[Margaret Pilkington]

We already pay for dental care and for eye tests(unless you are over 60 or have long term eye problems)...we pay for prescriptions too.
It isn't just about money...and if it were then the last labour government that encouraged private finance initiatives so that new facilities could be built but without saddling the government with debts was a very bad idea.(and during meetings about such things I made the comment that you would have to be mentally deficient to sign up to a mortgage when you didn't know how much you would be paying....or how long you would be paying it for)

Balfour Beattie must have rubbed their hands with glee when they were contracted to build the extension to RBH.
The hospital used to have its own works departments....plumbers, joiners, electricians, engineers builders. Work was done 'in house' at competitive rates.
Not anymore. The simplest jobs have to be done by Balfour Beattie at exorbitant rates(something like £240 to replace a lightbulb).
That, along with the rising costs of treatment and year on year savings which HAVE to be made.

Money wasted on agency staff. Locum doctors and agency nurses eat up great big chunks of budget.

I don't know what the answers are because so many stupid decisions have been made in the past which cannot be reversed...unless the current government decides that all those
PFI agreements are torn up. That would free up a lot of money.
Getting rid of some of the management structure would help too.
Especially those deals where a senior manager gets kicked out with a nice final payment and is re-employed on a lucrative contract the following month.