Seems like 13 years of underpaid and undertrained is finally resulting in a big industrial action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XZ9iZKz3To

The strike is by half a million workers via teachers, civil servants, Border Force staff and train drivers.

Am shocked that even Border Force are underpaid and under trained. And those are the people who are supposed to keep citizens secure.

Might be outdated, but I doubt UK’s ranking has changed much, heck, Alabama more likely moved further ahead. I saw somewhere in the news today, the UK GDP is shrinking slightly.

The UK is a long way from Downton Abbey and Alabama is long way from Reconstruction poverty, but the up image hasn’t changed, Fifteen years ago, I could buy the day’s New York Times in Montgomery.

Labour action has been increasing here in Canada as well, good to see. Outsourcing (some) public jobs to the lowest bidder and paying employees bottom dollar just ain't cutting it no more.

Same with the private sector, they're struggling to maintain employees because more and more other employers are offering a much more attractive wage/benefits/work package.

The company I used to work for is one of those contractors that provides public services in our Province - they're owned by a foreign based hedge fund so all they care about is how much money the contract is making them. They are notorious for underpaying employees, in less than half a year, 4 of their properties went on strike. Two properties were offered a raise of 4.5% over three years (keeping in mind right now, the rate of inflation is about 7% per year) - they went to arbitration and one property was awarded about 15% and two other properties were awarded about 25% each. The fourth property just gave their strike notice earlier this week, not sure what they were offered but they're asking for about 30%. Another contractor that does the same work had a lengthy strike last year and they were awarded about 14% with a guarantee of more if the rate of inflation exceeds the yearly bump in pay.

Apart from that, big business doesn't pay as much tax as everybody else does. One big reason for the industrial action to happen -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QZ-M6kNLXM

UK has had a massive productivity issue for many years. Nobody is quite sure what the answer to it is.

In regards to the strikes, it's entirely public sector workers (exception of train companies). The reason for that? 10 odd years of no pay rises, and continious lack of investment and not providing enough staffing resources to deal with it.

Police - 20,000 officers, hundreds of police stations were shut over the last 10 years. Now the govt want to get back 20,000 and want us all to be happy about it. In that period, crime has gone up massively and those police left feel completely let down and lost.

Court system - lawyers striked because (yes you've guessed it) a decade of no pay rises and not enough of them (working for the state). Newly qualified were paid penuts and expected to live in London, they almost lost money doing it. Result - huge backlog in the court system.

NHS - Health workers - decade of being under paid, no made even worse by inflation / cost of living. Decade of lack of money (i.e not kept up with what it needed). Poor management. Hundreds of thousands of staff retired early during covid, or left because of Brexit (i.e were foreign nationals and quit due to the way they were treated). Funding hasn't kept up and services have crumbled. Add Covid and a bad flu season into the mix and it's on it's knees When ambulances are queued up in the road, not able to offload patients, people are dieing in corridors, people cannot get an ambulance in under 4 hours.... something is seriously wrong. Can't get enough staff, won't be able to train enough fast enough.

Border force - nowhere near enough of them. Takes ages to get through UK customs, has done since before Brexit but it's only been made worse.

Civil servants - abused (verbally) on a weekly basis by this government. Undervalued, cut to the bone. Government want even more cuts.

Teachers - every new government wants to completely transform education, yet they screw it up. Teachers under paid, over staffed, constantly being told what they are teaching is wrong and it's changed.

Railways - Most persons striking aren't train drivers - that's a different union. It's mainly the low paid station staff, cleaners, maintainence staff. Appalingly paid, expected to work silly hours. Train drivers don't want driverless trains (I agree) and don't want ticket inspectors removed from what few trains they are left on - far better to always have a person on a train other than just the driver, especially in inner cities. Yes train drivers get paid fairly and actually very well, but their concerns are entirely valid.

Basically short story- 12 years of sheer incompetance from government. Nowhere near enough investment (money was available, it's just all been splashed up the wall by vanity projects, Brexit, corruption).

Reinhardt wrote:

UK has had a massive productivity issue for many years. Nobody is quite sure what the answer to it is.

In regards to the strikes, it's entirely public sector workers (exception of train companies). The reason for that? 10 odd years of no pay rises, and continious lack of investment and not providing enough staffing resources to deal with it.

Police - 20,000 officers, hundreds of police stations were shut over the last 10 years. Now the govt want to get back 20,000 and want us all to be happy about it. In that period, crime has gone up massively and those police left feel completely let down and lost.

Court system - lawyers striked because (yes you've guessed it) a decade of no pay rises and not enough of them (working for the state). Newly qualified were paid penuts and expected to live in London, they almost lost money doing it. Result - huge backlog in the court system.

NHS - Health workers - decade of being under paid, no made even worse by inflation / cost of living. Decade of lack of money (i.e not kept up with what it needed). Poor management. Hundreds of thousands of staff retired early during covid, or left because of Brexit (i.e were foreign nationals and quit due to the way they were treated). Funding hasn't kept up and services have crumbled. Add Covid and a bad flu season into the mix and it's on it's knees When ambulances are queued up in the road, not able to offload patients, people are dieing in corridors, people cannot get an ambulance in under 4 hours.... something is seriously wrong. Can't get enough staff, won't be able to train enough fast enough.

Border force - nowhere near enough of them. Takes ages to get through UK customs, has done since before Brexit but it's only been made worse.

Civil servants - abused (verbally) on a weekly basis by this government. Undervalued, cut to the bone. Government want even more cuts.

Teachers - every new government wants to completely transform education, yet they screw it up. Teachers under paid, over staffed, constantly being told what they are teaching is wrong and it's changed.

Railways - Most persons striking aren't train drivers - that's a different union. It's mainly the low paid station staff, cleaners, maintainence staff. Appalingly paid, expected to work silly hours. Train drivers don't want driverless trains (I agree) and don't want ticket inspectors removed from what few trains they are left on - far better to always have a person on a train other than just the driver, especially in inner cities. Yes train drivers get paid fairly and actually very well, but their concerns are entirely valid.

Basically short story- 12 years of sheer incompetance from government. Nowhere near enough investment (money was available, it's just all been splashed up the wall by vanity projects, Brexit, corruption).

Well summed up. I would add that during the Pandemic most striking were lauded as key workers and even at times, due to greater risk of infection (a toll of transport workers, health professionals, care workers), as heroes.
All the while, you know who and his grubby, corrupt cohorts partied. The Head of State kept to the rules and demonstrated it even when, like so many others, in grieving, the government of liars, corrupt and just incompetent had a piss up and gave ungodly amounts of our money to their pals for useless PPE while established companies desperate to help and with previous experience, were ignored. Not being Tory donors then.

And for this? Poorer by the year, nurses, teachers, even some firefighters, having to use that stain on our nation, food banks, something that hardly existed before 2010 but whose rapid rise is something Jacob Rees Mogg is proud of, he says.
Schools crumbling many seen as dangerous.
Then there is the stark comparison between the rise in energy bills here, compared to 25 miles across the channel.

And it seems that public support is strong, not just for the nurses either.
Certainly holding up despite the ideological approach of the government, already they have had to admit that they have spent more money prolonging the rail dispute than if they had settled it last year.
Speaking of which, the CEO’s of the train operations give themselves fat bonuses however badly they perform, some are in chaos well clear of any strikes.
Plus they want to cut maintenance and engineering by 50%
Now imagine that being allowed in aviation, both carry lots of people at speed after all.

GDB wrote:

And for this? Poorer by the year, nurses, teachers, even some firefighters, having to use that stain on our nation, food banks, something that hardly existed before 2010 but whose rapid rise is something Jacob Rees Mogg is proud of, he says.
Schools crumbling many seen as dangerous.
Then there is the stark comparison between the rise in energy bills here, compared to 25 miles across the channel.

And it seems that public support is strong, not just for the nurses either.
Certainly holding up despite the ideological approach of the government, already they have had to admit that they have spent more money prolonging the rail dispute than if they had settled it last year.
Speaking of which, the CEO’s of the train operations give themselves fat bonuses however badly they perform, some are in chaos well clear of any strikes.
Plus they want to cut maintenance and engineering by 50%
Now imagine that being allowed in aviation, both carry lots of people at speed after all.

Cutting maintenance and engineering by 50%?? Hello worse delays and derailments...

Aaron747 wrote:

GDB wrote:

And for this? Poorer by the year, nurses, teachers, even some firefighters, having to use that stain on our nation, food banks, something that hardly existed before 2010 but whose rapid rise is something Jacob Rees Mogg is proud of, he says.
Schools crumbling many seen as dangerous.
Then there is the stark comparison between the rise in energy bills here, compared to 25 miles across the channel.

And it seems that public support is strong, not just for the nurses either.
Certainly holding up despite the ideological approach of the government, already they have had to admit that they have spent more money prolonging the rail dispute than if they had settled it last year.
Speaking of which, the CEO’s of the train operations give themselves fat bonuses however badly they perform, some are in chaos well clear of any strikes.
Plus they want to cut maintenance and engineering by 50%
Now imagine that being allowed in aviation, both carry lots of people at speed after all.

Cutting maintenance and engineering by 50%?? Hello worse delays and derailments...

It will no different than Africa sooner than later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTKPoGR-hPY

Smal wonder so many are angry and desperate;
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... rs-scandal

Worth noting that a large proportion of those on what are left of social benefits, are in employment, often more than one job.
As in the US (so a wet dream for the Tories), taxpayers via this are subsidizing bad or plain crooked employers.
Last full figures for this was 2021, it's worsened since what with the energy bills hike and the effects of Truss and her idiot Chancellor, (who are slithering around again trying reboot their batty ideas that survived contact with reality for mere hours).
https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/universal- ... ey-workers

Reinhardt wrote:

Border force - nowhere near enough of them. Takes ages to get through UK customs, has done since before Brexit but it's only been made worse.
).

I somewhat disagree with this, depending on which airport you enter, if you're a UK citizen or one of the lucky few with the right nationality you can use the electronic gates which makes crossing the border a breeze.

GDB wrote:

Reinhardt wrote:

UK has had a massive productivity issue for many years. Nobody is quite sure what the answer to it is.

In regards to the strikes, it's entirely public sector workers (exception of train companies). The reason for that? 10 odd years of no pay rises, and continious lack of investment and not providing enough staffing resources to deal with it.

Police - 20,000 officers, hundreds of police stations were shut over the last 10 years. Now the govt want to get back 20,000 and want us all to be happy about it. In that period, crime has gone up massively and those police left feel completely let down and lost.

Court system - lawyers striked because (yes you've guessed it) a decade of no pay rises and not enough of them (working for the state). Newly qualified were paid penuts and expected to live in London, they almost lost money doing it. Result - huge backlog in the court system.

NHS - Health workers - decade of being under paid, no made even worse by inflation / cost of living. Decade of lack of money (i.e not kept up with what it needed). Poor management. Hundreds of thousands of staff retired early during covid, or left because of Brexit (i.e were foreign nationals and quit due to the way they were treated). Funding hasn't kept up and services have crumbled. Add Covid and a bad flu season into the mix and it's on it's knees When ambulances are queued up in the road, not able to offload patients, people are dieing in corridors, people cannot get an ambulance in under 4 hours.... something is seriously wrong. Can't get enough staff, won't be able to train enough fast enough.

Border force - nowhere near enough of them. Takes ages to get through UK customs, has done since before Brexit but it's only been made worse.

Civil servants - abused (verbally) on a weekly basis by this government. Undervalued, cut to the bone. Government want even more cuts.

Teachers - every new government wants to completely transform education, yet they screw it up. Teachers under paid, over staffed, constantly being told what they are teaching is wrong and it's changed.

Railways - Most persons striking aren't train drivers - that's a different union. It's mainly the low paid station staff, cleaners, maintainence staff. Appalingly paid, expected to work silly hours. Train drivers don't want driverless trains (I agree) and don't want ticket inspectors removed from what few trains they are left on - far better to always have a person on a train other than just the driver, especially in inner cities. Yes train drivers get paid fairly and actually very well, but their concerns are entirely valid.

Basically short story- 12 years of sheer incompetance from government. Nowhere near enough investment (money was available, it's just all been splashed up the wall by vanity projects, Brexit, corruption).

Well summed up. I would add that during the Pandemic most striking were lauded as key workers and even at times, due to greater risk of infection (a toll of transport workers, health professionals, care workers), as heroes.
All the while, you know who and his grubby, corrupt cohorts partied. The Head of State kept to the rules and demonstrated it even when, like so many others, in grieving, the government of liars, corrupt and just incompetent had a piss up and gave ungodly amounts of our money to their pals for useless PPE while established companies desperate to help and with previous experience, were ignored. Not being Tory donors then.

And for this? Poorer by the year, nurses, teachers, even some firefighters, having to use that stain on our nation, food banks, something that hardly existed before 2010 but whose rapid rise is something Jacob Rees Mogg is proud of, he says.
Schools crumbling many seen as dangerous.
Then there is the stark comparison between the rise in energy bills here, compared to 25 miles across the channel.

And it seems that public support is strong, not just for the nurses either.
Certainly holding up despite the ideological approach of the government, already they have had to admit that they have spent more money prolonging the rail dispute than if they had settled it last year.
Speaking of which, the CEO’s of the train operations give themselves fat bonuses however badly they perform, some are in chaos well clear of any strikes.
Plus they want to cut maintenance and engineering by 50%
Now imagine that being allowed in aviation, both carry lots of people at speed after all.

So you’ve had a good moan about it, now how are you going to pay for salary increases? Are you personally going to contribute more? I work in the private sector (which of course funds the public sector). I haven’t had a pay rise, I’ve also got poorer over the last few years. So why should NHS workers get a pay rise when I don’t? I kept working and bringing millions of pounds from abroad into our economy during the pandemic. NHS workers aren’t heroes: they were doing their job. And the idea that truck drivers etc were somehow heroes for also doing their jobs as “key workers” is laughable. P
For context my mother has just had her shoulder replacement (due to severe arthritis) cancelled for the FOURTH time because of all this. She has to have that done before she can have her hips replaced - there is nothing left of the top of her femurs.
It’s often said the NHS is underfunded… it’s not… a huge amount of money goes to middle management and contractors.

chimborazo wrote:

So you’ve had a good moan about it, now how are you going to pay for salary increases? Are you personally going to contribute more? (...).

For a start, not all too many people (like 99%) would have to contribute more in taxes; Britain needs to expand its taxable basis by growing its GDP rather than delibarately shrinking it through idiocentric policy choices which it has been rolling out the last 15 years or so and which have culminated for the past couple of years now.

Get the 1% to pay their fair share and start by investing that in infrastructure, in public education, in housing and other stuff so the UK finally can get a more productive workforce, on a par with that of the rest of Western Europe maybe?
Oh, and maybe stop pretending to be something unique as just a medium-sized island nation just a few miles of the coast of the largest economic single market in the world and try to be able to export to that market without any of the recently added costs associated with it, so that whatever gets produced more effeciently in the UK in future doesnt get handicapped at the boarder crossings once more...

In short - do as the Germans did after it was razed in WWII: make yourself attractive to foreign investors and fit for international competition PLUS create yourself the largest export market you can think of by belonging to something bigger than just the islands that form the UK: it's all domestic policy you know?

Ultimately it all comes down to the simple existential question each has to answer for itself in the UK, much more than all the empty flagwaving the Brits are so good at: how much do you want to give up for your own country to thrive and how much does it bother you to actually see your kids grow up in one of the poorest nations in the Western world soon?

sabenapilot wrote:

chimborazo wrote:

So you’ve had a good moan about it, now how are you going to pay for salary increases? Are you personally going to contribute more? (...).

For a start, not all too many people (like 99%) would have to contribute more in taxes; Britain needs to expand its taxable basis by growing its GDP rather than delibarately shrinking it through idiocentric policy choices which it has been rolling out the last 15 years or so and which have culminated for the past couple of years now.

Get the 1% to pay their fair share and start by investing that in infrastructure, in public education, in housing and other stuff so the UK finally can get a more productive workforce, on a par with that of the rest of Western Europe maybe?
Oh, and maybe stop pretending to be something unique as just a medium-sized island nation just a few miles of the coast of the largest economic single market in the world and try to be able to export to that market without any of the recently added costs associated with it, so that whatever gets produced more effeciently in the UK in future doesnt get handicapped at the boarder crossings once more...

In short - do as the Germans did after it was razed in WWII: make yourself attractive to foreign investors and fit for international competition PLUS create yourself the largest export market you can think of by belonging to something bigger than just the islands that form the UK: it's all domestic policy you know?

Ultimately it all comes down to the simple existential question each has to answer for itself in the UK, much more than all the empty flagwaving the Brits are so good at: how much do you want to give up for your own country to thrive and how much does it bother you to actually see your kids grow up in one of the poorest nations in the Western world soon?

Very well put. Quite a number of my friends have gone to Germany as education is free. There are exclusive channels on YouTube that explain in detail how to get education and jobs in Germany and people have been going in droves for that. Win-Win situation for both India and Germany, has been there since 1990s. And of course they being part of EU, they could move anywhere in those 27 odd countries without an issue, buy, sell property without an issue, if I were 20 years younger, I probably would have done the same. You can move capital, skills, people in any of those 27 odd countries without a moment's thought. Your decision is based on what is attractive to you. For e.g. if you don't like Germany, one can move to Netherlands, open a business in 24 hours and start your business/work whatever it might be.

chimborazo wrote:

GDB wrote:

Reinhardt wrote:

UK has had a massive productivity issue for many years. Nobody is quite sure what the answer to it is.

In regards to the strikes, it's entirely public sector workers (exception of train companies). The reason for that? 10 odd years of no pay rises, and continious lack of investment and not providing enough staffing resources to deal with it.

Police - 20,000 officers, hundreds of police stations were shut over the last 10 years. Now the govt want to get back 20,000 and want us all to be happy about it. In that period, crime has gone up massively and those police left feel completely let down and lost.

Court system - lawyers striked because (yes you've guessed it) a decade of no pay rises and not enough of them (working for the state). Newly qualified were paid penuts and expected to live in London, they almost lost money doing it. Result - huge backlog in the court system.

NHS - Health workers - decade of being under paid, no made even worse by inflation / cost of living. Decade of lack of money (i.e not kept up with what it needed). Poor management. Hundreds of thousands of staff retired early during covid, or left because of Brexit (i.e were foreign nationals and quit due to the way they were treated). Funding hasn't kept up and services have crumbled. Add Covid and a bad flu season into the mix and it's on it's knees When ambulances are queued up in the road, not able to offload patients, people are dieing in corridors, people cannot get an ambulance in under 4 hours.... something is seriously wrong. Can't get enough staff, won't be able to train enough fast enough.

Border force - nowhere near enough of them. Takes ages to get through UK customs, has done since before Brexit but it's only been made worse.

Civil servants - abused (verbally) on a weekly basis by this government. Undervalued, cut to the bone. Government want even more cuts.

Teachers - every new government wants to completely transform education, yet they screw it up. Teachers under paid, over staffed, constantly being told what they are teaching is wrong and it's changed.

Railways - Most persons striking aren't train drivers - that's a different union. It's mainly the low paid station staff, cleaners, maintainence staff. Appalingly paid, expected to work silly hours. Train drivers don't want driverless trains (I agree) and don't want ticket inspectors removed from what few trains they are left on - far better to always have a person on a train other than just the driver, especially in inner cities. Yes train drivers get paid fairly and actually very well, but their concerns are entirely valid.

Basically short story- 12 years of sheer incompetance from government. Nowhere near enough investment (money was available, it's just all been splashed up the wall by vanity projects, Brexit, corruption).

Well summed up. I would add that during the Pandemic most striking were lauded as key workers and even at times, due to greater risk of infection (a toll of transport workers, health professionals, care workers), as heroes.
All the while, you know who and his grubby, corrupt cohorts partied. The Head of State kept to the rules and demonstrated it even when, like so many others, in grieving, the government of liars, corrupt and just incompetent had a piss up and gave ungodly amounts of our money to their pals for useless PPE while established companies desperate to help and with previous experience, were ignored. Not being Tory donors then.

And for this? Poorer by the year, nurses, teachers, even some firefighters, having to use that stain on our nation, food banks, something that hardly existed before 2010 but whose rapid rise is something Jacob Rees Mogg is proud of, he says.
Schools crumbling many seen as dangerous.
Then there is the stark comparison between the rise in energy bills here, compared to 25 miles across the channel.

And it seems that public support is strong, not just for the nurses either.
Certainly holding up despite the ideological approach of the government, already they have had to admit that they have spent more money prolonging the rail dispute than if they had settled it last year.
Speaking of which, the CEO’s of the train operations give themselves fat bonuses however badly they perform, some are in chaos well clear of any strikes.
Plus they want to cut maintenance and engineering by 50%
Now imagine that being allowed in aviation, both carry lots of people at speed after all.

So you’ve had a good moan about it, now how are you going to pay for salary increases? Are you personally going to contribute more? I work in the private sector (which of course funds the public sector). I haven’t had a pay rise, I’ve also got poorer over the last few years. So why should NHS workers get a pay rise when I don’t? I kept working and bringing millions of pounds from abroad into our economy during the pandemic. NHS workers aren’t heroes: they were doing their job. And the idea that truck drivers etc were somehow heroes for also doing their jobs as “key workers” is laughable. P
For context my mother has just had her shoulder replacement (due to severe arthritis) cancelled for the FOURTH time because of all this. She has to have that done before she can have her hips replaced - there is nothing left of the top of her femurs.
It’s often said the NHS is underfunded… it’s not… a huge amount of money goes to middle management and contractors.

I don’t know what country you live, or think you live in.
I have had Rheumatoid Arthritis since 2000 so a regular NHS user so have seen what it is like when decently funded and staffed and what it’s been like in the last dozen years.
Why should they get enough money to live on? Because of what they do, go private then, it’s what the Tories want after all, that Javid weirdo let the cat out of the bag, big believer in Ayn Rand (look it up).
What? They wouldn’t be be into dealing with acute illnesses like that?

They had over 30 BILLION to piss away on a track and trace system that did not even work, still it went to a Tory donor, run by that dopey woman whose previous experience was screwing the Talk Talk business, she also pressured her mate and MP to put in a horse race meeting as Europe was shutting down, the area becoming a COVID hotspot. The MP? One Matt Hancock.
What a symbol of this government he is, seen his recent performances. Go on defend him.

Most of us stuck to the rules, we know who didn’t, who lied about it, who might lose his seat because of it.
Bet you didn’t know that Parliamentary investigation is being delayed as Johnson has used a quarter of a million of OUR money on expensive lawyers.
Go on, defend that.
Lack of money? Don’t make me laugh, seen that former Chancellor dodge his taxes (one of FOUR Chancellors last year, defend that, along with the THREE Prime Ministers), go on, tell me how competent they are and consider what the financial markets, the IMF, thought of Truss and that arrogant buffoon of a chancellor. How all the Tories cheered that most disastrous special financial operation, that like the other ‘special operation’ last year it did not survive contact with reality and she and her mob want to do it all over again.
Have you any idea what that cost? In people’s pensions, in the intervention needed to stop the meltdown. Remember that?

I don’t get the impression you have a clue, the Daily Mail is a comic, even the Telegraph has gone batshit, best stay in their fantasy lanes, blaming the least powerful for the sins of the most.
Then there is the huge economic hit of a party largely responsible for persuading enough people to impose economic sanctions on ourselves.
Yes, the real Brexit Benefit, well for the Rees Moggs of this world maybe.
Result? We have the worst performance in the G7, less growth than even sanctioned and at war Russia (big Tory donors up to last year, bet you didn’t know that either).

Go on, say that is due to the pandemic, the war, so how has everyone of our peer group neighbors managed to recover much better than us, we all had the pandemic to deal with, many were much more exposed to the effects of the Ukraine war, so go on, explain that.
Or call me a ‘moaner’ again when you cannot answer any of the above.

Sorry about your Mother but why not blame those responsible not the overworked and underpaid staff, not blame them for you not getting the pay rise you think you should. That you cannot see the need for decently paid people in such vital services, says maybe something about you.
My Mother is 91, we did everything to stick to the rules in the Pandemic thankfully and it paid off, Hancock’s ring of death that idiot caused in care facilities we avoided.
By doing what we were told was the right thing, while those evil bastards made a pile of money in a VIP lane now found to be, like so much else they have done, illegal.
Then they partied too.
(Heard of Tory peer Mone, that crook and her husband? Under investigation by the National Crime Agency for the dodgy expensive and for thousands lethal PPE scandal. Tip of the iceberg as the public inquiry will likely show). Go on, defend all that.

Millions in this country have plenty to ‘moan’ about, not being selfish and it seems easily fooled by a group of charlatans.
Your mate Johnson wants to come back too, as well as Truss.
Good, let them rip each other apart.

In summary, you did not have one counter to what I and Rheinhart posted, did you?

That well known leftist Carol Vorderman (!) seems to agree, seen her on social media? On the rampage. She can count after all.
A well paid professional woman, not short of money presumably, she's cottoned on to them;
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/202 ... -gathering

Some 'greedy' (coming to a Daily Mail headline soon no doubt) NHS staff;
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... th-burnout

Fossil fuel giants having the biggest profits, in one case, for 115 years, even asked the government to tax them more, they won't of course;
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... rs-scandal

Or to put it more acerbically;
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... lectricity

Some of those affected by the disgusting actions above, will be the health and other workers deemed vital not so long ago.

Reinhardt wrote:

NHS - Health workers - decade of being under paid, no made even worse by inflation / cost of living. Decade of lack of money (i.e not kept up with what it needed). Poor management. Hundreds of thousands of staff retired early during covid, or left because of Brexit (i.e were foreign nationals and quit due to the way they were treated). Funding hasn't kept up and services have crumbled. Add Covid and a bad flu season into the mix and it's on it's knees When ambulances are queued up in the road, not able to offload patients, people are dieing in corridors, people cannot get an ambulance in under 4 hours.... something is seriously wrong. Can't get enough staff, won't be able to train enough fast enough..

I'd like to pick up and develop some of these points, Rheinhardt, if I may, and in doing so try to avoid political grandstanding that was inevitably going to come on this thread, and aim the conversation more at structural issues rather than political ones..... (not aimed at you)

(For info Mrs Aman runs a care home, and her Mum has been a nurse all her working life.)

There is a reality that there is no easy fix to the Health issue in the UK, and loads of extra funding is certainly not it.

The issue that health care has is that it is a very complex and integrated system, but doesn't seem to be capable of being run like that.
I want to point out that I don't want to aim criticism at any of the health care workers, or people that are currently taking action.

But health care in the UK is outstandingly inefficient.
And it definitely hasn't been helped by Brexit, or Covid.

As an example
Start with the output side..
There are currently about 13,000 hospital beds occupied by elderly patients who should be back in care in the community.

https://www.nhsconfed.org/articles/what ... discharges

As a result, Operating theatres have nowhere to put patients once they have treated them.
As a result, A+E gets clogged.
As a result, ambulances end up in queues.
Simple input-process-output

This is currently compounded by
a) low paid contingent staff leaving due to Brexit
b) Highly paid, experienced personnel riding the "early retirement" wave, now that they've discovered what being at home is like, and that their long-standing defined benefit pensions will easily fund it.

https://inews.co.uk/news/business/brexi ... y%20report.

For me this is grossly under-reported and is probably UK workforce's biggest challenge.

Hence those poor personnel currently struggling with the backlogs are working in seriously short-staffed conditions and under great stress.
But all this time, the Theatre staff, Consultant surgeons, anaesthetists, theatre nurses, Ambulance men sat in their ambulances, are all still getting paid but unable to add value. Carefully worded.

Another example of inefficiency
I took my Mum to hospital for some eye treatment. The staff were great. The queues were long. An ambulance rocks up with a guy who needs oxygen (routinely).
No oxygen in the eye clinic.
And no porter, or junior nurse, or student to go and track one down.
Ends up with the staff nurse actually doing the treatment running around looking for oxygen.
Meanwhile the Ambulance men are sat there, waiting for their oxygen to be released back to them.
That is a microcosm.
But I bet every UK poster on this forum can identify a similar example.

That's before we get started on decades of stupid spending, such as £300m new hospital wings built, but no funding for staff to run it, so its opened and immediately mothballed (thanks to Mum-in-Law for that one).

There has to be solutions to these issues, otherwise even the much anticipated largesse of a non-Tory government will just end up with even more taxpayers money being wasted, with little to show for it.

To cap this thread off - a graph of NHS funding for the last 50 years...

https://fullfact.org/election-2019/nhs- ... est-boost/

Astonishingly large amounts of money. But back to your point Rheinhardt, how do make it be enough, and how would we know?

Rgds

To further the point about spending, how much as a portion of GDP does the UK spend on health compared say the EU average?
We know we spend less than them, we also know the US spends way more for worse outcomes.
So yes there is being efficient but for all it’s faults and interfering, it’s still way more efficient than that model across the pond.
Run by companies which the PM and some of his cabinet have been talking to.

Then we can compare the average waiting time in 2010, to 2019 (so before the pandemic even).
What a difference.
Made worse by a dispute when Hunt was Health Secretary, resulting in many young doctors leaving in the mid 2010's, many to work in places like Australia.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/nh ... -capacity/

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resour ... -the-years

And finally, comparisons with peer nations;
https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comm ... ast-decade

You have to add to this, what happens in the care sector and how it interacts with this, what happened to the governments oft promised and overdue reform there?
Same place as Boris's '40 new hospitals', (in some cases a lick of paint was counted).
Still, who in their right mind ever took HIM seriously?
A source of mystery to me, long before he became PM.

GDB wrote:

To further the point about spending, how much as a portion of GDP does the UK spend on health compared say the EU average?
We know we spend less than them, we also know the US spends way more for worse outcomes.
So yes there is being efficient but for all it’s faults and interfering, it’s still way more efficient than that model across the pond.
Run by companies which the PM and some of his cabinet have been talking to.

Then we can compare the average waiting time in 2010, to 2019 (so before the pandemic even).
What a difference.
Made worse by a dispute when Hunt was Health Secretary, resulting in many young doctors leaving in the mid 2010's, many to work in places like Australia.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/nh ... -capacity/

Seeing as how you asked the question, the answers can easily be found ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita

Ok, its Wiki, but it has some really interesting stats in it.

"We know we spend less than them" actually results in us being somehwere in the middle of European Countries on a PPP basis.

As for the USA, I'm not remotely interested in "Whataboutism" - especially with the USA as a benchmark
I could just as well point to Portugal, Spain or Italy, who spend dramatically less than us on health care per Capita, but achieve a better outcome.
It in no way excuses the profligate waste of taxpayers money due to inefficiency - however much is spent.

The Wiki page has a chart embedded in it that is really interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ending.jpg

To pick a few data points....

USA - $10,000 per capita, life expectancy 78.6 years.
Germany - $5,700 per capita, life expectancy 81 years.
UK - $4,000 per capita, life expectancy 81.3 years.
Italy - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.
Spain - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.

If anything the data tends to support the reality that the more spending goes up, the worse the outcome.

I don't know any other industry that would just throw heaps of money at a delivery system before it had it fixed.
Maybe I think like this because I've been a Manufacturing Engineer most of my working life, I don't know.

My genuine worry is that if we only focus on "more money" we will be missing the point, and will miss the outcome.
Which makes me a lot less interested in political points scoring.

Rgds

astuteman wrote:

GDB wrote:

To further the point about spending, how much as a portion of GDP does the UK spend on health compared say the EU average?
We know we spend less than them, we also know the US spends way more for worse outcomes.
So yes there is being efficient but for all it’s faults and interfering, it’s still way more efficient than that model across the pond.
Run by companies which the PM and some of his cabinet have been talking to.

Then we can compare the average waiting time in 2010, to 2019 (so before the pandemic even).
What a difference.
Made worse by a dispute when Hunt was Health Secretary, resulting in many young doctors leaving in the mid 2010's, many to work in places like Australia.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/nh ... -capacity/

Seeing as how you asked the question, the answers can easily be found ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita

Ok, its Wiki, but it has some really interesting stats in it.

"We know we spend less than them" actually results in us being somehwere in the middle of European Countries on a PPP basis.

As for the USA, I'm not remotely interested in "Whataboutism" - especially with the USA as a benchmark
I could just as well point to Portugal, Spain or Italy, who spend dramatically less than us on health care per Capita, but achieve a better outcome.
It in no way excuses the profligate waste of taxpayers money due to inefficiency - however much is spent.

The Wiki page has a chart embedded in it that is really interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ending.jpg

To pick a few data points....

USA - $10,000 per capita, life expectancy 78.6 years.
Germany - $5,700 per capita, life expectancy 81 years.
UK - $4,000 per capita, life expectancy 81.3 years.
Italy - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.
Spain - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.

If anything the data tends to support the reality that the more spending goes up, the worse the outcome.

I don't know any other industry that would just throw heaps of money at a delivery system before it had it fixed.
Maybe I think like this because I've been a Manufacturing Engineer most of my working life, I don't know.

My genuine worry is that if we only focus on "more money" we will be missing the point, and will miss the outcome.
Which makes me a lot less interested in political points scoring.

Rgds

I don’t think we can, or should, compare a health system, as the various kinds in Europe at least work, to a business, manufacturing or otherwise.
Note the link on my previous post to this, comparing us to EU nations in the last decade. I would suggest as a result of political choice.
Two of the examples are certainly interesting, recall how Italy, seen as having one of the best systems in the world, which came under the unexpected attack from the pandemic. We even had a few weeks warning.

But is there more to it, we hear a lot about ‘the Mediterranean Diet’, are there lifestyle and other factors in their societies that affect average lifespan?
There is a consensus that more preventive action is better, for the users, yet even moderate attempts to say do a sugar tax, to limit fast food outlets near schools, are watered down if not scrapped.
Yet we know we have had success with this for things like smoking and some with alcohol, younger people are drinking less in general.
Away from Europe, Japan has a longer lifespan average than most, diet is cited, though there will be other factors unique to their society.

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here. A healthier workforce is more productive, a population in general less of a strain on other services.
Which leads back to Rheinharts point about UK productivity, (aside from the long term lack of investment compared to peer nations).
For my part, when diagnosed in 2000, I got rapid treatment and have to take a bunch of medications to control it, luckily no prescription charges as it’s a lifetime, acute condition.
Is that a burden on the taxpayer? No, it allowed me, within weeks, to return to my job full time, therefore paying my tax and N.I. so contributing to the service. I call that a virtuous circle.
I hate to think what it would be like if I was diagnosed now.

Worked full time until 2016 when I could afford to go to a three day week, still contributing though. Happy to. This lasted until 2020 when Walsh used the Pandemic and a refusal of government support, to settle his beef with the party of IAG that most turned a profit in normal times.
So after 37 years, I was out.
Luckily when I joined there was still such a thing called decent company pensions, though over the years they did try, with cash bribes, to encourage us to switch to newer (worse) schemes, for some that money could have been needed and their other circumstances suited it, not me though.
Again, I shudder at what it’s like for young people now entering the workplace, poor pensions, all those ‘zero hours contracts’, small wonder, unlike our generation, getting into the housing market, even leaving home, is very different.
They are not ‘snowflakes’ as the client media have it, just victims of political choices.

Having said that, what damage did that Truss do to it? Millions of pensions affected by her mad ideas. No contrition though.

We can blame the health system, who runs it, who has been for over a dozen years?
Politicians, Health Secretaries like that wretched Matt Hancock, or a recent if short lived one, that Coffey woman, all corpulence, booze and cigars, who as the crisis worsened, was most vexed by the use of a certain kind of punctuation within the system.
Or you can think what ‘30p Lee Anderson’ (so named as he, on 80,000 a year plus, thinks 30p is enough to live on per day, plus its the Nurses fault for not budgeting).
Not sure if he was the Tory MP who accused the Royal College of Nursing (on strike for the first time ever) of effectively working for Putin.
Yes, they are as awful as that.
Not that it’s working if polling is remotely accurate.

If you go past a newsstand today, you're sure of a big surprise,
When you see this headline, you won't believe your eyes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoNPqQyhy_U

God help us!

Public sector workers all benefit from index linked 100% inflation proof pensions, they also enjoy considerably more holiday and sickness entitlement than private sector workers, yet expect exactly the same or higher pay rates. They had the additional benefit that every single one of them received 100% pay during the covid shut down when many people wwerer laid off on 80% at best.
It is not correct that they have received zero pay rises in recent years, in the early 2010's it is true that this was the case,for the headline rate, but they still qualified for automatic annual increments due to length of service, additional skills etc, anyone who has ever had to implement the local government spinal code will know how this works.

Bongodog1964 wrote:

Public sector workers all benefit from index linked 100% inflation proof pensions, they also enjoy considerably more holiday and sickness entitlement than private sector workers, yet expect exactly the same or higher pay rates. They had the additional benefit that every single one of them received 100% pay during the covid shut down when many people wwerer laid off on 80% at best.
It is not correct that they have received zero pay rises in recent years, in the early 2010's it is true that this was the case,for the headline rate, but they still qualified for automatic annual increments due to length of service, additional skills etc, anyone who has ever had to implement the local government spinal code will know how this works.

Knowing some who work in the public sector, including civil service, they might have a view on the idea that their pensions were untouched!
As someone who spend months on furlough in the first months of the pandemic, in a private company, I can say policies on that seemed to differ, there was the furlough scheme of course.

Still, if life is so rosy for them, why are so many striking, (losing money while), mostly for the first time ever?

GDB wrote:

Bongodog1964 wrote:

Public sector workers all benefit from index linked 100% inflation proof pensions, they also enjoy considerably more holiday and sickness entitlement than private sector workers, yet expect exactly the same or higher pay rates. They had the additional benefit that every single one of them received 100% pay during the covid shut down when many people wwerer laid off on 80% at best.
It is not correct that they have received zero pay rises in recent years, in the early 2010's it is true that this was the case,for the headline rate, but they still qualified for automatic annual increments due to length of service, additional skills etc, anyone who has ever had to implement the local government spinal code will know how this works.

Knowing some who work in the public sector, including civil service, they might have a view on the idea that their pensions were untouched!
As someone who spend months on furlough in the first months of the pandemic, in a private company, I can say policies on that seemed to differ, there was the furlough scheme of course.

Still, if life is so rosy for them, why are so many striking, (losing money while), mostly for the first time ever?

I think it has to do with less worker rights and also situations. For e.g. if I was a train driver, I would like to have train security in case something happens. They want in some places driverless trains, and in some places driver-only trains. If I were a driver, I would be concerned. Should I be concentrating on just driving the train or look over my shoulder if something is gonna amiss, including terrorism (a fact of life). In India, we have RPF (Railway Protection Force)

https://rpf.indianrailways.gov.in/RPF/

This institution is basically for protecting Railway employees, Railway infrastructure and paid passengers. It doesn't mean crime doesn't happen, but criminals are apprehended and they are usually a handful in any given train.

While I have shared for trains, similar situations I guess everywhere. If you make the employees insecure, no wonder sooner or later they are going to strike.

I am aware that UK is legislating anti-strike legislation. How much they would be able to enforce is probably another thing altogether.

pune wrote:

Apart from that, big business doesn't pay as much tax as everybody else does. One big reason for the industrial action to happen -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QZ-M6kNLXM

“Big business” will just pass any tax on to consumers in prices, to workers as reduced wages and investors as lowered returns on investment. Likely, all three take some hit based on various elasticities.

pune wrote:

GDB wrote:

Bongodog1964 wrote:

Public sector workers all benefit from index linked 100% inflation proof pensions, they also enjoy considerably more holiday and sickness entitlement than private sector workers, yet expect exactly the same or higher pay rates. They had the additional benefit that every single one of them received 100% pay during the covid shut down when many people wwerer laid off on 80% at best.
It is not correct that they have received zero pay rises in recent years, in the early 2010's it is true that this was the case,for the headline rate, but they still qualified for automatic annual increments due to length of service, additional skills etc, anyone who has ever had to implement the local government spinal code will know how this works.

Knowing some who work in the public sector, including civil service, they might have a view on the idea that their pensions were untouched!
As someone who spend months on furlough in the first months of the pandemic, in a private company, I can say policies on that seemed to differ, there was the furlough scheme of course.

Still, if life is so rosy for them, why are so many striking, (losing money while), mostly for the first time ever?

I think it has to do with less worker rights and also situations. For e.g. if I was a train driver, I would like to have train security in case something happens. They want in some places driverless trains, and in some places driver-only trains. If I were a driver, I would be concerned. Should I be concentrating on just driving the train or look over my shoulder if something is gonna amiss, including terrorism (a fact of life). In India, we have RPF (Railway Protection Force)

https://rpf.indianrailways.gov.in/RPF/

This institution is basically for protecting Railway employees, Railway infrastructure and paid passengers. It doesn't mean crime doesn't happen, but criminals are apprehended and they are usually a handful in any given train.

While I have shared for trains, similar situations I guess everywhere. If you make the employees insecure, no wonder sooner or later they are going to strike.

I am aware that UK is legislating anti-strike legislation. How much they would be able to enforce is probably another thing altogether.

On the question of trying to make peaceful protest difficult, one of their range of attempts to distract from the real, underlying issues. Like their half arsed 'Culture War' attempts.
I should note more moderate and rational conservatives think trying to do this is a bad idea, legally as you say, ripe for challenge.
Besides, the Home Secretary was sacked for leaking government information, Sunak put her back, same post, days later.
Who are they to judge anyone on breaking the law, much less impose arbitary new ones?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... sts-prison

chimborazo wrote:

It’s often said the NHS is underfunded… it’s not… a huge amount of money goes to middle management and contractors.

The NHS is both similar to the French system, and totally different. Similar in that it's funded by taxes including payroll taxes, and mostly free at the point of use, and different in most everything else.

From my understanding that sentence I quoted is one cause of the issue. "NHS" is understood as being something public, indeed the government is fighting against nurses that are public servants. Yet a large amount of "NHS funding" doesn't go to the public NHS, but to private companies. And the UK public is blissfully unaware of this.

Aesma wrote:

chimborazo wrote:

It’s often said the NHS is underfunded… it’s not… a huge amount of money goes to middle management and contractors.

The NHS is both similar to the French system, and totally different. Similar in that it's funded by taxes including payroll taxes, and mostly free at the point of use, and different in most everything else.

From my understanding that sentence I quoted is one cause of the issue. "NHS" is understood as being something public, indeed the government is fighting against nurses that are public servants. Yet a large amount of "NHS funding" doesn't go to the public NHS, but to private companies. And the UK public is blissfully unaware of this.

Just a small taste, I mentioned my own experience with it, part of this is for me to give blood tests at the hospital about once every two months.
Around 2015, three years after the passing of a 2012 act which cost the NHS 12 billion (in opposition they claimed of course no major reorganisations) and compelled them to outsource more.
So for a time around then, it was a private company, using the same facilities, doing the same thing.
While I did not notice anything, one day, it was back to the NHS staff, 'that outsourcing go well then?' I asked, the nurse gave me a wry smile.

Kiwirob wrote:

Reinhardt wrote:

Border force - nowhere near enough of them. Takes ages to get through UK customs, has done since before Brexit but it's only been made worse.
).

I somewhat disagree with this, depending on which airport you enter, if you're a UK citizen or one of the lucky few with the right nationality you can use the electronic gates which makes crossing the border a breeze.

Correct, if you go through a port with egates it's not so bad, however go through anywhere that doesn't - i.e Some Eurostar, Eurotunnel, Ferry it's a nightmare. I've waited over 1hr every time I've travelled to the UK by Channel tunnel the last 4 years, all due to staff shortages.

astuteman wrote:

and loads of extra funding is certainly not it.

It's part of it. You'll need to significantly increase it in the short term to make up for what's happened to it, and the state it's in now. Longer term, once the clear issues have been resolved, I don't believe "loads" or "significant" increases would be needed.

astuteman wrote:

But health care in the UK is outstandingly inefficient.

Before the Tories got their hands on it, the NHS was actually incredibly efficient for the amount of funding per head of population. This has fallen through the floor the last 6-8 years.

astuteman wrote:

This is currently compounded by
a) low paid contingent staff leaving due to Brexit
b) Highly paid, experienced personnel riding the "early retirement" wave, now that they've discovered what being at home is like, and that their long-standing defined benefit pensions will easily fund it.

Completely agree.

astuteman wrote:

That's before we get started on decades of stupid spending, such as £300m new hospital wings built, but no funding for staff to run it, so its opened and immediately mothballed (thanks to Mum-in-Law for that one).

What about the 40 NEW hospitals the Tories promised? Most of which were work on new hospital wings, which have never happened and exactly as you said above - no funding or staff.

astuteman wrote:

Astonishingly large amounts of money. But back to your point Rheinhardt, how do make it be enough, and how would we know?

1 - Care homes / home help - it needs sorting yesterday. As you and others have said, it's one of the biggest reasons why Critical Care is failing right now
2 - Contractors - Pay decents wages to Doctors and Nurses and stop all agency staffing
3 - Have been accept the government spent 10's of billions on Nightingale hospitals (never needed or had the staff to run them, was a political stunt), fraud through covid PPE, track and trace, illegal VIP lane. More than enough to cover both 1 and 2 above, and increase the NHS budget in the short term to make up for the % real terms reduction in funding it's had the last 10 years.

Anyone saying the UK doesn't have enough money - They need to reopen the Police investigation into Covid fraud. Truss and co need to be held to account for their actons, costing the country even more 10s of billions.

There was money -. If I was a UK tax payer (I will again be next month) I would be demanding my Tax money back from those friends of the Government they gave it to, instead of wacking everyone with stealth tax rises. Someone has that tax money, it should have been spent on public services like the NHS, like the Police. Where is it all, now?

I also find Lizz Truss trying to make a political comeback using "leftwing financial institutions" as the reason for her downfall an absolute monumental mindf***. These people need to be removed from public service yesterday.

Odd that, shutting down that investigation into several billion lost to COVID fraud schemes.
Anyone would think they are less interested at least in trying to recover some of the money, which they say they haven’t got and presumably would welcome, despite their refusal to settle the NHS dispute (resulting in the cost in the past year of cabs to replace ambulances being enough to employ 3000 extra nurses), maybe they are more worried about where, or who, the fraud investigation might lead to.
What with the already declared illegal VIP lane for their mates and donors.

@Reinhardt, in the first post, didn't you say you don't know why UK has productivity issue. AFAIK Margaret Thatcher threw a lot of manufacturing when she ruled in the 70's for whatever reason/s she stated. Now if you are going to throw our manufacturing then for sure you are becoming dependent on others. And am sure you know it takes a lot to build even the most simplest of objects. for e.g. the diminutive and innocent microwave oven which is part and parcel of today's age, or the humble radio. I could go on and on, these are things which used to be known for their British origin but now not so much. I am sure most old-timers would recall murphy radios as an e.g.

http://www.murphy-radio.co.uk/

pune wrote:

@Reinhardt, in the first post, didn't you say you don't know why UK has productivity issue. AFAIK Margaret Thatcher threw a lot of manufacturing when she ruled in the 70's for whatever reason/s she stated. Now if you are going to throw our manufacturing then for sure you are becoming dependent on others. And am sure you know it takes a lot to build even the most simplest of objects. for e.g. the diminutive and innocent microwave oven which is part and parcel of today's age, or the humble radio. I could go on and on, these are things which used to be known for their British origin but now not so much. I am sure most old-timers would recall murphy radios as an e.g.

http://www.murphy-radio.co.uk/

I probably should have made that comment a bit different - more like, nobody is prepared to tackle it or think long term (which is what is needed) to fix it. Hey ho.

Interesting comparison between the UK and Germany when it comes to productivity:

https://www.agencycentral.co.uk/article ... o-germany/

All the usual stuff we know about, certainly not helped by actions taken (or not taken) since 2008.

GDB wrote:

astuteman wrote:

GDB wrote:

To further the point about spending, how much as a portion of GDP does the UK spend on health compared say the EU average?
We know we spend less than them, we also know the US spends way more for worse outcomes.
So yes there is being efficient but for all it’s faults and interfering, it’s still way more efficient than that model across the pond.
Run by companies which the PM and some of his cabinet have been talking to.

Then we can compare the average waiting time in 2010, to 2019 (so before the pandemic even).
What a difference.
Made worse by a dispute when Hunt was Health Secretary, resulting in many young doctors leaving in the mid 2010's, many to work in places like Australia.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/nh ... -capacity/

Seeing as how you asked the question, the answers can easily be found ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita

Ok, its Wiki, but it has some really interesting stats in it.

"We know we spend less than them" actually results in us being somehwere in the middle of European Countries on a PPP basis.

As for the USA, I'm not remotely interested in "Whataboutism" - especially with the USA as a benchmark
I could just as well point to Portugal, Spain or Italy, who spend dramatically less than us on health care per Capita, but achieve a better outcome.
It in no way excuses the profligate waste of taxpayers money due to inefficiency - however much is spent.

The Wiki page has a chart embedded in it that is really interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ending.jpg

To pick a few data points....

USA - $10,000 per capita, life expectancy 78.6 years.
Germany - $5,700 per capita, life expectancy 81 years.
UK - $4,000 per capita, life expectancy 81.3 years.
Italy - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.
Spain - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.

If anything the data tends to support the reality that the more spending goes up, the worse the outcome.

I don't know any other industry that would just throw heaps of money at a delivery system before it had it fixed.
Maybe I think like this because I've been a Manufacturing Engineer most of my working life, I don't know.

My genuine worry is that if we only focus on "more money" we will be missing the point, and will miss the outcome.
Which makes me a lot less interested in political points scoring.

Rgds

I don’t think we can, or should, compare a health system, as the various kinds in Europe at least work, to a business, manufacturing or otherwise.
Note the link on my previous post to this, comparing us to EU nations in the last decade. I would suggest as a result of political choice.
Two of the examples are certainly interesting, recall how Italy, seen as having one of the best systems in the world, which came under the unexpected attack from the pandemic. We even had a few weeks warning.

But is there more to it, we hear a lot about ‘the Mediterranean Diet’, are there lifestyle and other factors in their societies that affect average lifespan?
There is a consensus that more preventive action is better, for the users, yet even moderate attempts to say do a sugar tax, to limit fast food outlets near schools, are watered down if not scrapped.
Yet we know we have had success with this for things like smoking and some with alcohol, younger people are drinking less in general.
Away from Europe, Japan has a longer lifespan average than most, diet is cited, though there will be other factors unique to their society.

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here. A healthier workforce is more productive, a population in general less of a strain on other services.
Which leads back to Rheinharts point about UK productivity, (aside from the long term lack of investment compared to peer nations).
For my part, when diagnosed in 2000, I got rapid treatment and have to take a bunch of medications to control it, luckily no prescription charges as it’s a lifetime, acute condition.
Is that a burden on the taxpayer? No, it allowed me, within weeks, to return to my job full time, therefore paying my tax and N.I. so contributing to the service. I call that a virtuous circle.
I hate to think what it would be like if I was diagnosed now.

Worked full time until 2016 when I could afford to go to a three day week, still contributing though. Happy to. This lasted until 2020 when Walsh used the Pandemic and a refusal of government support, to settle his beef with the party of IAG that most turned a profit in normal times.
So after 37 years, I was out.
Luckily when I joined there was still such a thing called decent company pensions, though over the years they did try, with cash bribes, to encourage us to switch to newer (worse) schemes, for some that money could have been needed and their other circumstances suited it, not me though.
Again, I shudder at what it’s like for young people now entering the workplace, poor pensions, all those ‘zero hours contracts’, small wonder, unlike our generation, getting into the housing market, even leaving home, is very different.
They are not ‘snowflakes’ as the client media have it, just victims of political choices.

Having said that, what damage did that Truss do to it? Millions of pensions affected by her mad ideas. No contrition though.

We can blame the health system, who runs it, who has been for over a dozen years?
Politicians, Health Secretaries like that wretched Matt Hancock, or a recent if short lived one, that Coffey woman, all corpulence, booze and cigars, who as the crisis worsened, was most vexed by the use of a certain kind of punctuation within the system.
Or you can think what ‘30p Lee Anderson’ (so named as he, on 80,000 a year plus, thinks 30p is enough to live on per day, plus its the Nurses fault for not budgeting).
Not sure if he was the Tory MP who accused the Royal College of Nursing (on strike for the first time ever) of effectively working for Putin.
Yes, they are as awful as that.
Not that it’s working if polling is remotely accurate.

I feel like it's a problem of entire developed world.
The world in the past 30 years have been growing richer, but its main benefit go to people in developing countries earning more and getting life closer to people in developed countries, as well as multinational companies who employ such labor. As a result situation in developed countries remain generally stagnate in the past 30 years and life for younger generation become harder than older generation.
There are no one who "run" it caused the situation, but that there are cheaper labor around the world available that made this the reality. And this is a good thing because it helped billions around the world. However there's no mechanism to mitigate the relative reduction in living standard in developed countries. I cannot think of any realistic way to truly solve this problem.

c933103 wrote:

I feel like it's a problem of entire developed world.
The world in the past 30 years have been growing richer, but its main benefit go to people in developing countries earning more and getting life closer to people in developed countries, as well as multinational companies who employ such labor. As a result situation in developed countries remain generally stagnate in the past 30 years and life for younger generation become harder than older generation.
There are no one who "run" it caused the situation, but that there are cheaper labor around the world available that made this the reality. And this is a good thing because it helped billions around the world. However there's no mechanism to mitigate the relative reduction in living standard in developed countries. I cannot think of any realistic way to truly solve this problem.

Think that's a very simplistic take and possibly that is what the media feeds, but if you look at the developing countries you would find they are still far far behind. For e.g. what do you think about Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Qatar what would you say they are, developing or developed economies. Keeping in mind that they are similar or maybe tad smaller than UK. I would suggest that for bigger countries, denser populations etc. it is harder to get growth than the more smaller nimble countries, more so if they are democracies. There are solutions but they would need, for e.g. Proportional Representation could change lot of things. Also recall system. That would make political leaders more answerable to people. You need both. Unless that happens, don't see the laziness or unaccountability stopping anytime soon. And this is not just for UK, even countries like India too.

pune wrote:

@Reinhardt, in the first post, didn't you say you don't know why UK has productivity issue. AFAIK Margaret Thatcher threw a lot of manufacturing when she ruled in the 70's for whatever reason/s she stated. Now if you are going to throw our manufacturing then for sure you are becoming dependent on others. And am sure you know it takes a lot to build even the most simplest of objects. for e.g. the diminutive and innocent microwave oven which is part and parcel of today's age, or the humble radio. I could go on and on, these are things which used to be known for their British origin but now not so much. I am sure most old-timers would recall murphy radios as an e.g.

http://www.murphy-radio.co.uk/

Many many years ago, 1988, I purchased our current microwave. A top of the a range Toshiba with stainless steel interior.
The price was good, as at the time Toshiba was serving out a 2? year ban on selling into the USA for supplying banned computer chips into the USSR.

And where was it made? Suprisingly in Great Britain. At the same time the British Kenwood microwaves were being made in I think Singapore.

As for the microwave it still works perfectly except for perhaps the steam sensor.

pune wrote:

c933103 wrote:

I feel like it's a problem of entire developed world.
The world in the past 30 years have been growing richer, but its main benefit go to people in developing countries earning more and getting life closer to people in developed countries, as well as multinational companies who employ such labor. As a result situation in developed countries remain generally stagnate in the past 30 years and life for younger generation become harder than older generation.
There are no one who "run" it caused the situation, but that there are cheaper labor around the world available that made this the reality. And this is a good thing because it helped billions around the world. However there's no mechanism to mitigate the relative reduction in living standard in developed countries. I cannot think of any realistic way to truly solve this problem.

Think that's a very simplistic take and possibly that is what the media feeds, but if you look at the developing countries you would find they are still far far behind. For e.g. what do you think about Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Qatar what would you say they are, developing or developed economies. Keeping in mind that they are similar or maybe tad smaller than UK. I would suggest that for bigger countries, denser populations etc. it is harder to get growth than the more smaller nimble countries, more so if they are democracies. There are solutions but they would need, for e.g. Proportional Representation could change lot of things. Also recall system. That would make political leaders more answerable to people. You need both. Unless that happens, don't see the laziness or unaccountability stopping anytime soon. And this is not just for UK, even countries like India too.

There are little bearing on whether they are democracy or whether they are using which exact election system. And country size also does not matter. The key matter is trade is open. That developing countries are still pretty far from developed countries just mean there are still more room for such process to continue.

c933103 wrote:

pune wrote:

c933103 wrote:

I feel like it's a problem of entire developed world.
The world in the past 30 years have been growing richer, but its main benefit go to people in developing countries earning more and getting life closer to people in developed countries, as well as multinational companies who employ such labor. As a result situation in developed countries remain generally stagnate in the past 30 years and life for younger generation become harder than older generation.
There are no one who "run" it caused the situation, but that there are cheaper labor around the world available that made this the reality. And this is a good thing because it helped billions around the world. However there's no mechanism to mitigate the relative reduction in living standard in developed countries. I cannot think of any realistic way to truly solve this problem.

Think that's a very simplistic take and possibly that is what the media feeds, but if you look at the developing countries you would find they are still far far behind. For e.g. what do you think about Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Qatar what would you say they are, developing or developed economies. Keeping in mind that they are similar or maybe tad smaller than UK. I would suggest that for bigger countries, denser populations etc. it is harder to get growth than the more smaller nimble countries, more so if they are democracies. There are solutions but they would need, for e.g. Proportional Representation could change lot of things. Also recall system. That would make political leaders more answerable to people. You need both. Unless that happens, don't see the laziness or unaccountability stopping anytime soon. And this is not just for UK, even countries like India too.

There are little bearing on whether they are democracy or whether they are using which exact election system. And country size also does not matter. The key matter is trade is open. That developing countries are still pretty far from developed countries just mean there are still more room for such process to continue.

Trade cannot happen by itself. You need foundation in engineering. You need R&D. The Chinese are spending 25-30% and more of their profits on it. Others are not. If you don't do research, you become stale in this competitive world. That's the reason Samsung for e.g. just opened one in Vietnam -

https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung- ... ttend-vip/

GDB wrote:

astuteman wrote:

GDB wrote:

To further the point about spending, how much as a portion of GDP does the UK spend on health compared say the EU average?
We know we spend less than them, we also know the US spends way more for worse outcomes.
So yes there is being efficient but for all it’s faults and interfering, it’s still way more efficient than that model across the pond.
Run by companies which the PM and some of his cabinet have been talking to.

Then we can compare the average waiting time in 2010, to 2019 (so before the pandemic even).
What a difference.
Made worse by a dispute when Hunt was Health Secretary, resulting in many young doctors leaving in the mid 2010's, many to work in places like Australia.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/nh ... -capacity/

Seeing as how you asked the question, the answers can easily be found ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita

Ok, its Wiki, but it has some really interesting stats in it.

"We know we spend less than them" actually results in us being somehwere in the middle of European Countries on a PPP basis.

As for the USA, I'm not remotely interested in "Whataboutism" - especially with the USA as a benchmark
I could just as well point to Portugal, Spain or Italy, who spend dramatically less than us on health care per Capita, but achieve a better outcome.
It in no way excuses the profligate waste of taxpayers money due to inefficiency - however much is spent.

The Wiki page has a chart embedded in it that is really interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ending.jpg

To pick a few data points....

USA - $10,000 per capita, life expectancy 78.6 years.
Germany - $5,700 per capita, life expectancy 81 years.
UK - $4,000 per capita, life expectancy 81.3 years.
Italy - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.
Spain - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.

If anything the data tends to support the reality that the more spending goes up, the worse the outcome.

I don't know any other industry that would just throw heaps of money at a delivery system before it had it fixed.
Maybe I think like this because I've been a Manufacturing Engineer most of my working life, I don't know.

My genuine worry is that if we only focus on "more money" we will be missing the point, and will miss the outcome.
Which makes me a lot less interested in political points scoring.

Rgds

I don’t think we can, or should, compare a health system, as the various kinds in Europe at least work, to a business, manufacturing or otherwise.
Note the link on my previous post to this, comparing us to EU nations in the last decade. I would suggest as a result of political choice.
Two of the examples are certainly interesting, recall how Italy, seen as having one of the best systems in the world, which came under the unexpected attack from the pandemic. We even had a few weeks warning.

But is there more to it, we hear a lot about ‘the Mediterranean Diet’, are there lifestyle and other factors in their societies that affect average lifespan?
There is a consensus that more preventive action is better, for the users, yet even moderate attempts to say do a sugar tax, to limit fast food outlets near schools, are watered down if not scrapped.
Yet we know we have had success with this for things like smoking and some with alcohol, younger people are drinking less in general.
Away from Europe, Japan has a longer lifespan average than most, diet is cited, though there will be other factors unique to their society.

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here. A healthier workforce is more productive, a population in general less of a strain on other services.
Which leads back to Rheinharts point about UK productivity, (aside from the long term lack of investment compared to peer nations).
For my part, when diagnosed in 2000, I got rapid treatment and have to take a bunch of medications to control it, luckily no prescription charges as it’s a lifetime, acute condition.
Is that a burden on the taxpayer? No, it allowed me, within weeks, to return to my job full time, therefore paying my tax and N.I. so contributing to the service. I call that a virtuous circle.
I hate to think what it would be like if I was diagnosed now.

Worked full time until 2016 when I could afford to go to a three day week, still contributing though. Happy to. This lasted until 2020 when Walsh used the Pandemic and a refusal of government support, to settle his beef with the party of IAG that most turned a profit in normal times.
So after 37 years, I was out.
Luckily when I joined there was still such a thing called decent company pensions, though over the years they did try, with cash bribes, to encourage us to switch to newer (worse) schemes, for some that money could have been needed and their other circumstances suited it, not me though.
Again, I shudder at what it’s like for young people now entering the workplace, poor pensions, all those ‘zero hours contracts’, small wonder, unlike our generation, getting into the housing market, even leaving home, is very different.
They are not ‘snowflakes’ as the client media have it, just victims of political choices.

Having said that, what damage did that Truss do to it? Millions of pensions affected by her mad ideas. No contrition though.

We can blame the health system, who runs it, who has been for over a dozen years?
Politicians, Health Secretaries like that wretched Matt Hancock, or a recent if short lived one, that Coffey woman, all corpulence, booze and cigars, who as the crisis worsened, was most vexed by the use of a certain kind of punctuation within the system.
Or you can think what ‘30p Lee Anderson’ (so named as he, on 80,000 a year plus, thinks 30p is enough to live on per day, plus its the Nurses fault for not budgeting).
Not sure if he was the Tory MP who accused the Royal College of Nursing (on strike for the first time ever) of effectively working for Putin.
Yes, they are as awful as that.
Not that it’s working if polling is remotely accurate.

For what its worth I neither did, nor would, vote for the bunch of self-serving idiots "running" the country now, and wouldn't challenge your views on the current incumbents.
(on a personal note, like you did, I'm about to go onto a reduced 3 day working week, being an old(er) git and all )

I suspect the reference to Manufacturing Engineering went over your head. ME is ALL about the provision of VALUE

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here.

That was the whole point of my post, and the reference to a "system" with inputs (resources, money), a process (the provision of care), and an output (healthier, or better cared for people). The VALUE is the care provided. Lots of ambulances waiting in queues doesn't create value. Theatre staff available but not working doesn't create value. A senior staff nurse chasing round the hospital looking for an oxygen bottle doesn't create value.
If you don't think the Health service is a system that fits that description, I'd be interested to know.

Paradoxically, we've just had what I consider to be one of the most left wing, tax raising, budgets of any government for the last 20 years.
I certainly agree that more money is part of a solution.
But the supply of money is, and will be strictly limited.
The very taxes that provide that money are going to stifle GDP growth for years to come, and the IMF has clearly stated.
Which will stifle further funding growth

Whatever money is provided HAS to be spent as wisely as possible to provide the best value possible. That is surely just a fact, and not worthy of debate?

I don't think anyone would resent the health workers receiving a pay rise that at least matches inflation.
But that in itself will create inflationary pressure going forward and be self-perpetuating.
Back to the '70's again.

Whether you like the manufacturing analogy or not, the ONLY way to ever provide inflation matching wages and yet kill inflation, has been to increase productivity - in this case the more effective provision of care. And in the long term, the upshot of that is that fewer workers will be employed.
Not that I like it, but you watch what happens when an "unaffordable" pay award is agreed.
Watch ....

And no. The Conservatives aren't the only party that have wasted money in running the health system - it's been going on for decades, including Labour Governments.
I've watched them do it.
Is this lot the worst?
I couldn't argue with that.

My point is that it doesn't matter who runs it going forward, they have to fix structural issues that prevent the health system performing, in order to make the best use of the limited resources that will be available.
Not even a debate IMO. Surely?

Rgds

@astuteman how would you rate a service, would it be number of doctors to population or some other way. I come from India where the rate of doctor per population has fallen enormously even though populations have gone up. Mortality has gone up but only a little, the same being said of nutrition and others. I would suggest that Doctors and others actually come afterwards, the most basic thing is balanced diet, nutrition etc. How have the Governments been tackling that. What policies has the Government been doing to encourage more and more children, young and old to take more exercises and be active ??? I know of some countries in Europe who have done quite more and as a result have improved on a variety of scales.

The whole idea of Government especially representative democracy is that the representatives make the best choices for us from the capital that is there and also be accountable to us. But somehow that doesn't seem to work anymore.

There is also another aspect as far as India is concerned, many of our doctors are exported to UK and other countries, that also takes away the health that could be had both quantity and quality-wise to our citizens. It's similar in many other professions.

astuteman wrote:

GDB wrote:

astuteman wrote:

Seeing as how you asked the question, the answers can easily be found ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita

Ok, its Wiki, but it has some really interesting stats in it.

"We know we spend less than them" actually results in us being somehwere in the middle of European Countries on a PPP basis.

As for the USA, I'm not remotely interested in "Whataboutism" - especially with the USA as a benchmark
I could just as well point to Portugal, Spain or Italy, who spend dramatically less than us on health care per Capita, but achieve a better outcome.
It in no way excuses the profligate waste of taxpayers money due to inefficiency - however much is spent.

The Wiki page has a chart embedded in it that is really interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ending.jpg

To pick a few data points....

USA - $10,000 per capita, life expectancy 78.6 years.
Germany - $5,700 per capita, life expectancy 81 years.
UK - $4,000 per capita, life expectancy 81.3 years.
Italy - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.
Spain - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.

If anything the data tends to support the reality that the more spending goes up, the worse the outcome.

I don't know any other industry that would just throw heaps of money at a delivery system before it had it fixed.
Maybe I think like this because I've been a Manufacturing Engineer most of my working life, I don't know.

My genuine worry is that if we only focus on "more money" we will be missing the point, and will miss the outcome.
Which makes me a lot less interested in political points scoring.

Rgds

I don’t think we can, or should, compare a health system, as the various kinds in Europe at least work, to a business, manufacturing or otherwise.
Note the link on my previous post to this, comparing us to EU nations in the last decade. I would suggest as a result of political choice.
Two of the examples are certainly interesting, recall how Italy, seen as having one of the best systems in the world, which came under the unexpected attack from the pandemic. We even had a few weeks warning.

But is there more to it, we hear a lot about ‘the Mediterranean Diet’, are there lifestyle and other factors in their societies that affect average lifespan?
There is a consensus that more preventive action is better, for the users, yet even moderate attempts to say do a sugar tax, to limit fast food outlets near schools, are watered down if not scrapped.
Yet we know we have had success with this for things like smoking and some with alcohol, younger people are drinking less in general.
Away from Europe, Japan has a longer lifespan average than most, diet is cited, though there will be other factors unique to their society.

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here. A healthier workforce is more productive, a population in general less of a strain on other services.
Which leads back to Rheinharts point about UK productivity, (aside from the long term lack of investment compared to peer nations).
For my part, when diagnosed in 2000, I got rapid treatment and have to take a bunch of medications to control it, luckily no prescription charges as it’s a lifetime, acute condition.
Is that a burden on the taxpayer? No, it allowed me, within weeks, to return to my job full time, therefore paying my tax and N.I. so contributing to the service. I call that a virtuous circle.
I hate to think what it would be like if I was diagnosed now.

Worked full time until 2016 when I could afford to go to a three day week, still contributing though. Happy to. This lasted until 2020 when Walsh used the Pandemic and a refusal of government support, to settle his beef with the party of IAG that most turned a profit in normal times.
So after 37 years, I was out.
Luckily when I joined there was still such a thing called decent company pensions, though over the years they did try, with cash bribes, to encourage us to switch to newer (worse) schemes, for some that money could have been needed and their other circumstances suited it, not me though.
Again, I shudder at what it’s like for young people now entering the workplace, poor pensions, all those ‘zero hours contracts’, small wonder, unlike our generation, getting into the housing market, even leaving home, is very different.
They are not ‘snowflakes’ as the client media have it, just victims of political choices.

Having said that, what damage did that Truss do to it? Millions of pensions affected by her mad ideas. No contrition though.

We can blame the health system, who runs it, who has been for over a dozen years?
Politicians, Health Secretaries like that wretched Matt Hancock, or a recent if short lived one, that Coffey woman, all corpulence, booze and cigars, who as the crisis worsened, was most vexed by the use of a certain kind of punctuation within the system.
Or you can think what ‘30p Lee Anderson’ (so named as he, on 80,000 a year plus, thinks 30p is enough to live on per day, plus its the Nurses fault for not budgeting).
Not sure if he was the Tory MP who accused the Royal College of Nursing (on strike for the first time ever) of effectively working for Putin.
Yes, they are as awful as that.
Not that it’s working if polling is remotely accurate.

For what its worth I neither did, nor would, vote for the bunch of self-serving idiots "running" the country now, and wouldn't challenge your views on the current incumbents.
(on a personal note, like you did, I'm about to go onto a reduced 3 day working week, being an old(er) git and all )

I suspect the reference to Manufacturing Engineering went over your head. ME is ALL about the provision of VALUE

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here.

That was the whole point of my post, and the reference to a "system" with inputs (resources, money), a process (the provision of care), and an output (healthier, or better cared for people). The VALUE is the care provided. Lots of ambulances waiting in queues doesn't create value. Theatre staff available but not working doesn't create value. A senior staff nurse chasing round the hospital looking for an oxygen bottle doesn't create value.
If you don't think the Health service is a system that fits that description, I'd be interested to know.

Paradoxically, we've just had what I consider to be one of the most left wing, tax raising, budgets of any government for the last 20 years.
I certainly agree that more money is part of a solution.
But the supply of money is, and will be strictly limited.
The very taxes that provide that money are going to stifle GDP growth for years to come, and the IMF has clearly stated.
Which will stifle further funding growth

Whatever money is provided HAS to be spent as wisely as possible to provide the best value possible. That is surely just a fact, and not worthy of debate?

I don't think anyone would resent the health workers receiving a pay rise that at least matches inflation.
But that in itself will create inflationary pressure going forward and be self-perpetuating.
Back to the '70's again.

Whether you like the manufacturing analogy or not, the ONLY way to ever provide inflation matching wages and yet kill inflation, has been to increase productivity - in this case the more effective provision of care. And in the long term, the upshot of that is that fewer workers will be employed.
Not that I like it, but you watch what happens when an "unaffordable" pay award is agreed.
Watch ....

And no. The Conservatives aren't the only party that have wasted money in running the health system - it's been going on for decades, including Labour Governments.
I've watched them do it.
Is this lot the worst?
I couldn't argue with that.

My point is that it doesn't matter who runs it going forward, they have to fix structural issues that prevent the health system performing, in order to make the best use of the limited resources that will be available.
Not even a debate IMO. Surely?

Rgds

I don’t disagree, though I think with mismanagement, as the COVID public inquiry ramps up we are going to hear of unprecedented levels of mismanagement leading up and during the Pandemic. We know there has been an awful lot of corruption around that with people part, once part of, or a donor to the current government. That is new in the 75 year history of the service. As well as the desire of some of apply their doctrines to it (you’d think Liz Truss would learn but no, plenty in her party still support her ideas too).
We have to think differently post pandemic as we had to post WW2.
The Shadow Health Secretary is young, though a good communicator with recent experience of the service through cancer treatment which he has publicly said given him cause to think hard about reforms.

Voicing this has got him in hot water with some in his party and the left wing commentariat, obviously in particular with allies of the former leader.
Though he wouldn’t have said these things without clearance from the current leader.
They are going to inherit an unprecedented mess in the system, with the limited resources, which will be a fact when getting in whatever changes are made to increase them, in revenue raising (not just taxation) which in any case will take time.
So I have no problem for instance in using as a measure to clear those backlogs the private sector, the Blair government did the same to clear backlogs though that seems to be forgotten about, including by those who, correctly, cite comparisons with the waiting lists, public satisfaction with, the system at the end of their 13 years to 2019 and especially now.
That didn’t happen overnight. Or even in one Parliamentary term.

But there will always be room for improvement, a bit like say defence procurement!

astuteman wrote:

GDB wrote:

astuteman wrote:

Seeing as how you asked the question, the answers can easily be found ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita

Ok, its Wiki, but it has some really interesting stats in it.

"We know we spend less than them" actually results in us being somehwere in the middle of European Countries on a PPP basis.

As for the USA, I'm not remotely interested in "Whataboutism" - especially with the USA as a benchmark
I could just as well point to Portugal, Spain or Italy, who spend dramatically less than us on health care per Capita, but achieve a better outcome.
It in no way excuses the profligate waste of taxpayers money due to inefficiency - however much is spent.

The Wiki page has a chart embedded in it that is really interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ending.jpg

To pick a few data points....

USA - $10,000 per capita, life expectancy 78.6 years.
Germany - $5,700 per capita, life expectancy 81 years.
UK - $4,000 per capita, life expectancy 81.3 years.
Italy - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.
Spain - $3,200 per capita, life expectancy 83.3 years.

If anything the data tends to support the reality that the more spending goes up, the worse the outcome.

I don't know any other industry that would just throw heaps of money at a delivery system before it had it fixed.
Maybe I think like this because I've been a Manufacturing Engineer most of my working life, I don't know.

My genuine worry is that if we only focus on "more money" we will be missing the point, and will miss the outcome.
Which makes me a lot less interested in political points scoring.

Rgds

I don’t think we can, or should, compare a health system, as the various kinds in Europe at least work, to a business, manufacturing or otherwise.
Note the link on my previous post to this, comparing us to EU nations in the last decade. I would suggest as a result of political choice.
Two of the examples are certainly interesting, recall how Italy, seen as having one of the best systems in the world, which came under the unexpected attack from the pandemic. We even had a few weeks warning.

But is there more to it, we hear a lot about ‘the Mediterranean Diet’, are there lifestyle and other factors in their societies that affect average lifespan?
There is a consensus that more preventive action is better, for the users, yet even moderate attempts to say do a sugar tax, to limit fast food outlets near schools, are watered down if not scrapped.
Yet we know we have had success with this for things like smoking and some with alcohol, younger people are drinking less in general.
Away from Europe, Japan has a longer lifespan average than most, diet is cited, though there will be other factors unique to their society.

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here. A healthier workforce is more productive, a population in general less of a strain on other services.
Which leads back to Rheinharts point about UK productivity, (aside from the long term lack of investment compared to peer nations).
For my part, when diagnosed in 2000, I got rapid treatment and have to take a bunch of medications to control it, luckily no prescription charges as it’s a lifetime, acute condition.
Is that a burden on the taxpayer? No, it allowed me, within weeks, to return to my job full time, therefore paying my tax and N.I. so contributing to the service. I call that a virtuous circle.
I hate to think what it would be like if I was diagnosed now.

Worked full time until 2016 when I could afford to go to a three day week, still contributing though. Happy to. This lasted until 2020 when Walsh used the Pandemic and a refusal of government support, to settle his beef with the party of IAG that most turned a profit in normal times.
So after 37 years, I was out.
Luckily when I joined there was still such a thing called decent company pensions, though over the years they did try, with cash bribes, to encourage us to switch to newer (worse) schemes, for some that money could have been needed and their other circumstances suited it, not me though.
Again, I shudder at what it’s like for young people now entering the workplace, poor pensions, all those ‘zero hours contracts’, small wonder, unlike our generation, getting into the housing market, even leaving home, is very different.
They are not ‘snowflakes’ as the client media have it, just victims of political choices.

Having said that, what damage did that Truss do to it? Millions of pensions affected by her mad ideas. No contrition though.

We can blame the health system, who runs it, who has been for over a dozen years?
Politicians, Health Secretaries like that wretched Matt Hancock, or a recent if short lived one, that Coffey woman, all corpulence, booze and cigars, who as the crisis worsened, was most vexed by the use of a certain kind of punctuation within the system.
Or you can think what ‘30p Lee Anderson’ (so named as he, on 80,000 a year plus, thinks 30p is enough to live on per day, plus its the Nurses fault for not budgeting).
Not sure if he was the Tory MP who accused the Royal College of Nursing (on strike for the first time ever) of effectively working for Putin.
Yes, they are as awful as that.
Not that it’s working if polling is remotely accurate.

For what its worth I neither did, nor would, vote for the bunch of self-serving idiots "running" the country now, and wouldn't challenge your views on the current incumbents.
(on a personal note, like you did, I'm about to go onto a reduced 3 day working week, being an old(er) git and all )

I suspect the reference to Manufacturing Engineering went over your head. ME is ALL about the provision of VALUE

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here.

That was the whole point of my post, and the reference to a "system" with inputs (resources, money), a process (the provision of care), and an output (healthier, or better cared for people). The VALUE is the care provided. Lots of ambulances waiting in queues doesn't create value. Theatre staff available but not working doesn't create value. A senior staff nurse chasing round the hospital looking for an oxygen bottle doesn't create value.
If you don't think the Health service is a system that fits that description, I'd be interested to know.

Paradoxically, we've just had what I consider to be one of the most left wing, tax raising, budgets of any government for the last 20 years.
I certainly agree that more money is part of a solution.
But the supply of money is, and will be strictly limited.
The very taxes that provide that money are going to stifle GDP growth for years to come, and the IMF has clearly stated.
Which will stifle further funding growth

Whatever money is provided HAS to be spent as wisely as possible to provide the best value possible. That is surely just a fact, and not worthy of debate?

I don't think anyone would resent the health workers receiving a pay rise that at least matches inflation.
But that in itself will create inflationary pressure going forward and be self-perpetuating.
Back to the '70's again.

Whether you like the manufacturing analogy or not, the ONLY way to ever provide inflation matching wages and yet kill inflation, has been to increase productivity - in this case the more effective provision of care. And in the long term, the upshot of that is that fewer workers will be employed.
Not that I like it, but you watch what happens when an "unaffordable" pay award is agreed.
Watch ....

And no. The Conservatives aren't the only party that have wasted money in running the health system - it's been going on for decades, including Labour Governments.
I've watched them do it.
Is this lot the worst?
I couldn't argue with that.

My point is that it doesn't matter who runs it going forward, they have to fix structural issues that prevent the health system performing, in order to make the best use of the limited resources that will be available.
Not even a debate IMO. Surely?

Rgds

The money is there.

It's certainly there for BAE, Babcock, QinetiQ etc and rightly so.

I suspect you're looking at this too much from the angle of a manufacturing and processes man. We could go on with a billion examples of poor value/productivity we have witnessed or experienced in the healthcare sector. But in the grand scheme of things, they make little difference because the time to discharge (a metric used by medical teams and bed/site managers) doesn't change. There are over 10 000 medically fit patients on hospital wards ready for discharge as I write this. That's where the bottleneck is, caused by a lack of beds and staff in the community.

The population is aging, people are living longer, and we're intervening medically and surgically. Most of my family (and friends) are in this field. Hemis on fractured Nofs for 95 year olds are the norm. Probably a good time to buy shares in Stryker (orthopaedic stuff) and Medica (teleradiology).

I'm due to leave for work abroad shortly so I scheduled a gathering with friends this weekend gone to watch the rugby. One of the chaps works as an acute medicine consultant. We were at a steakhouse 5 minutes from the hospital and he was due to join us after his shift finished at 5. The last patient his junior clerked was an elderly lady who the care home called the ambulance for due to 'increasing confusion'. When he looked at her history, this was her 18th attendance since 2020 for the same reason. The care home are refusing to accept her back.

This is the entire point, we all agree that money needs to be spent wisely. We can probably all agree it hasn't always been done so and certainly not in the last decade.

As we keep on saying, the money has been there. It can be there again. But it's been government decisions on where they money has been wasted. As I said earlier it's not just a few hundred million here and there. We're talking 100's of billions, when you factor in everything from GDP lost through Brexit and therefore tax take, billions lost through fraud during covid, billions lost through track and trace, billions due to the UK's lack of productivity. The list is endless... The money is there, if A government decides it should be, or takes the right decisions.

The problem is now, with that money gone and seemingly no will to get it back (people need to be jailed and money recovered as I already said) and UK's debt/ borrowing costs off the charts, the next incoming government will have a very tough time in the short term to make the changes required. But, if Labour do follow through with what they have said they will do, there should still be enough to pay public sector works enough, and there should be competent people running departments to resolve the immediate issues that exist.

Longer term everything needs more money, and yes that comes from a more stable, higher performing economy (new Brexit deal needed, single market access please), more tax (not levels but overall due to higher GDP), more technical / higher paying jobs, more apprenticeships, vast support for manufacturing for the new green economy etc etc. Without that plan in place the NHS could well end up being fully privatised (and that, may well have been the plan all along from certain Tory MPs) but it's a guaranteed election loser (which by all accounts will happen anyway - you wonder what they think they have left to lose).

Back to Health, yes the problem of "bed blockers" (hate that phrase), is one of the biggest issues right now and it filters all the way to the front doors of A&E. And again goes back to decisions taken in the last 10 years not to resolve the care / care in the community issues. Same old story - appaling pay, not enough people wanting to do it, those that did - loads left because they were not British etc etc.

Chaostheory wrote:

astuteman wrote:

GDB wrote:

I don’t think we can, or should, compare a health system, as the various kinds in Europe at least work, to a business, manufacturing or otherwise.
Note the link on my previous post to this, comparing us to EU nations in the last decade. I would suggest as a result of political choice.
Two of the examples are certainly interesting, recall how Italy, seen as having one of the best systems in the world, which came under the unexpected attack from the pandemic. We even had a few weeks warning.

But is there more to it, we hear a lot about ‘the Mediterranean Diet’, are there lifestyle and other factors in their societies that affect average lifespan?
There is a consensus that more preventive action is better, for the users, yet even moderate attempts to say do a sugar tax, to limit fast food outlets near schools, are watered down if not scrapped.
Yet we know we have had success with this for things like smoking and some with alcohol, younger people are drinking less in general.
Away from Europe, Japan has a longer lifespan average than most, diet is cited, though there will be other factors unique to their society.

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here. A healthier workforce is more productive, a population in general less of a strain on other services.
Which leads back to Rheinharts point about UK productivity, (aside from the long term lack of investment compared to peer nations).
For my part, when diagnosed in 2000, I got rapid treatment and have to take a bunch of medications to control it, luckily no prescription charges as it’s a lifetime, acute condition.
Is that a burden on the taxpayer? No, it allowed me, within weeks, to return to my job full time, therefore paying my tax and N.I. so contributing to the service. I call that a virtuous circle.
I hate to think what it would be like if I was diagnosed now.

Worked full time until 2016 when I could afford to go to a three day week, still contributing though. Happy to. This lasted until 2020 when Walsh used the Pandemic and a refusal of government support, to settle his beef with the party of IAG that most turned a profit in normal times.
So after 37 years, I was out.
Luckily when I joined there was still such a thing called decent company pensions, though over the years they did try, with cash bribes, to encourage us to switch to newer (worse) schemes, for some that money could have been needed and their other circumstances suited it, not me though.
Again, I shudder at what it’s like for young people now entering the workplace, poor pensions, all those ‘zero hours contracts’, small wonder, unlike our generation, getting into the housing market, even leaving home, is very different.
They are not ‘snowflakes’ as the client media have it, just victims of political choices.

Having said that, what damage did that Truss do to it? Millions of pensions affected by her mad ideas. No contrition though.

We can blame the health system, who runs it, who has been for over a dozen years?
Politicians, Health Secretaries like that wretched Matt Hancock, or a recent if short lived one, that Coffey woman, all corpulence, booze and cigars, who as the crisis worsened, was most vexed by the use of a certain kind of punctuation within the system.
Or you can think what ‘30p Lee Anderson’ (so named as he, on 80,000 a year plus, thinks 30p is enough to live on per day, plus its the Nurses fault for not budgeting).
Not sure if he was the Tory MP who accused the Royal College of Nursing (on strike for the first time ever) of effectively working for Putin.
Yes, they are as awful as that.
Not that it’s working if polling is remotely accurate.

For what its worth I neither did, nor would, vote for the bunch of self-serving idiots "running" the country now, and wouldn't challenge your views on the current incumbents.
(on a personal note, like you did, I'm about to go onto a reduced 3 day working week, being an old(er) git and all )

I suspect the reference to Manufacturing Engineering went over your head. ME is ALL about the provision of VALUE

I worry that there is a ‘cost of everything, value of nothing’ issue here.

That was the whole point of my post, and the reference to a "system" with inputs (resources, money), a process (the provision of care), and an output (healthier, or better cared for people). The VALUE is the care provided. Lots of ambulances waiting in queues doesn't create value. Theatre staff available but not working doesn't create value. A senior staff nurse chasing round the hospital looking for an oxygen bottle doesn't create value.
If you don't think the Health service is a system that fits that description, I'd be interested to know.

Paradoxically, we've just had what I consider to be one of the most left wing, tax raising, budgets of any government for the last 20 years.
I certainly agree that more money is part of a solution.
But the supply of money is, and will be strictly limited.
The very taxes that provide that money are going to stifle GDP growth for years to come, and the IMF has clearly stated.
Which will stifle further funding growth

Whatever money is provided HAS to be spent as wisely as possible to provide the best value possible. That is surely just a fact, and not worthy of debate?

I don't think anyone would resent the health workers receiving a pay rise that at least matches inflation.
But that in itself will create inflationary pressure going forward and be self-perpetuating.
Back to the '70's again.

Whether you like the manufacturing analogy or not, the ONLY way to ever provide inflation matching wages and yet kill inflation, has been to increase productivity - in this case the more effective provision of care. And in the long term, the upshot of that is that fewer workers will be employed.
Not that I like it, but you watch what happens when an "unaffordable" pay award is agreed.
Watch ....

And no. The Conservatives aren't the only party that have wasted money in running the health system - it's been going on for decades, including Labour Governments.
I've watched them do it.
Is this lot the worst?
I couldn't argue with that.

My point is that it doesn't matter who runs it going forward, they have to fix structural issues that prevent the health system performing, in order to make the best use of the limited resources that will be available.
Not even a debate IMO. Surely?

Rgds

The money is there.

It's certainly there for BAE, Babcock, QinetiQ etc and rightly so.

I suspect you're looking at this too much from the angle of a manufacturing and processes man. We could go on with a billion examples of poor value/productivity we have witnessed or experienced in the healthcare sector. But in the grand scheme of things, they make little difference because the time to discharge (a metric used by medical teams and bed/site managers) doesn't change. There are over 10 000 medically fit patients on hospital wards ready for discharge as I write this. That's where the bottleneck is, caused by a lack of beds and staff in the community.

The population is aging, people are living longer, and we're intervening medically and surgically. Most of my family (and friends) are in this field. Hemis on fractured Nofs for 95 year olds are the norm. Probably a good time to buy shares in Stryker (orthopaedic stuff) and Medica (teleradiology).

I'm due to leave for work abroad shortly so I scheduled a gathering with friends this weekend gone to watch the rugby. One of the chaps works as an acute medicine consultant. We were at a steakhouse 5 minutes from the hospital and he was due to join us after his shift finished at 5. The last patient his junior clerked was an elderly lady who the care home called the ambulance for due to 'increasing confusion'. When he looked at her history, this was her 18th attendance since 2020 for the same reason. The care home are refusing to accept her back.

Yep. Apologies if this sent us down a bit of a rabbit hole.

Thanks for the chuckle though. After criticising me for using the angle of "a manufacturing and process man" you then went on to do exactly that ... e.g.

the time to discharge (a metric used by medical teams and bed/site managers) doesn't change. There are over 10 000 medically fit patients on hospital wards ready for discharge as I write this. That's where the bottleneck is, caused by a lack of beds and staff in the community.

Exactly my points about a process that doesn't "flow", and therefore takes too long, because its bottlenecked.
You're not an ME on the QT are you?

The reason why I went down that route is that I feel the need to kick back at the "The money's there" argument.
Some money is there, without question.
You point out that other parts of public spending will be demanding funding too, rightly so, you said.
So it's not a bottomless pit, and fully justified pay rises will only sharpen the limitations.

Identify those bottlenecks (e.g. release of patients back into care) and watch the effectiveness of the system improve - even in areas where no money is spent.
This government absolutely deserves criticism for not doing that.

Rgds

astuteman wrote:

Yep. Apologies if this sent us down a bit of a rabbit hole.

Thanks for the chuckle though. After criticising me for using the angle of "a manufacturing and process man" you then went on to do exactly that ... e.g.

the time to discharge (a metric used by medical teams and bed/site managers) doesn't change. There are over 10 000 medically fit patients on hospital wards ready for discharge as I write this. That's where the bottleneck is, caused by a lack of beds and staff in the community.

Exactly my points about a process that doesn't "flow", and therefore takes too long, because its bottlenecked.
You're not an ME on the QT are you?

The reason why I went down that route is that I feel the need to kick back at the "The money's there" argument.
Some money is there, without question.
You point out that other parts of public spending will be demanding funding too, rightly so, you said.
So it's not a bottomless pit, and fully justified pay rises will only sharpen the limitations.

Identify those bottlenecks (e.g. release of patients back into care) and watch the effectiveness of the system improve - even in areas where no money is spent.
This government absolutely deserves criticism for not doing that.

Rgds

Not a medical expert. I managed 3 and a bit years of med school before realising it wasn't for me whilst observing a GP. I worked as what was referred to as a nursing auxiliary through my studies. Not sure what they call them now. Wife is a dr, 6 siblings are drs with another in his 4th year at Newcastle. Grandfathers were drs. My neighbours are drs. I'm pretty sick of drs! And despite what the wife may tell you, I do listen.

Going back a few years prior to this mess, a lot of NHS Trusts had actually budgeted and made efficiency saving elsewhere in previous years so they could accomodate payrises (in the region of 3-4%) for staff on agenda for change contracts. This is all documented in submissions to the NHS pay review board. Yet the government continually "awarded" the miserly increases which led to this.

The junior doctors have only just been balloted and I suspect they too will vote yes. Post graduation, the aforementioned younger brother who is a med student is planning on completing his F1-F2 training and then leaving for Australia. As are a lot of his friends. I don't blame them in the slightest.

As far as the elderly lady is concerned, it could be confusion + loneliness. If she lives alone or by herself, that could be a dangerous mixture. In India we do have old-age homes where the elderly can do somethings and look after each other. They are shared spaces though. No idea how it is in UK.

pune wrote:

c933103 wrote:

pune wrote:

Think that's a very simplistic take and possibly that is what the media feeds, but if you look at the developing countries you would find they are still far far behind. For e.g. what do you think about Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Qatar what would you say they are, developing or developed economies. Keeping in mind that they are similar or maybe tad smaller than UK. I would suggest that for bigger countries, denser populations etc. it is harder to get growth than the more smaller nimble countries, more so if they are democracies. There are solutions but they would need, for e.g. Proportional Representation could change lot of things. Also recall system. That would make political leaders more answerable to people. You need both. Unless that happens, don't see the laziness or unaccountability stopping anytime soon. And this is not just for UK, even countries like India too.

There are little bearing on whether they are democracy or whether they are using which exact election system. And country size also does not matter. The key matter is trade is open. That developing countries are still pretty far from developed countries just mean there are still more room for such process to continue.

Trade cannot happen by itself. You need foundation in engineering. You need R&D. The Chinese are spending 25-30% and more of their profits on it. Others are not. If you don't do research, you become stale in this competitive world. That's the reason Samsung for e.g. just opened one in Vietnam -

https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung- ... ttend-vip/

We are talking about trading of poduct of labour force on international labour market. Which is the main reason developing countries around the world are developing in the past half century. Domestic R&D aren't helping people in poor countries to earn US$10 a day instead of US$1 a day. This is a totally wrong approach to see the issue.

c933103 wrote:

pune wrote:

c933103 wrote:

There are little bearing on whether they are democracy or whether they are using which exact election system. And country size also does not matter. The key matter is trade is open. That developing countries are still pretty far from developed countries just mean there are still more room for such process to continue.

Trade cannot happen by itself. You need foundation in engineering. You need R&D. The Chinese are spending 25-30% and more of their profits on it. Others are not. If you don't do research, you become stale in this competitive world. That's the reason Samsung for e.g. just opened one in Vietnam -

https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung- ... ttend-vip/

We are talking about trading of poduct of labour force on international labour market. Which is the main reason developing countries around the world are developing in the past half century. Domestic R&D aren't helping people in poor countries to earn US$10 a day instead of US$1 a day. This is a totally wrong approach to see the issue.

I think there are two parts of the issue, one part is specifically that people whether in developing world or developed world want things at low-cost. If you want things at low-cost then only two ways to achieve it, either have manufacturing in developing countries or have more and more automation in developed countries. Both have their pros and cons. For e.g. as we see in the automotive industry, most of the legacy manufacturers are unable to make the new thing (EV's) as changes were little and not too often. Most safety changes were lobbied against so they don't have modular manufacturing which is need of the hour. This is what Tesla and the Chinese have been doing. And I think this type of manufacturing sooner or later would happen to all industries. Especially with enhancements in not just material science but nanotechnology. Those who can embrace the change will live while others will perish.

We don't look have to look far, after Meltdown and Spectre, Intel doesn't have as much pull as AMD has. While at one time Intel used to be the master and fund AMD so they are not hit by competitive fines by EU and others. Now it's the other way around. AMD are practically eating their lunch. The same is happening in mobile phones, except for Samsung, the market whether in India or abroad is captured by the Chinese. They produce fast, they change things fast and they spread knowledge within their own communities. In both these industries and more, there is a reason you have n number of competitors encouraged by the State itself.

My point is it's not just labor but more of a mixture of things. How do you drive competition in your own market will drive competition in others. Because the Chinese Govt. is allowing competition in the mobile space and the EV space the industries had to become nimble and be on the move all the while.

If you create barriers like UK has done, then of course you will lose advantage and your people will get lower quality of goods and less variety. At least when you were in EU, you had some competition and everybody had similar level playing field. Also when labor moves from X to Y they also learn new ways of doing things, culture etc. all of which one way or the other does benefit people back home.

This is from my country which is hoping to get some a fab going.

https://www.livemint.com/news/world/tai ... 10935.html

Now as you can see if my people have to acquire the new skills, they not only have to speak and learn about how semiconductors and fab equipment behave, they also would have to master Mandarin Chinese.

I wonder how many people in UK would be open to learning another language.

pune wrote:

c933103 wrote:

pune wrote:

Trade cannot happen by itself. You need foundation in engineering. You need R&D. The Chinese are spending 25-30% and more of their profits on it. Others are not. If you don't do research, you become stale in this competitive world. That's the reason Samsung for e.g. just opened one in Vietnam -

https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung- ... ttend-vip/

We are talking about trading of poduct of labour force on international labour market. Which is the main reason developing countries around the world are developing in the past half century. Domestic R&D aren't helping people in poor countries to earn US$10 a day instead of US$1 a day. This is a totally wrong approach to see the issue.

I think there are two parts of the issue, one part is specifically that people whether in developing world or developed world want things at low-cost. If you want things at low-cost then only two ways to achieve it, either have manufacturing in developing countries or have more and more automation in developed countries. Both have their pros and cons. For e.g. as we see in the automotive industry, most of the legacy manufacturers are unable to make the new thing (EV's) as changes were little and not too often. Most safety changes were lobbied against so they don't have modular manufacturing which is need of the hour. This is what Tesla and the Chinese have been doing. And I think this type of manufacturing sooner or later would happen to all industries. Especially with enhancements in not just material science but nanotechnology. Those who can embrace the change will live while others will perish.

We don't look have to look far, after Meltdown and Spectre, Intel doesn't have as much pull as AMD has. While at one time Intel used to be the master and fund AMD so they are not hit by competitive fines by EU and others. Now it's the other way around. AMD are practically eating their lunch. The same is happening in mobile phones, except for Samsung, the market whether in India or abroad is captured by the Chinese. They produce fast, they change things fast and they spread knowledge within their own communities. In both these industries and more, there is a reason you have n number of competitors encouraged by the State itself.

My point is it's not just labor but more of a mixture of things. How do you drive competition in your own market will drive competition in others. Because the Chinese Govt. is allowing competition in the mobile space and the EV space the industries had to become nimble and be on the move all the while.

If you create barriers like UK has done, then of course you will lose advantage and your people will get lower quality of goods and less variety. At least when you were in EU, you had some competition and everybody had similar level playing field. Also when labor moves from X to Y they also learn new ways of doing things, culture etc. all of which one way or the other does benefit people back home.

This is from my country which is hoping to get some a fab going.

https://www.livemint.com/news/world/tai ... 10935.html

Now as you can see if my people have to acquire the new skills, they not only have to speak and learn about how semiconductors and fab equipment behave, they also would have to master Mandarin Chinese.

I wonder how many people in UK would be open to learning another language.

People want things cheaply is not an "issue". It's an intrinsic nature of competition and of the market.
And it is not whether people in UK want to learn to get such a job, but rather the wage and working environment willing to ve offer by Foxconn is too low for workers and labor law in the UK. Even lower than what those workers are now protesting against.

c933103 wrote:

pune wrote:

c933103 wrote:

We are talking about trading of poduct of labour force on international labour market. Which is the main reason developing countries around the world are developing in the past half century. Domestic R&D aren't helping people in poor countries to earn US$10 a day instead of US$1 a day. This is a totally wrong approach to see the issue.

I think there are two parts of the issue, one part is specifically that people whether in developing world or developed world want things at low-cost. If you want things at low-cost then only two ways to achieve it, either have manufacturing in developing countries or have more and more automation in developed countries. Both have their pros and cons. For e.g. as we see in the automotive industry, most of the legacy manufacturers are unable to make the new thing (EV's) as changes were little and not too often. Most safety changes were lobbied against so they don't have modular manufacturing which is need of the hour. This is what Tesla and the Chinese have been doing. And I think this type of manufacturing sooner or later would happen to all industries. Especially with enhancements in not just material science but nanotechnology. Those who can embrace the change will live while others will perish.

We don't look have to look far, after Meltdown and Spectre, Intel doesn't have as much pull as AMD has. While at one time Intel used to be the master and fund AMD so they are not hit by competitive fines by EU and others. Now it's the other way around. AMD are practically eating their lunch. The same is happening in mobile phones, except for Samsung, the market whether in India or abroad is captured by the Chinese. They produce fast, they change things fast and they spread knowledge within their own communities. In both these industries and more, there is a reason you have n number of competitors encouraged by the State itself.

My point is it's not just labor but more of a mixture of things. How do you drive competition in your own market will drive competition in others. Because the Chinese Govt. is allowing competition in the mobile space and the EV space the industries had to become nimble and be on the move all the while.

If you create barriers like UK has done, then of course you will lose advantage and your people will get lower quality of goods and less variety. At least when you were in EU, you had some competition and everybody had similar level playing field. Also when labor moves from X to Y they also learn new ways of doing things, culture etc. all of which one way or the other does benefit people back home.

This is from my country which is hoping to get some a fab going.

https://www.livemint.com/news/world/tai ... 10935.html

Now as you can see if my people have to acquire the new skills, they not only have to speak and learn about how semiconductors and fab equipment behave, they also would have to master Mandarin Chinese.

I wonder how many people in UK would be open to learning another language.

People want things cheaply is not an "issue". It's an intrinsic nature of competition and of the market.
And it is not whether people in UK want to learn to get such a job, but rather the wage and working environment willing to ve offer by Foxconn is too low for workers and labor law in the UK. Even lower than what those workers are now protesting against.

If I were a boss at Foxconn, I wouldn't invest today in the UK because of something that happened in 2016 and the resultant export trade barriers that are there. Both of these will kill. Add to that the bonfire of regulations that the UK is planning. No one has any idea what will be killed and what will survive. In such a scenario, again no investments will come in. The only bright spot is that an Australian company may buy it -

https://www.driving.co.uk/news/business ... gafactory/

For any such firm, they would look at exports as just domestic sales would not make the firm solvent.

I remember buying hobby kits or stuff from UK when it was cheap but after whatever has happened, I had to stop buying Raspberry Pi's due to atrocious wait times and the custom fees that I would have to pay. Some comments that people have made/shared of the same. This is a made in UK product. And of course for your products the larger market would probably be your neighbours rather than India (from where I am.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/c ... of_brexit/

How much they have lost in sales nobody knows