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Who says it is a NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE?

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anotheoldgit | 15:15 Fri 01st Apr 2011 | News
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For how much longer have the English people got to accept that health care in England is dearer than anywhere else in this myth of a United Kingdom?

From today it is only the English that will have to pay £7.40 per prescription item, an increase this year of 20p.

By paying this the English are subsiding free drugs for the rest of the UK, how can this be fair?

/// Ministers claim that it is not possible for England to abolish the charges because it would leave the NHS with debts of £450million a year.///

Yet they are perfectly happy to spend' £7.8 billion' on overseas aid.

This is the country that will also cut their pensioners winter fuel allowance, and then watch some die of hypothermia, because they can't afford to have their heating on.

Spend this 37.8 billion on propping up the NHS, and paying our pensioners enough to heat their homes.

Charity 'should' begin at home.
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You get the policies from the Government that you vote for.

The other countries in the United Kingdom have not voted in a Conservative Government.

No one is subsidising anyone else. The other UK Governments have just allocated their Budgets differently. They have decided to spend on free prescriptions, which means they will have less to spend on other items such as roads.
AOG....that 7.8 billion of foreign aid if diverted to the NHS would cover the money paid out by the NHS for medical negligence...........that´s it.

The NHS has been haemorrhaging money for the past 35 years and we cannot go on doing this.

O:K divert the Overseas Aid, but it would be just a drop in the NHS ocean.
You put it much better than I ever could Gromit.

What gives with this 'English subsidise the rest of the UK' anyway?
<<Charity 'should' begin at home. >>

Yes. And it does. That is where the vast majority of our resources are spent.

But what you really mean is it should finish there.

So no.

If however you insist that charity begins and ends at home - fine I'll just help the people in my immediate circle - sod your pensioners. Is that what you had in mind?
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it's worse that that AOG, I sometimes think I'm the only one in the entire country who pays for prescriptions. I get a regular prescription and I have yet to see anyone actually pay, so I can only assume very few actually pay this. To add insult to injury my regular med is about two bob a hundred weight anyway!
-- answer removed --
You can get a prepaid season ticket card can't you?
How many scripts a year is the break-even?
At a guess, I would say that about 85% of prescriptions are FREE.
AOG, if you have watched the news at all today you will have seen that the NHS in England has spent a large part of its budget on walk-in centres for minor illness and injuries. Scotland has none of these and instead has opted to spend a similar amount on gradually lowering, and now abolishing, prescription charges. If it was the other way round you'd now be moaning about subsidising our walk-in centres!
I've just watched the news too, and it's said that 90% of prescriptions are still issued free - it's only those who have to pay, pay the new rate. The other countries in the UK have their own budgets, it doesn't affect ours, Wales is getting free morning-after pills now too. The NHS in England is so hideously overspent, that's why 40 of my colleagues were made rendudant yesterday, we are all working on shoestrings with huge savings made in the last twelve months - just to try to get back into some sort of financial balance.
I think that all prescriptions for over the counter medicines should be stopped.
In many cases it will be cheaper to buy a generic over the counter product than pay the prescription fee.
This will save the NHS money in the cost of processing the prescriptions and stop people abusing the system.
I am old enough to remember women getting STs on the NHS. It was stopped because most of those issued were being ripped up for the cotton wool (they were huge things then).

Stop cosmetic procedures on the NHS. No more tummy tucks, boob jobs, nose jobs, transgender surgery, unless somebody is deformed by accident, fire or a proper birth defect.
Question Author
Gromit

/// The other countries in the United Kingdom have not voted in a Conservative Government. ///

Stop bashing the Tories over and over again, admittedly on some present performance they deserve to be bashed a little.

But let's be fair we recently had a Labour Government for 13 years, they could have corrected the anomalies, but they didn't.

No countries in the UK should work on separate budgets, we are either a United kingdom, or four separate independent countries.

Time for them to make up their minds.
They already have made up their minds.

The UK only clings to life because certain tasks are better done joinly by the 4 countries. It would not really be practical for Wales to have its own army and navy, they wouldn't offer much of a force solo.

I do not see why I cannot blame the Coalition Government for prescription charges. They are the people who make you pay. Blaming past Governments is disingenous. The Welsh and the Scots had the same past Governments before they decided to do things differently. The Coaltion could bring in free prescriptions if they wanted to. But they do not.
"From today it is only the English that will have to pay £7.40 per prescription item, an increase this year of 20p.

By paying this the English are subsiding free drugs for the rest of the UK, how can this be fair? "

It's folk IN England who pay precription charges NOT only the English.

If you want to talk about the English subsidising Scotland, what about oil and gas fields? From 1980/81-2008/9, £130.4 billion has been generated in Scots waters, that’s about 89% of the total revenue but it goes to the UK Treasury.
True Corbyloon, my husband and his family are Scots but he has to pay for his prescriptions because we live in England....

Red-John, why don't you just ask your GP if you can buy the medicines then, if OTC is cheaper? Mine did that, I needed some cream and he just gave me the name of it, it was about £4 to buy, much cheaper.
Question Author
Gromit

/// Blaming past Governments is disingenuous ///

Mrs Thatcher and her Government are still being blamed for much, even though they have been out of power for the past 21 years.

So why not blame Labour also, who were only recently voted out of after 13 years in power?
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THECORBYLOON

/// From 1980/81-2008/9, £130.4 billion has been generated in Scots waters, that’s about 89% of the total revenue but it goes to the UK Treasury. ///

I beg your pardon, don't you mean UK waters, funded by UK money?
They are the UK's territorial waters ONLY because Scotland is not an independant nation but the are I was talking about falls within the area surrounding Scotland's coastine. That area is therefore Scots. With regard to UK investments, the fields are licensed to the companies, how much funding has been provided by the UK government?
IndependEnt is what I meant.
Question Author
THECORBYLOON

/// but the are I was talking about falls within the area surrounding Scotland's coastine. That area is therefore Scots.///

Geographically that is quite correct, but since Scotland is not an independent county, their waters are UK waters, and all the resources gained from them belong to the UK.or to the various companies it has chosen to sell them to.

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