Utterly shameful and a total disgrace to this country.
Pr00ne, you may be right about Howard, however it was Bliar that said he would put paid to this kind of activity, and it was he who shouted louder than anyone about how the NHS was 'safe in our hands'
Yeh right, safe it may be, but it's still as cr4p as it ever was.

Tis a sad state of affairs. RIP dear hero
Kind regards
TSM
'Caruthers, get me a large one fast, my blood is starting to boil!'

A very sad story.

A glance at the job pages in the Hootsmon (and, I dare say, the rags in Englandshire as well) shows where a lot of the extra NHS funding goes - Ad after Ad for Equalities Advisers, HR directors, managers, PAs, administrators and assorted other members of the Lifesaving Typewriter Brigade.

Eight jobs recently advertised with our local NHS trust, Total annual salary bill aound £250K. The jobs? Nursing...No, Physio....No, Theatre.....No. To man (or woman) they were all related to statistical gathering and analysis for performance measurement and benchmarking. 'nuff said eh?

...like the Smoking Cessation Officer advertised for Cambs Health Authority at about £35K pa?

RAFA, RAFBF and RBL would have most certainly become involved but they have to be told of the case in need - they don't have a crystal ball and there is no mechanism [as far as I know] for a hospital, etc, to inform them. Sometimes a home will involve the Service charities if there is a member of staff that has a Forces background or a relative in the Forces, thus knowing a bit more than the average about these organisations. Their welfare officers would have taken an active part in arranging for life for the old chap to have been a lot more comfortable in his twighlight years.

I just hope and pray that when it's my time, I die suddenly, without warning and am dead before I hit the pavement. Not only will it avoid me having to suffer similar indignities, but it will spare my family the torment and anguish of having a frail and sick old man to help - they have their own lives to get on with and I have no wish to have them worry about me...

What grieves me about all this is the lack of respect that exists for our older generations. As a nation, we see them as a "problem". Everything about getting old is seen as an issue.



:(


Mark.

Which lets face it is crazy. We're all gonna be old sooner or later.

I wonder why our nation is so blind to age. The Italians adore their grandparents, and the Americans have loads of deals and schemes for those in their 'Golden years'.

Where did it all break down in the UK? Shouldn't we be looking after our own parents at home as they looked after us as children? Why should they 'go in a home' to rot?

Is making money that important?

Hmmm, so how come you are all so happy to believe the story in the Torygraph? Normally you have nothing but vitriol for members of the 4th estate. Could it be because the story backs up political views that you already held i.e. Tory = good, Labour = bad.

I remember the Tories changing the way in which the unemployment figures were counted as they furiously tried to stop the 3 million mark being reached when they had proudly boasted that they would get Britain Working.

Howard is a gutless, back sliding, unprincipled scammer. He didn't have the honesty to answer Paxman many years back when he was caught twisting the truth; he is telling people that he can by some miracle improve public services whilst cutting taxes; and if it looks as if he has chosen an unpopular policy he backs down very quickly because all he wants is power.

I do not support Labour, and have never voted for them, but some of you guys on here remind me of the old Colonel Blimp caracature with your blind allegiance to the Tories under Howard.

If he is going to improve Public Services AND cut taxes, then I guess the military had better get ready for some severe project cuts............................... or he might be lying and taxes will stay the same or rise. Before anyone blathers on about cutting swathes of jobs from the Public Service sector, maybe youneed to be reminded that under Thatcher, Quango's grew faster than any PM before or since. The cuts in Public sector jobs went to more expensive contractors and consultants, something which continues to this day.

The last 8 years have proved that throwing billions at the public services does not cure a problem.

Council spending has spun out of control, alot to do witht he social burden and the ridiculous increases in the policing budget. How many more cops do you see? (standfast traffic units) I remember the promises of tens of thousands more police on the street - what utter crap.

The health service and education have absorbed the majority for a small decrease in waiting times. An example of education initiative - the result of the multi-million pound anti-truancy campaign has been reckoned by the ONS to have cost about £500,000 per truant who has returned to school.

Go on, vote for the New Labour project again fools, pay through the nose for more eye-catching, media friendly policies which acheive nothing but cost the earth. Anyway, by the end of the next parliament so much power will be divested in Brussels that Blair/Brown will accept no responsibility for the huge budget/pension/economic crisis at all.

Pontius,

My reply was the first on here, now that’s hardly “silence” is it?


Whoever was in power would have made no difference to this tragic tale, in an organisation as large as the NHS you will always have tales of woe and tales of joy. Is it better than it was after 18 years of Tory rundown, lack of investment and undermining of its very raison detre? Yes I think it is. Is it good enough? No I don’t think it is.
One hopefully positive outcome of the high profile NHS funding is receiving in this campaign is that who ever is returned to power will now feel obliged to continue high level funding whatever their previous plans had been. (Fingers crossed).

Swinging Monkey,

True, true, and he has had long enough to have an effect, but who CAN put right an organisation larger than the Swiss army?

glum,

Where did it all breakdown? I know this is a party political point and for that I apologise, but it WAS a Conservative Government who removed the right to free or subsidised health care for the elderly and replaced it with a deliberate policy of forcing people to use the inherited wealth in property to fund long term care in old age, until THAT is changed then we will all be in this situation. Before you point out that Blair has had 8 years to put this right, I agree ,a fair point and one that needs addressing.

Lee jung,

I will, thanks.

You make some good points but then ruin it by calling anyone who votes the other way a fool and ruining it even further with a wildly inaccurate cheap shot at Europe.

Right,
Enuf is enuf.................................

If I put myself up for PM, who will vote for me? I promise:
1. to look after the old - especially war heros like this chap
2. Limit scribblies/blunties to a max of 5% of total of any workforce
3. Pull out of EU and go it alone (havn't we been doing that since we joined tho'?)
4. Free Grouse for everyone
5. Every Friday pm = happy hour
6. Turn the prisons into prisons, not some 'namsy pamsy' 'institution for offenders' - lock em up, and give em $hit
7. Free flying for GA

Anyone got anymore??
Theres probably loads more, but this story has made me so mad, I just can't think at the moment.

Back to bed now, and more medication
Kind regards to all
TSM
'Caruthers, fetch me a large one'

TSM for Pope!! :D:D
http://www.clicksmilies.com/s0105/ti...smiley-080.gifhttp://www.clicksmilies.com/s0105/ti...smiley-066.gifhttp://www.clicksmilies.com/s0105/ti...smiley-090.gif

The NHS employs 1.3million people, the worlds third largest employer, after the Chinese Red Army and the Indian Railway. (Perhaps that's just an urban myth, but I can't be @rsed to look up the stats) In any case, I'm amazed that such a large organisation manages to function with so few f**k-ups.

That's because not all f**k-ups are made known to the public but are kept in house. How do I know this? Mrs Slime quite often tells me of the goings on in the NHS, and believe me it isn't pretty.

I agree, take Holby City last night - shocking!

Didn't watch it and never have, prefer to know fact rather than fiction. Still whatever appeals to the masses.......

......a sense of humour, usually.

When it comes to keeping routine f**k-ups in house, I don't think we in the armed forces fare any better than the NHS.

surely not
The papers and the politicians will say and spin things as they wish. But I saw Blair being interviewed on Monday night and he was discussing Howard's plan whereby the NHS would pay half the (NHS) cost of an NHS operation to a private hospital if the patient wanted to take his business there. (Good plan if you have the extra cash, I reckon.) But Blair constantly referred to the Conservative plan whereby the NHS would pay half the (private) cost of a private operation, which would be an entirely different and probably larger sum. Now, was this spin, lying or scaremongering? It was a bit of the last but more of something else: Blair just did not understand the very simple maths of the proposal. Now that alarms me.

Awwwww Zoom come on now!!!! Are you saying that Howard et al don't deliberately misconstrue policies by the opponents?

No, I didn't say that at all; just re-read my first sentence. But Blair wasn't just misconstruing, or even bending, shaping or spinning - he got it absolutely wrong on 3 or 4 occasions. The only misfortune was that the interviewer didn't pick him up firmly enough. As they say, you had to be there.