A surprising question in de house, Jeremy’s New Deal and how ignorant politicians are about the NHS 001 – the question.

Occasionally members of the team get time off and get the opportunity to watch (the idiots) our politicians at work and so recently they watched a member of the current Party in power ask a question that will probably not do his career any favours.

We doubt that any of the team would want to have a few beers with him but nonetheless he did ask a question and, more importantly, was allowed to ask a question at Prime Minister’s Question (PMQS) time on 14/03/18 in the UK’s Houses of Parliament.

PMQs is usually at best a stone throwing contest between 2 groups of school children in the playground of a Northernshire primary school egged on by their mates behind rather than an intelligent exchange of information or challenging of ideas.

Now does anyone remember Jeremy Hunt’s new deal = same deal but worse speech for general practice back in 2015 that had members of the BMA and RCGP salivating and brown nosing to say how good it was in the hope of a gong?

Well part of that speech on the 19 June 2015 involved this quote about experienced GPs when he spoke about increasing GP numbers:

"Next, by working with the profession we will improve routes back to general practice for experienced doctors. An induction and ‘returner’ scheme for those returning to the profession from overseas or from a career break has been refreshed and now includes support with the cost of returning to general practice. Over 50 GPs have already taken up this offer.

We will also explore with the BMA and RCGP new flexibilities to retain those precious GPs who are nearing retirement but may want to work part-time as they too have a critical role to play.” 

Those “precious GPs who are nearing retirement but may want to work part-time as they too have a critical role to play”. Did Jeremy really say this when he meant idle, overpaid, under worked doctors that you can never see so you have to take your kids to A&E as he did and so led by example (not)?

Interesting Jeremy’s concern for these experienced, precious GPs who are nearing retirement for he clearly “values” them about as much as his government bum chum the former chancellor George Osbourne did which was the crux of the Right Honourable gentleman’s question which we have copied below. 

Please note that there are a few numbers in brackets which refer to notes posted after the question and reply to it to explain errors or things not immediately apparent in the text of Hansard the UK’s Parliamentary record so here goes: 

Andrew Selous MP Conservative Bedfordshire:

Some 3,157 medical students (1) are going into general practice this year, which is excellent news, but we are still losing too many experienced GPs in their mid-50s due to the tax penalties on their old pension scheme. Would the Government look at a targeted, time-limited exemption on this dedicated group of clinicians, who do so much for the health of us all?

Prime Minister:

That is an important point. As my hon. Friend will know, experienced senior hospital doctors and GPs who become members of the National Health Service pension scheme benefit from one of the best available defined benefit occupational pension schemes. (2) We provide generous tax reliefs to allow everyone to build up a pension pot worth just over £1 million tax-free (3). The issue that my hon. Friend is raising is that although GPs are not penalised if they work after age 55 (4), many may have exhausted the generous allowance for tax relief available by that time. I can say to my hon. Friend that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was, of course, listening to the question that he raised (5). 

(1) Medical students do not go into general practice only qualified doctors are able to train as and become GPs. A great number except that there were 3250 training places available to keep the status quo and this will not meet the 5000 extra GPs promised by the Party for 2020 and that is in addition to Jeremy's New Deal 50 returners.

(2) A rare Prime Ministers answer that is true and it was affordable and the 1995 NHS pension scheme we believe was £ 2 billion in surplus before the Party raided it a la Maxwell and Brown to make for up their financial deficiencies.

3) Mrs May please do speak to your Chancellor before opening your mouth. The lifetime allowance this tax year (2017-18) is just £ 1 million. It was last £ 1.25 million in the tax year 2015/16.

4) True not directly but the tax on their pensions is a big time penalty if they continue to work particularly if they have worked full time with no career breaks and the penalties grow year on year the older you get. We shall detail these penalties in our next post.

(5) He will have been listening but pensions and savings are to him, Robert Maxwell and Gordon Brown just another pot of “busy working peoples’ money” easy loot to be plundered after all those busy working people have already paid tax, national insurance and superannuation on their income before they are placed into a pension scheme to support them in their retirement and old age. Any pensions subsequently paid are then subject to further income tax too.

Praise be to the Party for indirectly identifying in part why senior GPs are retiring and in doing so showing how ignorant those in charge are about the NHS they all claim to want to support.

VE Day.

Comrades the 27/03/18 is a day to break out the vodka and caviar for today is VE day in other words Viagra in England day. The BBC reported this morning that for the first time ever in the world you will be able to get it over the counter (ooh er misses) without a prescription. 

Dirty little buggers.

Now this has been a long time coming (behave) for if you can remember the Party initially rationed Viagra to only certain groups of worthy patients on prescription presumably to prevent an epidemic of fornication and sexual deviants in the UK. They even decreed how many pills (bonks) a month the worthy could have under the NHS’s benevolent Party care. 

This was no doubt based on the well-known Party formula of one bonk per child. Anything else outside this accepted moral majority and Daily Mail reader formula meant that those outside of the worthy groups would have to pay for theirs and deservedly had to do so the dirty little buggers. 

The Party then eased its grip on control of its organs (stop it) and allowed the generic version to be issued on prescription to all who needed it in contrast to only those most worthy of an effective treatment for ED.

Note to readers ED here means Erectile Dysfunction as opposed to Emergency Departments which currently have their own problems with keeping things up (Party targets before you start).

Now it appears that you can just pop down to your local pharmacy and after a consultation with the chemist ask for something (else) for the weekend (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and be allowed to walk (wank?) away with 4 pills, strength unknown possibly mid range 50mg per tablet for £ 19.99.

The item on the BBC was full and frank but it appears to have upset some of our guardians of public morals here in the UK for the part of the body the drug works on was mentioned on breakfast time TV (disgusting). Now you could hardly talk about a drug that treats a chest infection without mentioning the word chest but some think otherwise?

Dirty little buggers at the BBC says the high minded Sun newspaper who until recently happily displayed young women’s breasts on their page 3 that you could see at breakfast time in your morning paper from 1970 until 2015 on a daily basis. But mention Viagra once and that is then truly disgusting to our moral guardians here in the UK.

For those in Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and 90% of Englanders your Viagra as generic sildendafil on prescription is still free. You wouldn’t want for to be caught paying or it would you?

Still U-turns by the Party are always appreciated by those with short sight and hairy palms but before you think a trip to your local chemist will save you time and money bear in mind that if you are one of the only 10% of people in England who pay the prescription charge then a prescription from your GP will still be cheaper than a trip to the chemist. (£ 8.60 vs chemist £ 19.99 but a GP prescription covers all strengths and potentially unlimited quantity). 

Dirty little buggers. 

Praise be to the Party for now allowing sex via every retail pharmacy in the UK for a price and for finally reversing its hypocrisy regarding drugs on the NHS that work.