Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@social.cleverlibre.org

With thanks to Private Eye for this gem!

@therightarticle

That is an totally asinine comment! You are talking utter bollox!

Firstly, because healthcare systems scale (have you heard of systems 'scaling') and secondly because both France (many more sq Km than the UK, as if the geographical area was of the minutest significance) and Belgium have almost identical healthcare delivery systems.

There is a considerable take up of supplementary insurance; the "mutuelles" BUT unlike the UK, that is not used to buy private healthcare (basically, all healthcare here is private, but it's the government that pays the bills), It is simply to pay the modest patient's charges that are levied under the government healthcare system! Indeed when I was working, I had such insurance myself and when I needed surgery, it paid for me to have a private room for my stay rather than me being accommodated in a ward (which incidentally have a maximum of 2 beds in them here.)

I wonder why you feel the need to comment on subjects that you clearly know absolutely nothing worthwhile about!

@therightarticle

So what?

The obsession with the NHS being entirely state run is a weird, exclusively British one. I live in Luxembourg where the healthcare system is a mix of private and public. All doctors and dentists are self-employed and paid "per item of treatment" delivered. Hospitals are largely funded by the taypayer although private clinics also play a part in care delivery. Nurses are salaried by the hospitals. The systeme works very smoothly and; dare I say it, far better than the benighted NHS in the UK!

Just because it's spring - the glorious yellow alyssum saxatile

@trinsec

Like you only need a parachute to go sky-diving if you plan to do it twice.

@trinsec 😂

Thanks to Jules zjuul@mastodon.social for the ID.

So it looks like it is probably
Auricularia auricula-judae
The jelly ear fungus which is edible - allegedly! I won't be trying it without an absolutely positive ID from an expert however.

@Pineywoozle @pivoinebleue@mstdn.social

The Morlocks!

Is there a mycologist in the house?

These are growing out of one (and only one) of our 5 compost bins. I have never seen anything quite like them before - can anyone identify them?

@Melinda

We do agree on one point: doctors and nurses are appallingly badly paid in the NHS (not to mention dentists). In Luxembourg, a hospital consultant will earn around 250,000 €uros a year depending on his speciality.

Nurses are paid approximately double what they get in the UK!

@Melinda

Oh god, here we go!

The system here in Luxembourg along with that in Germany, France and Belgium is already privatized. What matters is how the "insurance" that pays the bills works. In the case of Luxembourg, France, & Belgium, the "insurer" is a government subsidiary and the "premiums" are deducted directly from salary or pension and are a straight %age of income completely unrelated to the age or medical condition of the insured.

It's a perfectly good system that works as well or most likely much better that the benighted NHS!

One of the problems that besets the NHS is it's utterly massive bureaucracy. In a hospital where I have contacts, some departments have stopped using the 'central administration' as they are regarded as slow, obstructive and generally worthless.

To really make a difference to the NHS, one would need to cut the management and administration by about 50% as its employees largely outnumber the number of front line medical staff (that was the totally incompetent Edwina Currie's handiwork; she said the NHS was 'undermanaged' and weighed it down with tons of extra form filling and box ticking).

However, to solve short term problems - make about 50% of the "management" redundant as they are really not needed!