Tories commit to extra NHS spending… but at whose expense?

Posted on February 29, 2008 by bobpiper

Last June I attended the NHS Confederation annual conference, and as I reported on the blog at the time, I was quite taken aback by the seeming respect shown by health service professionals for the Conservative Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley. As someone who has been around the NHS for a couple of decades in one capacity or another, it really was quite a surprise, but people said he knew his brief, he was conscientious, committed to the NHS, and frankly, was more popular than the Cabinet member at the time who had a tendency to patronise her audience.
I’ve got to say that whilst Lansley’s statement that cuts elsewhere would be needed in the public sector to pay for his commitment to increased spending on the NHS may have gone down like a lead balloon with his colleagues…. it certainly won’t have done him any damage amongst NHS workers.
The response of other public sector workers probably wouldn’t be worth repeating though, and I suspect many of the soundbites and headlines from Labour’s Spring Conference will be courtesy of Andrew Lansley.

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6 Responses to Tories commit to extra NHS spending… but at whose expense?

  1. Robert says:
    February 29, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    The fact is Labour poured billions into the NHS, lots of it was used for wages, not a problem so long as it went for the people paid less, it did not.
    Money was wasted, you know my NHS decided to hire a art critic, a car park manager, yep the same bloke two wages, sadly they had sold off the car park to NCP, all this hit the local papers and guess what they did, yep went to Spain for a long long golfing trip to bond.
    I was in Hospital when the minister came to ask about food, she said to me what was the hospital food like and we said well OK a little cold, fine fine was the reply. A nurse then tells us the NHS had hired a special chef for the day at

    Reply
  2. jailhouselawyer says:
    February 29, 2008 at 11:54 pm

    Benefits and pensions will be cut to pay for the NHS. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
    Why don’t they simply make those rich bastards who dodge paying taxes fork out instead?

    Reply
  3. Bob Piper says:
    March 1, 2008 at 9:01 am

    Robert, you clearly haven’t spoken to many people in the NHS hence your anecdotal tales, but a very high percentage of the lower paid workers did receive pay rises as a consequence of Agenda for Change, and that is why the pay bill rose so significantly.

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  4. newmania says:
    March 1, 2008 at 9:34 am

    I was stunned to see this . Nick Coen reports that a cabinet Minister is running around saying ..’When they find out how much money we�ve wasted , we’re toast’ Who would that be I wonder ?And since the Conservatives have promised ,’ no more destabilising shake ups’. Are we literally going to pour money on the mess that is the National Slush Fund.Curiouser and curiouser
    We know the demographics are working against us and continued immigration provides an ever increasing burden often from health tourists . Public money has flushed into the Public sector with the to redistribute wealth rather than give the tax payer value for money . So now we have a bizarre cadre of managers paid so much for doing nothing they might vote Conservative .Thats called irony. It is this Public Sector Professionals that the Cons are fluttering there eyelashes at. It has always been the Labour problem that if they succeeded in providing a majority with a good standard of living why would they then vote Labour .*( Hence the creation if mass dependency)
    I am nonetheless utterly bemused at the political implications of promising to out-spend Labour ? I plagued John Redwood about it and he replied
    ( Following his post on MP`s pay)
    …I was hoping to find the freshly sliced and diced corpse of Andrew Lansley on these pages .The silence is deafening ..
    John Redwood Replied
    Reply: The BBC/Labour stunt re a big increase to 11% of GNP on health was simply not true, so there was no need to blog about it.
    Wot ? How not true ?
    PS
    Incidentally I have just read about who was responsible for taking offence on behalf of the Jewish people about the supposed Auschwitz gaff. A Labour put up job from start to finish. I have to admit that press machine is still awesomely quick and cynical .( Mathew Parris Spectator ).

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  5. Robert says:
    March 1, 2008 at 10:06 am

    It is sad to be told this but not surprised, in my area of Wales we have been Labour well since 1945, last year we had the Assembly elections and Labour was knocked into second place, Plaid won by a landslide election, I left Labour after 38 years, because like you nobody listened to us.
    I spent eighteen month in hospital without going home, I’ve seen a nurse sit next to my bed all night, I’ve seen a doctor give me as much morphine as i wanted, because I was expected to die, I had caught MRSA for the 3rd time, and my weight had dropped to five stone, I had tubes coming out on me, feeding me and taking waste away.
    My wife and sister in law use to come in and clean the ward I was in, the other days other wives and sons and daughters would clean the wards, because a private company had taken over the cleaning.
    I watched my MRI scan being sent to Spain to be looked at, and the wrong one come back. I was asked to pay for scans so they could be read in this country and paid

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  6. Bob Piper says:
    March 1, 2008 at 10:29 am

    Robert, 90,000 extra nurses, 20,000 more doctors. Not anecdotes… but fact. Your statistics, in contrast, are reminiscent of your statement that you are disabled, with a wife as a carer and two dependent children, but you only get 85 pounds a week. Not very reliable, I’m afraid.
    And in case you have missed it, I’m not New Labour, I never joined.

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