The rest of the UK
'Mon the Scottish Parliament !!
GIRUY !!!
(Ask a Scotsman what the last bit means.
) [Edited on 1/4/11 by zilspeed]
England
The rest of the UK
'Mon the Scottish Parliament !!
GIRUY !!!
(Ask a Scotsman what the last bit means. )
[Edited on 1/4/11 by zilspeed]
hmm, this is supposed to be one country. don't matter, i haven't paid for mine since 2003 anyway
You should show Daviep this after what he has put on another post about road tax and having to pay for things to get the country out the sh+t
bear in mind that something like 80% (number my partner repeated to me this morning - no idea of the origin) of the English prescriptions are free of
charge due to the fact most prescriptions issued are for babies or pensioners. Very few are issued (as a percentage) to people who work and therefore
pay. Reality therefore is this isn't a major issue.
Having said that, It pee's me off no end that Scotland and Wales have free prescriptions / hospital parking and England doesn't.
The reality (as far as i'm aware) is the money from the south east of england (most tax generated is from the south east / London) is used to
subsidise the rest of the country. Scotland, If you want devolution so much, stand on your own two feet and stop sponging off the rest of us.
I'll look forward to you begging for a handout within 10 years.
If you want to stay in the UK then i'm prefectly happy for the haves to subsidise the have nots - its what makes our society civil, i'm
perfectly happy for targetted healthcare so you end up with post code lottery care - it maximises benefit for the whole and not the individual. (which
defeats my argument in Wales, but i don't understand how they're funding things / what they're cutting)
If you want to find another of my hobby horses start on the waste / inefficiency / down right greed that is in different areas of the NHS, whilst some
people work there arses off and are completely undervalued / ignored. At least in business, the cream rises or finds another job & the others get
found out. A friend worked as an ambulance driver for a while. On day one the Unison rep welcomed them with the line "congratulations lads,
you've got a job for life - its almost impossible to get sacked from the NHS and I'm here to make sure it doesn't happen".
He's also watched a bloke who's ambulance had a tracking system installed, walk out and infront of his bosses, kick the device till it broke
off the dashboard, stamp on it till it shattered and ........ nothing.
quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
The reality (as far as i'm aware) is the money from the south east of england (most tax generated is from the south east / London) is used to subsidise the rest of the country. Scotland, If you want devolution so much, stand on your own two feet and stop sponging off the rest of us. I'll look forward to you begging for a handout within 10 years.
quote:
I'm fairly confident that Scotland could stand on it's own two feet... and prosper.
I'd be more worried if I was an Englishman and full devolution ever occurred.
mads - 1/4/11 at 06:50 PMi agree that there should not be a difference between the different countries making up the UK with regards to prescription charges but i think that we should all be paying them. as Mike rightly pointed out, the majority of people do not pay them for one reason or another e.g. under 16, over 60, medical exemption etc etc.
however, most of the time the people who do pay for prescriptions are paying a lot less than the actual cost of the drug. perfect example is a Seretide inhaler used by asthmatics or COPD patients. Depending upon type and strength, a single inhaler costs between £35 - £70. now you get a 30 something year old who has 2 of these inhalers on their prescription but only pay £7.40. as i work it out, they are paying between £62.60 - £132.60 less than the actual drug costs. sounds like a good deal to me.
now think about the number of patients who are likely to be on this inhaler - trust me there are lots. and before someone starts that many drugs cost less than a prescription, yes they do but most of them tend to be prescribed to patients who aren't paying anyway i.e. the elderly. there is a vast number of drugs that cost a lot more than a prescription charge!! an average-sized hospital trust spends between £16 - 20 million a year on drugs alone! a larger trust is likely to spend between £30 - 40 million!!!
i appreciate that the OT is to do with the unfairness of England having to pay prescription charges but I thought I'd add a different perspective to the whole discussion.
zilspeed - 1/4/11 at 07:00 PMI was only joking lads.
McLannahan - 1/4/11 at 07:26 PMIt does surprise me that no one has ever taken this down the old familiar sue-ing route. We all pay the same taxes and live in the same Britiain but yet if I lived on the border of Wales and England there's two different rules. If you were rushed into A&E into the Wales from England and were prescribed medication how would that work?
I just don't understand how it's fair to charge one and not the other? If we're all independent of one another then fine but we're not.
I understand the need to charge too, I'm not suggesting it could be free for all but what of charging all £4 instead? Surely my taxes go towards all hospitals and not just the ones within England?
GreigM - 1/4/11 at 07:36 PMquote:
Originally posted by MikeR
Having said that, It pee's me off no end that Scotland and Wales have free prescriptions / hospital parking and England doesn't.
The reality (as far as i'm aware) is the money from the south east of england (most tax generated is from the south east / London) is used to subsidise the rest of the country. Scotland, If you want devolution so much, stand on your own two feet and stop sponging off the rest of us. I'll look forward to you begging for a handout within 10 years.
If you want to stay in the UK then i'm prefectly happy for the haves to subsidise the have nots - its what makes our society civil, i'm perfectly happy for targetted healthcare so you end up with post code lottery care - it maximises benefit for the whole and not the individual. (which defeats my argument in Wales, but i don't understand how they're funding things / what they're cutting)
Why does it pee you off? Regardless of what the Scottish Government decides to spend their money on, the amount they get does not change, so the free prescriptions cost you absolutely nothing extra, and if they scrapped the scheme tomorrow you would get zero back. In reality the free prescriptions cost relatively little (as you said, most are already free regardless) and it simply means there is less funding in Scotland for other things.
I find your post quite amusing as initially you whine about sponging then try to take the moral high-ground saying "i'm perfectly happy for the haves to subsidise the have nots". Devloution/the scottish government is no more than a glorified county council, with no real "teeth" in the form of tax raising powers....if you have a complaint with the current situation your gripe lies at the door of Westminster, rather than with the people of Scotland.
MikeR - 1/4/11 at 07:42 PMIf you go to hospital its a non issue - you don't pay for drugs.
The issue is if you have a GP in England and go to a welsh pharamcy. As I recall, you'll still get charged (Mads - yes, i should know this for definate i'll flog myself later!). Note there is nothing to stop a person being born in England, moving to Scotland / Wales and getting free prescriptions. It all depends on where you live.
Confused but excited. - 1/4/11 at 07:52 PMquote:
Originally posted by MikeR
The reality (as far as i'm aware) is the money from the south east of england (most tax generated is from the south east / London)
Last time I checked, the Government statistics the north east generated far more revenue for the government than the south, despite having the lowest avarage wage.
Simon - 1/4/11 at 09:16 PMquote:
Originally posted by zilspeed
I was only joking lads.
Course you were.
Never a truer word said, than one said in jest.
ATB
Simon
MikeR - 2/4/11 at 08:00 AMquote:
Originally posted by Confused but excited.
quote:
Originally posted by MikeR
The reality (as far as i'm aware) is the money from the south east of england (most tax generated is from the south east / London)
Last time I checked, the Government statistics the north east generated far more revenue for the government than the south, despite having the lowest avarage wage.
Wowsers - any link to the stats? With all the banking etc in London i thought the corporation tax + income tax from the 'high flyers' + population density gave the south east the highest tax generation.
zilspeed - 2/4/11 at 09:53 AMquote:
Originally posted by Simon
quote:
Originally posted by zilspeed
I was only joking lads.
Course you were.
Never a truer word said, than one said in jest.
ATB
Simon
Group hug ?
Simon - 2/4/11 at 09:58 AMAhh, ok then
ATB
Simon
smart51 - 2/4/11 at 04:34 PMOn the radio this afternoon they said that only 10% of prescriptions are paid for in England. If all prescriptions were charged, they'd only have to be 74p each to raise the same amount of money. The reason for the 90% figure is that the groups who get them free are the ones who need more prescriptions.