bikebouy

#whatsNIfor?

Your state pension.

Incorrect. You need to go check up on that.

Now thats out of the way, who else would pay more Tax?

*puts hand up*

I already pay more tax.

I voted for a party who campaigned on a platform of making me pay more tax so that lower earning tax payers could pay less and that they would use any excess to fund public services.  They were elected and i pay more willingly

Yeah you do.

NI is not ring fenced for anything. Its another Tax on earnings.

National Insurance. National Insurance contributions are a tax on earnings paid by employees and <b>employers</b> and help to build your entitlement to certain state benefits, such as the <b>State Pension</b> and <b>Maternity Allowance</b>. Unlike <b>Income Tax</b>, National Insurance is not an annual tax.

The important word in that statement is “such”

So, what is it for?

Yeah you do.

Then posts it’s used for state pension. 😂

Here take a look.

https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/what-national-insurance-is-for

Absolutely agree Poly I’m sure you and I have seen eye to eye on this before.

Sad situation.

If this country keeps voting in conservative governments who favour methods to reassert power divides between rich and poor to be as great as possible, enforced austerity etc. then this is what happens to the NHS.

The situation is just as bad in SNPLAND. For example, Aberdeen has 5 ambulances rostered during the day/evening. That figure drops to 2 at 02:00 until 06:00. As a guide each ambulance in Edinburgh is available to approximately 26000 people, in Aberdeen it’s closer to 45000. Also bear in mind that inter hospital transfers from Aberdeen to other cities also take vehicles from that total.

“Maybe the same is true now for medical health care?”

That’s the grand Tory plan , run down the NHS so the masses roll over when they implement privatisation.

Don’t fall for their dogma!!

So to sum up,the original old chap has a non life threatening injury, wasnt suffering a large loss of blood wasnt in a dangerous situation or location etc etc and transport was available with his son or a taxi etc.

If an ambulance had attended it would have tied up a crew for the visit and booking in at the hospital, resulting in chest pain or major trauma or loss of blood etc etc patient having to wait with life threatening symptoms.

Ambulances don’t come to Hillingdon cycle circuit for crashes as a matter of principle now. Even a collar bone, collapsed lung and concussion. It’s about 2 miles to the hospital, and they expect a car to take a rider.

I think expectations of ambulance supply and use should be commensurate with other RU countries. Are they?

And I too voted for, and pay more tax. It hurts of course but I believe in society.

Reading this makes me slightly sick of the thought of the state I’d have been in if it wasn’t for the relatively quick attendance of the ambulance to my accident last week when I broke my femur, and all of a sudden the half hour I was left waiting seems like nothing! Very grateful I was seen to quick, and general kudos all round to the care from the NHS so far.

Ambulances don’t come to Hillingdon cycle circuit for crashes as a matter of principle now. …. . It’s about 2 miles to the hospital, and they expect a car to take a rider.

Do you think that is actually the policy? Or did someone call, and get told “long wait, since you are so close I would get yourselves there if you can”. IF a venue is putting enough demand on a service for it to even be considered likely that a policy of non attendance could be in place I’d be questioning if their first aid risk assessment required them to consider putting a private ambulance arrangement in place.

The public services are massively stretched, often by dealing with stuff that should have been dealt with elsewhere and earlier in the system, e.g. ambo and social care, police and mental health

Even gave us a lift home as car was undrivable.

Great service (no sarcasm intended), but they could/should have called a taxi for you during the hour that they monitored your mum

Do you think that is actually the policy?

It’s definitely not the policy. It’s treated no different to anywhere else it’s just that the calls there often get triaged as low priority so have a long wait for a resource. It’s not helped by the fact that Saturday afternoons are generally very busy for the ambulance service and have poorer than normal staffing levels.

“The last race I was watching there there was a pretty huge crash which ended up with one rider not n a great way. He got an both a Paramedic in a response car and an ambulance. It probably wasn’t more than 20 minutes before the response car arrived and the ambulance wasn’t far behind. ”

to be honest, BC circuit races should have paramedic/ ambulance on-site during events. Relying on 999 when there is a high potential for a significant rider injury at each event isn’t really on

My sister is in a wheelchair and managed to roll her electric wheelchair off the kerb (avoiding the bin that had been dumped in the middle of the pavement) and was pinned under it. Its 100kg of leadacid battery etc. I got there after about 30 mins and we ended up waiting over 3 hours for the ambulance to turn up. We were told to call back if her condition worsened and the call would be escalated. She started to go into shock and loose feeling in her lower limbs after about 2 hours. The local press turned up and streamed it all live on Facebook. She did consent.
She was actually lying in the road and cars were swerving around her. I eventually called the police who closed the road and escalated the call. It still took a further hour.
The worry was that she had broken her hip/pelvis and any movement could have killed her. The ambulance service acknowledged it was 100% a 999 call, along with the police who did everything they can, but they were stretched due to other emergencies. The police escalated it 3 times. My sister actually knows a Paramedic who saw the live stream and asked to go and assist, but was told no, he was to be tasked to a job 20 miles away. For a broken leg.
The local press tried destroying the local Ambulance Trust, along with the comments that tried to destroy me for not lifting her and taking her to hospital myself. The vitriol was disgusting.
My sister wrote to the local Ambulance trust and apologised for the hatred that the paper created and thanked the Trust personally.
I made a comment during the live stream that she was a vulnerable person, and that the wait was too long and the local paper tried to get me to make it all sound that she was being abandoned an that this was a Tory issue. Its not just one party.
Both my sister and myself fully appreciate what they do, with the resources that they have, but its now getting a joke, but not the local Trusts fault.
It transpires that during my sisters fall there were a couple of serious car crashes and a few heart attacks. All of which are a priority and more important than my sister.
Resources can only go so far.

There is always a qualified first-aider on site. But not an ambulance. It would raise the cost considerably, but might limit provision due to availability. The issue is of course availability, and I imagine the closeness of the hospital. It is often quicker to drive the casualty to the hospital.

Road races also must have a first aid support car. Normally with a paramedic, I believe. I’ve been treated by an ambulance at a road race after a concussion too.

Going back to the original post, it is better to phone for an ambulance and be told that you don’t really need one, than to phone for advice and be told that it is a life threatening situation and that an ambulance has been dispatched. Look on the bright side……………..