but this conversation is being stupidly delayed as whoever brings it up will be seen as unelectable. It needs a coming together with a cross party proposal agreeing a long term funding arrangement.
That's why (in a previous post) I have argued about the NHS being outside politics, because its not simply about honest assessments or even agreements on long term funding. I used the words
" provides a great safety net for the nations health" and this is the problem in a nutshell; this is how people generally perceive the NHS. The problem is we have never fully defined what should be
in the net and what shouldn't, at the moment the vast majority of the public believe everything, 'cradle to grave' related to the individuals health is included and that is a massive field of interests (and hence costs) to cover, especially as it seems we keep adding to the list, as new medical or social situations arise, and take little or nothing out!
Realistically if we want to stop the NHS 'gobbling up' more and more of the countries resources, then there is a need to define precisely what the NHS covers, still in terms of
cradle to grave, but also in terms of what can be funded directly by the state and what and where 'excess payments' are to be applied. This cannot be solved by Politicians, it needs to be defined principally by medical profession and then enforced by the Government, of whatever political colour.
However, this of course is not going to happen because the finances associated with supporting the NHS is a handy subject area for Politicians to hang their slogans on, whether on 'the side of a bus'; or in shouts of 'its not for sale', come election time.
As it has been amply demonstrated in terms of the Brexit referendum, Politicians are incapable of following any instruction, not authorised and controlled by them, and even if by some miracle we got as far as considering taking the NHS out of the hands of politicians somehow 'politics', of one kind or another, would surface... you could put that on the side of a bus!
