OT: Here's a good idea

[Peter Duncanson]

It's not as simple as that. That is the amount from council tax that goes to fund the police and fire services but is not the only source of income for those services.

In the case of police forces:

Police forces in England and Wales are each given funding from 3 main sources: Home Office Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) or the Welsh Assembly Government police precept component of local council tax

For example Avon and Somerset Police income for 2016-2017:

or

Funding from central government £178m Amount paid by council tax £98m

In the case of Avon Fire Authority the majority of the funding comes from council tax and business rates but there is some from central government. Info from:

Local councils receive sunstantial funding from central government.

Somerset County Council Statement of Account 2015 - 2016:

It is important to note that the contribution from the local community through the Council Tax represents just 24% of our revenue funding needs.

(I chose Avon and Somerset Police because it was top of an alphabetical list!)

[ARW]

You forgot to say which sex they were?

But I'll have a guess at black males.

I wonder who is doing most of the white collar crime in London?

[Vir Campestris]

Actually if you look it up you'll find that taxes on motorists cover the entire transport budget - roads, rail, buses, the lot - and with change to spare.

Andy

[Andrew]

No other country has a 'free' NHS, so there are no similar countries, unless you are thinking of Cuba or North Korea.

French workers and their employers pay massively more tax then we do, so do try selling that to the electorate.

Germany has an insurance-based system, as do most so-called 'similar' countries. It also has a massively successful and profitable export-led industrial base, so it can afford to spend more.

[Andrew]

Signs !!!!!... In 2001 Frank Dobson was health minister and was responsible for the biggest, most far-reaching, top-down total reorganisation of the NHS.

OUT went 13 efficient Regional Health Authorities who ran a standard accounting package for all the area and district health authorities. Ditto payroll. Ditto bulk supplies and purchasing

IN came 126 separate Primary Care Trusts each with a new office building, chief exec, HR system ,legal dept, payroll, swarms of new back office support staff, and stuffed full of Labour party activists, stool pidgeons, ex MPs, the whole caboodle.

Throw into the mix PFI contracts and another 440,000 staff on top of the existing 960,000 and big pay rises all round and the annual cost soon shot up from £37 Billion in 1997 to £115 Billion by 2010.

[Andrew]

Nobody knows the true cost of benefit fraud, or NHS fraud because the £1.8 Billion is based on detected fraud. Since the neither the NHS nor the DWP or their agents, the local authorities, make any effort to detect fraud, we'll never know the true figure.

[Andrew]

I think they all shop at Lidl or the all the smaller shops that are springing up everywhere.

[Andrew]

But do they insist on payment up-front ?..

This is the problem with the NHS. If you present at A&E and have a serious problem, like the lady from the Phillipines with angina so severe, she must have needed a wheelchair to get on and off the plane at each end, then the medical staff just get on with the job of fixing it, which in her case cost about £60,000 for a CAVG and included a lengthy stay in ITU to treat an infection.

She was given a bill after recovery, but just hopped it back home, appearing to be quite well off, going by the way she was dressed.

Do German and Dutch hospitals turn away someone who is liable to die at any moment if they don't have insurance cover or an EHIC ?. I'd really like to know.

[Max Demian]

How about the Nigerian woman, pregnant with quads, whose treatments cost

300k or so? What I don't understand about that story is that it is claimed that she was trying to go to America for treatment. Who was going to pay for her? There's something missing in that story.

[Andrew]

The only figure that you need to pay attention to is the amount of money the government collects every year, from all sources. How much it spends, and from those how much it needs to borrow to add to the national debt.

We still borrow £70 billion every year to carry on deluding ourselves that we are rich country.

[<frde]

That?s a lie.

Still a lie.

Another lie.

[<frde]

You borrow £70 billion every year because the voters won't wear the level of taxes that would avoid borrowing £70 billion every year and won't accept the loss of what £70 billion every year pays for.

[alan_m]

While I and my family have had good service from the NHS, as a user I can see major inefficiencies. In the last year I have had two non urgent check up appointments in near empty large NHS buildings where the staff outnumber the patients. This is in an area where the local GP practice is beginning to collapse under the number of 'new' patients and routine tests (such as blood tests) can result in a 2 hour wait in the reception areas of the local hospital.

[alan_m]

They don't use the term racist any more - it's brexiteer.

[Woody]

More to the point, she was expecting quads so she would have been HUGE. How was she even allowed into the airport let alone get on a plane?

She might have notionally going to the USA but it is probable that there are no direct flights from Lagos so she had to go via London.

Oh how convenient..................

[Martin]

At the time I was in a German hospital they did.

I'll ask the next time I visit a Dutch hospital.

[alan_m]

The same happens in private hospitals used by the NHS in the UK. I recently had an eye test (poking sticks into my eyes to measure pressure). Before I was seen I had to fill in a form with some personal details, next of kin etc. On the form was a whole section about insurance and or card details about paying for the treatment. For NHS patients this section was over-stamped with a big black NHS logo. I did observe that the receptionist/office staff was further checking the completed forms for private patients.

[Martin]

That has to be unique. How did you know that all the buildings were near empty? When I visit a hospital I have some insight into how busy the department I visit is but know nothing about the rest of the hospital. It wasn;t until Xmas when I had to visit a hospital that I discovered that our local very modern hospital no longer had any beds as a result of a silly rationalisation no doubt based on what politicians had got away with in UK again. The other hospital in the group had no free beds and I was returned home after 8 hours.

In the Netherlands blood tests are done by clinics which are independent of hospitals.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Somehow, I doubt you could.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

All councils get funding from central government.

If you want to find out what gets spent where, you'd need to see their accounts.

Having a responsibility for something doesn't mean all the funding comes from one source.