I get the point you were trying to make, but saying a leg break isn't life threatening is wrong. Leg breaks can be life threatening for several reasons.

Strange, I assumed that's where he got all his information from. If he ever gets beyond page 1.

I assume you mean sectioning? And it's interesting, and perhaps telling, that you consider being detained under the Mental Health Act as part of an effective treatment for someone who is in distress. On that basis, I can safely assume that you have never seen the inside of a secure hospital and have no knowledge of what the conditions are like inside them?

As someone very much on the inside of this system, I can tell you with absolute certainty that MH services in the country are entirely and fundamentally broken, with massive shortages of staff, resources and appropriate treatment options - and that's right across the spectrum, from early intervention services, through GP's, hospitals and community treatment options. My best advice is that you wish very hard that no one you cares about ever has any kind of mental health problem - because you will quickly see for yourself that they become a hostage to fortune, sloshing around a system that can't provide anything like what they need.

Sorry - but you couldn't be more wrong on this one.

All fair points - the point I have always been trying to make is this: There is a finite amount of money in the NHS, demand through new clinical practises and population increase means compromises have to be made. Simply pumping more money in like Labour did will not work unless the funds are directed away from just giving existing staff large increases as Labour did. Extra monies need to be ring fenced to ensure investment is put into training of the additional personnel required to cope with the extra demands put on the NHS. In my experience in an emergency scenario the NHS is superb and we have some of the finest technical clinicians in the world working within it.

This is a debate as to how much you wish to put into the NHS and how you fund it - Labour increased by NI by 1% - which I agreed with but then gave 50% of it away in salary increases - little was done IIRC about the infrastructure issues. Tory austerity has compounded an already challenging position.

The Government has already taken 3% off people for auto-enrolment taking another 1% in NI is a stretch but if invested properly should be seen by most as a positive.

All very well, if you look at the health of the nation in isolation, as an absolute cost; but in reality, investment in health and wellbeing has a much larger impact on the economy - healthy people work more, cost less and are generally more productive members of society, yes?

And with regard to pay increases vs training and infrastructure - I think it's entirely reasonable to reverse years of real terms pay drops by increasing the wages of staff who are already trained and expert at what they do; there is a giant and alarming recruitment and retention issue in the NHS, so trying to keep hold of your existing resource is actually more cost-effective than training new ones, particularly if new people aren't joining, or can't because your government has removed the training bursary.

There is a finite amount of money for the NHS - but it has been systematically defunded by the Tories for almost a decade; so that finite amount can actually be much higher than it is now. That can't go on - I'm on the inside, and I'm telling you as a matter of fact that it's way worse than news stories and reality TV shows are telling you. *Much* worse.

I don't disagree with you but simply increasing funding and simply increasing the salaries of existing personnel will not solve the problem of dealing with a 16 year that threatens to kill themselves. What is difficult for people in the private sector who have also not had increases is for them to pay in more from a static salary to allow others to see their remuneration increase significantly?

The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe and any organisation of that size with have inefficiencies so streamlining is possible but as part of the funding debate. What do you want the NHS to provide - all things to all people when they want it? If so then you better double the amount that goes in and more. You would need significant increase in IT which would create issues of working people not being able to repay their mortgages.

I agree staff turnover is very expensive but as the population grows, demands increase existing personnel retire more professionals are required greater infrastructure is also required. Just increasing salaries is not the only solution surely?

Where is your evidence that all the Labour investment went on increasing existing wages? Why should only bankers be paid top wages ‘to attract the best staff’? Labour’s commitment was to reduce waiting times, especially for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer & cervical smears, which it did. You cannot do that without investing in people, equipment & buildings.

If 200,000 nurses have left the NHS since 2010 how are they going to be attracted?

First of all, it's wholly reasonable for staff within the NHS to see their salaries increase in line with those in the private sector and whilst some in the private sector have seen salaries rise at a slow rate or be stagnant, very, very few have seen a freeze on their wages for 10 years - I know that you may be able to cherry pick a couple of examples but, the freeze accross the public sector was accross the board.

You are right to ask what people expect from the NHS, which has been the political elephant in the room for many may years.

However, specifically on the subject which triggered this debate, there has been a backdrop of pretence by the Tory government that mental health spending would increase.
There was direct input from Cameron on this subject and we've even had the "popular" members of the Royal Family chipping their two pennarth in as well and yet, the reality just doesn't match the pledges and promises of the current government - not even close

During this thread you have gone from bemoaning finite resources to trying to tell us that people ARE being well treated and while I'm sure that there are some happy "customers", the political rhetoric has not been matched by investment or action and certainly not by adequate treatment for those most in need.

I think you will find there are millions of people who think the treatment they have received at the hands of the NHS - you will always find some people and even a small % of the patients treated by the NHS is s significant number that are dissatisfied.

Spending on the NHS has gone up by £20bn since 2010 - so overall spending has seen an increase so unless the spending on mental health has remained stagnant or not increased in line with the overall spending then its an allocation of finite resources issue? There is another £20bn promised over the next 4 years - where do stop without bankrupting the country. This is after all the real world not the Corbyn/McDonald fantasy one. Perhaps more of these increases need diverting to mental health treatment rather than other clinical areas?

I am not arguing that the health professionals are not deserving of more money - the staff haven't had a freeze since 2013 the increases have been small but consistent and the new offering is higher still in % terms.

So now you're on to my other specialist subject - social care - which would, at one time, have been available in the community to support people who were feeling distressed and putting themselves at risk; this would have included SureStart centres, one of Labour's greatest achievements - now mostly closed by the Tories; youth workers - mostly removed due to government cuts; social care staff in schools - mostly unaffordable now due to cuts in school funding; family support workers - virtually gone due to government cuts; social workers and CPN's - now working at absolute capacity on the most acute cases, and massively under-resourced.

See the Cinderella cause - social care - is often excluded from discussions about the NHS, but a properly funded social care system does huge amounts of the heavy lifting and often prevents people having to access primary care at all - thus relieving the burden on the NHS. Our lovely, compassionate Tory government however, knowing full well that this is the case, announces extra £billions going into social care, without telling you that they've actually taken it from the NHS budget.

For context, since 2010, over £7 billion has been cut from the settlement to LA's to fund social care; and the King's Fund now estimates a £4.3 billion funding gap by 2010 - a small proportion of which might be funded by another Council Tax precept - wiping out the so-called increase to NMW in one fell swoop.

So I say again, if you or anyone you care about requires any kind of social care now or in the future, good luck, because they won't get anything like what they need. Harsh - but absolutely and without any doubt - true.

Let's not change the argument with diversion tactics and the "millions of satisfied customers" whitewash.

We were talking specifically about mental health.
Something that you clearly know very little about and unfortunately, I actually do.

I'm certainly not knocking the NHS, where I personally have always received excellent treatment, albeit on very few occasions as I have to date, been lucky with my own health and I dont blame The NHS for their shortcomings in the area of mental health.

Spending over a long enough period has been cut in this area, along with many services that may have helped indirectly in the wellbeing of the general public.

You can triumphantly point towards recent increases in spending and the promises of more to come from Boris - although he's not too good at keeping those.

However, the point STILL remains, that, care accross the board, has been butchered and the result of this is old people "clogging up" hospital wards because it's "unsafe" for them to leave hospital and certain sectors of the community being badly let down.

Of course there are finite resources but, prior to Boris's very recent promises of billions for this, that and the other. None of which, even a fool would believe, the Tories have delighted in slashing public services in the name of austerity but, they still prioritise tax cuts for higher earners, rather than repair some of the damage caused by 10 years of swingeing cuts.

It's strange now that Boris wants to win the forthcoming election, that he has suddenly managed to make spending pledges in excess of £50 billion, although, we have yet to see him part with a penny.