 Welcome to my latest review of the Forbidden 2020 Manifesto. Now I'm going to be making my way through the Manifesto at a rate of about two a week. So share these, share these videos. I'll be producing a video, blog and audio of every aspect of the Manifesto. Forbidden.uk slash Manifesto. So please do share these. Today I'm going to be looking at the NHS. And as anyone who lives in the UK and preferably not under Iraq will know that the NHS is one of the primary political subjects in this country and is always at the forefront of campaigning on every single general election. Now I am supportive of the NHS. I worked in the NHS for some years. And I know there's something of a disagreement among people generally actually but particularly on our side of politics about the state provision of healthcare. A lot of people not over the moon about it. For myself I think it's very smart. I think if there's any tax I don't mind paying. It's one that will ensure I have healthcare free when I need it and that I don't have that extra burden on me which the poorest people in society had prior to the creation of the National Health Service. I think it's quite smart to pay into a public fund and have all your healthcare available when you need it. It's a good idea. And I don't really see it as, you know, I'm pro-free market of course I am but I think on this for some things we already make exceptions. For example the police are funded by the state. The social services funded by the state, ambulance services, fire services and I guess I see healthcare in the same way. I think it's, as I say, I'm happy to pay tax for my healthcare to be covered and I'm sure many people are. There's also a moral aspect to this. Do I think we should leave the poorest people to be ill and die? No I don't. So I've supported the health service all my adult life but do I support it in its current form and the trajectory and the journey it's going on? No. I think it needs major, major reform and you'll probably hear this as well coming from politicians, come election time, we must reform the NHS. Actually they haven't given any concrete ideas about how to reform it and the only thing that you generally see is a promise to throw more money at it. So as you'd expect for Britain has a rather different approach. We keep the NHS definitely and if you're worried about that for the political aspect of it, I think the majority in this country were asked, I think the majority would want to keep the NHS and as a side note I actually think that the NHS or lack of support for the NHS was one of the reasons that UKIP was never going to succeed in labour areas. That's just an opinion. Anyway, let's get on with reading the manifesto on the NHS. So for Britain supports the National Health Service and the principles on which it was built. We believe that healthcare should be available to all British citizens and those legitimately entitled. Now those legitimately entitled as you might be able to guess does not mean someone from the other side of the world who's never before visited Britain and paid opinion tax. So I'll get on to that in more detail in a second. For Britain is aware that prior to the introduction of the National Health Service the poorest in society could expect ill health, lower employment prospects and crippling worry about the prospect of illness and we will prevent an attempt at return to this society. I don't want us to be a heartless society. I think that people who are disabled or ill not only should be cared for but should be cared for better than they are today. For Britain acknowledges the vast numbers of NHS staff who work tirelessly to provide this service and we acknowledge the high standard of care delivered by the NHS and the numerous lives it saves and enhances each and every year. Now I have to say I've used the NHS several times and I have had great service. At GP I went to a couple of years back I was a little bit shocked at how busy it was and I was a little bit shocked at the doctors and the lack of personal care. It was almost like a conveyor belt. So they've become really, really busy. I went to A&E when I hoped my foot wants fantastic service. One can't complain all the time about the NHS but it's certainly the standard is certainly going down because there are too many people using it and not enough people staffing it and it has got staffing problems with nurses and doctors. However, government spending on the NHS continues to rise with Prime Minister Boris Johnson promising an extra 1.8 billion in 2019. Waste is a common area of criticism in the NHS and one report in 2017 revealed that the NHS wastes around 7.6 billion per year on quote-unquote management consultants and the procurement of overpriced goods. Now the politicians who will throw extra money at the NHS are not talking about where that money is going and there doesn't seem to be any conditions placed upon the money or any accountability for the money and we know why is the health service spending almost £8 billion a year on management consultants? Why is the management paying to consult people to tell them how to manage? That's what's happening at a cost of almost £8 billion. This is not small change. The procurement of overpriced goods would shock you. When we have examples of hospitals paying £1 or over £1 for something that's actually available for 15, 16p that's not a definite example but that's the kind of margins we're looking at in what hospitals are overpaying. There's going to be a look also at drugs themselves. So spending in the NHS both on external consultancy services and goods has got to be looked at and I don't mean talked about and let's have a meeting to talk about it and then go on and carry on as usual. Something must be done. We need to send people in there who will sort this out. The NHS also spends an estimated £2 billion. Again, we're not talking small change here on so-called health tourism and that is people coming to the UK solely to utilise the healthcare system. As I said, I worked in the NHS and this happens. This happens quite a bit and also what you'll find are people who are diagnosed with a specific illness, quite a serious illness. In my case HIV, that's the area that I worked in. People will be diagnosed, people in South America, for example, diagnosed on Tuesday and moved to the UK on Wednesday. We know what this is and it's not about being heartless. It's about reality. It's about knowing that we cannot ask the already over-bordened British taxpayer to pay for the whole world. It's simply not doable. For Britain is aware that privatisation has soared in the NHS in recent years. In 2017, one report claimed that as many as 70% of clinical contracts in England had been won by private companies with major firms like Virgin winning contracts worth £1 billion. Now, here's where the free market versus state provision argument and element comes in and I don't actually like the idea of massive private companies coming into the NHS because the fact of the matter is that the service hasn't gotten any better. In fact, in my mind, it's still deteriorating. So what we're doing is paying out money to major companies, very, very wealthy companies to provide services in the NHS costing an absolute fortune and the services are not getting any better and yet there is public money going into already very, very wealthy private pockets. I'm not 100% happy about that and I can bet that a lot of the tax-paying public are not happy about that either. In addition, serious questions have been raised about links between members of parliament and major drug companies and whether politicians may be profiting from the private sale of NHS assets. In 2014, a report revealed links and connections between politicians and healthcare giants. Unite the Union claimed that 24 MPs and peers who backed health reforms that allowed further privatisation of the NHS were linked to private healthcare companies. Now, what does that all that mean? That means that politicians who will personally profit on the sale of an NHS asset to a private company or the outsourcing of an NHS service contracted to a major company is voted on by people who will financially profit from that very transaction. I don't like that, that stinks. I don't think members of parliament should be making money out of the decisions they make about our public services. You may think differently, I doubt many of you will. Finally, it is widely believed that the NHS is too top-heavy with regard to non-medical management and admin, while nurses and doctors are underpaid and overworked. In 2018, it was reported that 33,000 nurses leave the health service every year, while nursing levels are still putting lives at risk in 2019. Now, I've made a video about this before and I will link to it below about policy on the staffing of the NHS. The Tory answer is easier immigration for NHS staff. My response to that would be why don't we try training the thousands upon thousands of young Britons every year who can't get either nurse or doctor training places in the health service? Why don't we start training them instead of opening the borders? It's wrong and crazy to be allowing mass migration to staff the NHS while British people are trying to work in it and not able to, not being given the training. If we are going to pour all this money into the health service, I suggest we put it into training instead of opening the borders. Here's the list. For Britain, we'll audit the NHS. The British public deserves to know where NHS money is being spent and who is profiting from it. Now, if auditing the NHS sounds expensive, I bet quite a few queered that we'd actually end up saving significant billions if we actually found out where the money is going and, well, shall we say prioritised it rather better. End the privatisation of the NHS and introduce reversals where possible. And I think I've, you know, even for the free market versus state provision argument, I think the answer to that I've already given. I'm not, I don't think public money should be going into private pockets to provide a service that could actually be even better provided by the state. There's no difference that we can see. Subject hospital chief executives to public scrutiny via a Public Sector Accountability Act. Now, give it that, get onto that in more detail when I cover government, which I'll do early next week. Incentivise NHS senior management to target waste and health tourism and that's pretty easy to do. All visitors and migrants entering Britain will have valid health insurance. You have to have it when you go to other countries. You have to have it here too. Ensure that only those who have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of five years are entitled to NHS care and that's who I referred to at the beginning when I said legitimately entitled. Bar members of Parliament from profiting from NHS contracts. Just that sentence alone, I think. Most of you will agree with. Ensure that a sufficient proportion of NHS funding is directed at the provision of those suffering from mental health conditions. Now, we have a mental health crisis in this country and we can talk endlessly about the causes for it, which are important, of course. I think there are many causes for it. I think lack of empowerment in society. I think a lack of trust in leadership. I think confusion. I think lack of security in the family and economic security. I think our society has lost a lot of its community and I don't think that. I think that's pretty clear to most people. I don't think that the spirit has vanished. And also I actually think we're very stressed these days from this sudden explosion in my lifetime we've gone from having a phone in the hallway with a dial on it to being able to broadcast from our pockets to the whole world and having information on hand, a lot of false information. I think we're crowded by information and it happened very, very quickly and I think it's very stressful. Scrap parking charges. It's shocking to think, isn't it? When you think of all the money that's wasted in the NHS someone wants to visit their old gran in hospital and has to pay. Again, we're not talking about a couple of quid. This is appalling. Absolutely appalling. Penalised patients who fail to attend outpatient appointments without valid excuse. Anyone who has worked in the NHS who saw this a lot people just don't bother. And this is one of the downsides in offering something that is free at the point of use. And I understand that people will take advantage and they will abuse it. And we have highly paid consultants who should be highly paid. That's not an issue. Highly paid medical consultants whose appointments are valuable and people just take them for granted and make appointments and just don't bother turning up repeatedly. And this is a great waste of time and resource and of course a waste of an appointment for someone else who might really need it. There's got to be a penalty and it's got to be a financial penalty. And yes, I know that's taking money from someone who's probably already on benefits but look what do we do? What do you do? You've got to penalise in some way. You've got to draw people's attention to this. They cannot abuse the health service in this way and sometimes you need to take as well as a carrot. So that's it. I mean these are common sense again. I say it all the time. Before I say it all the time for a reason. Common sense policy that will sort things out will change things in the health service. At the moment the two major parties all they're promising is to throw more money at it. But when money is going down the drain they're just pouring more of your money down the drain. The NHS stays, yes but it must be run better. We can't just talk about that we have to do it or we lose the NHS altogether. Common sense for Britain has it we'll apply it to the NHS and we'll save it.