this caused the service had to be taken back in-house.

 

[icowden]

The system tried to save travelling time by combining service users' two daily visits in to one, eg the morning and evening medication visits.

Which system was it? - ours tried to do that. One of many faults that we had to get corrected.

 

[Psamathe]

I've always found it odd that you pay more tax if you have private healthcare as a work benefit.

If I understand this from your post, you are taxed on private healthcare as a work benefit to bring it into line with paying for it yourself. If you write a cheque to pay private healthcare premiums that comes from your income which has been subject to tax (eg income tax). So if your company pays it's also subject to tax but as a benefit. Lots of company benefits subject to similar rules. Otherwise you could avoid tax by getting your company to pay all your bills and you'd pay (virtually) no tax.

 

[Mr Celine]

Which system was it? - ours tried to do that. One of many faults that we had to get corrected.

Sorry, can't remember, it was three or four years ago.

 

[icowden]

Sorry, can't remember, it was three or four years ago.

Just wondered if it was Advanced Carenotes

 

[secretsqirrel]

Badenoch has fallen off the front page here, just when she wanted to say something about scrapping climate legislation she has been bumped by more serious matters today.

Reform and Tories are on the same page on climate, the other parties need to hit this hard. I would consider voting tory in the next election if it was politically astute to do so, but not if they have a f*ck the planet attitude.

 

[First Aspect]

Badenoch has fallen off the front page here, just when she wanted to say something about scrapping climate legislation she has been bumped by more serious matters today.

Reform and Tories are on the same page on climate, the other parties need to hit this hard. I would consider voting tory in the next election if it was politically astute to do so, but not if they have a f*ck the planet attitude.

She will disagree with the Pope then. She has an engineering degree from MIT, or would have done if she'd been offered a place, and he doesn't.