Government takes £562m from FOBT's in '14/'15.....

56 million terminals?

a tax on the braindead imo

they get a bad press and rightly so but i would love to see the figures from on line casinos, bingo etc. pretty sure they would be a big eye opener

Send the tax revenues to the NHS and it will be money well spent.

I'll agree with part of that - it will be money spent.

years a go i could get a bus in town (3 miles) for 2p about the year 1979 at the time beer was 25p a pint

now the same journey now  is £2.70 and a pint is £2.80

Btw, 8,500 LBO's ( max four m/C's per shop) top  whack 34,000 FOBT's !

@Halcyon - just had a gander at Lads Annual Report and I make you more or less right; and that's over half their retail revenue - didn't realise they were so dependent on them.  With average shop profit (after costs) of less than £1k per week, they'd be completely sunk if the law tightened.

Of course the BHA in their wisdom opposed the legislation that permitted casino type games on the High Street to these sorts of stakes because they foresaw the harm their introduction would do to racing.

Well done BHA. Oh, hold on.....you say they supported them? Surely not?

sparrow, good evening .


Yes, I agree, but surely these were ''one armed bandits'' with a jackpot of £200 perhaps ! ?....

Funny thing is, IF the machines' had to be accessed in licensed casinos that might just be a possibility !

The fact is people go ''skint'' far far quicker !


So, in that sense yes, some of us do have a conscience !

So that we can pay agency nurses £300 a shift and consultants £300k per year for a twenty hour working week....

HOSPITAL doctors are earning more than £2000 a day on top of their salaries by cramming in operations at weekends that attract lucrative triple-time payments.

Some consultants have been working the equivalent of a 14-hour day on Sundays in order to scoop the special premium rate.

Hospital employees working full-time on the living wage would have to work nearly seven weeks to earn £2000. Oppositions MSPs have called for reform of NHS contracts.

Under the 2004 consultants' contract, doctors do not have to perform non-emergency work at weekends, public holidays or after 8pm. However, they can choose to work outside their contracted hours by carrying out waiting list initiative (WLI) work.

The rate, paid at up to £150 an hour, is on top of a basic salary that can exceed £100,000.

Since January 2013, seven consultants at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) were paid more than £1500 for work carried out on a single Sunday. Four doctors earned more than £2000 for the same shift. One earned more than £50,000 for Sunday shifts alone between January last year and October 2014.

At NHS Tayside, 57 consultants earned more than £1500 for work on a single Sunday. For radiologists at the same board, 12 consultants earned more than £2000 for weekend work, which could be for a Saturday, Sunday, or both. One consultant earned more than £2000 17 times for weekend shifts.

A £1500 Sunday payment is the equivalent of a 10-hour day, while £2000 is closer to 14 hours.

Doctors can opt out of the European Working Time Directive, which stops employers requiring staff to work excessively long hours.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: "If we really want the NHS to be a 24/7 operation, excessive payments like this have to stop. It can hardly be in the best ­interests of patients for a doctor to bust a gut on a Sunday, only to be worn out the rest of the week.

"This is why we need a comprehensive plan on how to make the NHS run all week, without having to hand out bribes to those already well remunerated."

Liberal Democrat MSP Jim Hume said: "Everyone wants patients to be treated quickly. Health boards should be planning their services to avoid using these super-expensive contracts. That way they can treat more patients for the same money they appear to be spending on Sunday services."

A spokesperson for NHSGGC said: "Tackling waiting times is a significant priority for the Scottish Government, and the NHS in Scotland, and is a key delivery measure. Waiting list initiatives have been used to ensure that patients are treated within the targets and guarantees set over the past four years, latterly within 18 weeks of referral to treatment."

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At NHS Tayside, a spokesperson said: "Payments made by NHS Tayside to consultants under the waiting times initiative are agreed as part of national contracts."

Dr Nikki Thompson, chair of the British Medical Association's Scottish consultants' committee, said: "Waiting list ­initiative payments were negotiated to enable boards to enlist consultants to provide additional services on an occasional basis, in order to reduce waiting lists. This work is only ever undertaken at the specific request of the employer, and the enhanced pay rate reflects the ad hoc nature of the work, and the inconvenience and disruption to family life that results."

halcyon days 12 Mar 16 19:32 Joined: 29 Jun 05 | Topic/replies: 24,154 | Blogger: halcyon days's blog
Tony Blair & Gordon Brown have a lot to answer for !



EXACTLY...

This is now getting like a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party.

The only chap I've got any time for is Dave Nellist ( thrown out of the party by Kinnock for being a member of Militant Tendency ), who in the eighties gave over half of his M P's salary to charity...


' for me to represent the people of Coventry I need to understand what it's like to live on their salary's'..


took the pay of a local tool maker !  A TRUE SOCIALIST... utmost respect !

Dave Nellist was an idiot and that's all I want to say on the subject.