The best way to help the NHS and avoid early death would be to adopt healthier lifestyles and take better care of ourselves.

Very good point

Yes I am pretty much. I get around a lot of Trusts of all different kinds. They've all been cut to the bone.



Any ideas how? I mean new ones. It's not like this hasn't been looked at before.

Until very recently average life expectancy has increased year on year – so on average we are doing that.

Some interesting reading and discussion here. Regarding the NHS and how lean it is. I am sure that further savings can be made. One especially for Emergency Services. I'll give an example, outside Warrington Hospital, there is a Spar shop with a fuel station attached. Quite often, there is an ambulance on the forecourt filling up. Yes it's easy, however with the prices being ~10p a litre higher than other petrol stations. I would have thought quite a large saving could be made on fuel?

Most Ambulance services already hold bunkered stocks of diesel. However these stocks are at the main ambulance depots and these aren’t always within a suitable travelling distance given that the number of vehicles is stretched, the number of calls is massive and they have to be deployed geographically to cover wide areas, not to mention the targets of being at an emergency within a set time. It might in the example you give an idea to put a fuel bunker in at each Acute hospital. However I would expect that to be too expensive. I know Trusts that have a complete ban on any capital expenditure at the moment. Some even have bans on buying new things over £500. One I know isn't able to replace the broken projector and screen in their main meeting rooms due to costs.

It all boils down to the NHS living on the absolute edge costs wise. Unless it gets a big injection it can’t address things long term.

How much of that is driven by advances in clinical practises and drug development?

Hard to say. I imagine quite a bit. However people don't tend to smoke as much nowadays so that's one influence.

Also people having less dangerous jobs and living in cleaner environments also an impact.

Hard to measure.

Agreed - whatever anybody says its still one hell of a service.

I would love to see a refundable charge for appointments. £5 paid upfront and refunded when the patient turns up, but kept if they don't. Each missed appointment increases your deposit by £1.

It would not only reduce the number of missed appointments massively, it would also make timewasters think twice about whether they actually need to go to the GP.

According to the NHS 1 in 20 appointments are missed, that's 15.4 million costing £216 million. We should put that on the side of a bus or something.