Cat versus human a&e

This is my own experience... but I have an NHS dentist and I am exempt from charges. I have pain and decay. I go for a check up, and it is to tick a box. I get no treatment at all.
The people I know who have an NHS dentist, but they pay... they get treated.

If you want private healthcare you can have it. You just have to be prepared to pay for it.

There isn’t private A&E but there are private cardiologists/concierge doctors who will see you then arrange admission to a private hospital as required.

It will be a lot more then £350 though.

My local surgery will chuck you off the books if you miss more than one appointment.

But yeah, it should have nothing to do with money.

I read an article recently on how NHS dentistry has been far more liberal than necessary with patients who have good dental health and no risk factors. Through a host of studies it was demonstrated that these patients do not require hygienist or general check ups more than once every two years. Whereas almost all NHS dentists were insisting to see these patients once every 6 months for both hygienist and general check ups. This is to maximise on finding and reduce number of patients. I found the article very convincing.

The issue is that NHS dental care was only ever just about adequate. It was never optimal and my mother always ensured our dental was private. I am 65. Neither of my children had perfect teeth; they were not imperfect enough for the NHS to prevail.

It is sad that some people are now left in pain. Indeed very wrong. However, my dentist has stopped all NHS work, not because of profitability but because the local CCG or Integrated Care Board (or whatever ot's now called) is so difficult and bureaucratic to deal with and puts so many barriers in front of claiming a metaphorical tuppence, he has washed his hands of it.

By having people pay who can you’d be injecting money into a system that’s no longer fit for purpose, safe nor humane. There are some heroic people working in the NHS but it’s an awful job watching people die you could have saved if there were beds/doctors etc. Paying would decrease the pressure on the system by creating more beds and more staff.

And this is why most adults in the UK are not receiving adequate dental care

I’m actually for the NHS privatising select services. My husband has worked across private and NHS healthcare his whole life. But the scope and how to dismantle an ingrained model matters far more than what an alternative model ‘could’ look like – that’s where lala land comes in.

This is turning into the national service debate thread, which was also ignorant.

A lot of people who can afford to don’t prioritise their health and hope for the best on the public waiting list.
The delay is life and death though I think a lot of people have health insurance these days, I’d imagine that this will increase while public healthcare declines. It isn’t cheap. It is a few thousand a year, not for the average family.

Ha ha, as if anyone goes to the GP for a sore throat or has done for about a decade!

So would I. The NHS should offer a core A&E (ie genuine A&E, not "I have a splinter so thought it would be a good occasion to take the whole family for an evening out at the hospital" service along with maternity, paediatrics and cancer/life threatening illness care.

Everything else should be insurance-based.

It works well in European countries - it isn't perfect but they get a better service than we do. If you don't earn much or anything you have a state-funded insurance, otherwise your employer and you pay it between you.

Of course that model only works if the tax rate is reduced to compensate. I suspect we'd end up paying twice.

In Ireland it is about €50 to see the GP. But if you have a medical card, which my DS has for example (he is autistic) then it's free. Also cards for people on low incomes. Many people have medical insurance, as I do, which then pays you back 75% of the cost.

Everyone paying to see a GP is seeing a GP.

That surely means there's less normal GP appointments?

Well said! About 3-4 years ago, a few people suggested to one of the Senior Doctors/at our large (18 GP) medical practice - 4 miles away in the local market town - that people are charged when they make an appointment (£25 to £35 was the suggestion,) and that it could be refunded when they turn up. OR don't take the money, when they book the appointment, but do take if it they don't turn up.

And even this upper middle class, Oxford University educated, privileged, middle aged man had the common sense and empathy to know that this could be detrimental to the elderly, the vulnerable, the poor, and people with various disabilities and so on....

Whilst it was frustrating for 1 in 8 or so appointments to be no shows, they refused to bring in such a system. And to charge £50 is batshit. Many people will struggle with a loss of £50! And to charge £50 for an appointment anyway - even if people do turn up - is utterly ludicrous. As you say, that's a week's food shopping for some people!

Anyway, they have the Total Triage System now, (at my GP surgery, and many others,) which seems to be working well, despite many people worrying about it when they introduced it in October 2025, and this has resulted in very VERY few no-shows. When someone has pesented their medical issue online at 9am, and requested a face to face GP appointment, they are very unlikely to not turn up.

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No one thinks the whole population is poor. But for some people, £50 to see a GP means they wont eat for over a week.
You must be living under a rock if you can't see that.

Private healthcare already drains resources from the NHS - just look at dentistry and children’s ENT services.

I’m afraid you’re living in dismantled lala land and not a decades-old infrastructure we actually have to work with, not to mention government and public perception and acceptance of what we have to work with. There is no point in discussing conceptual term – it helps precisely no one.

My late cat’s insurance costs used to cripple me! She was worth every penny but it was a stretch. So I’m incredibly grateful for the NHS. Both as a nurse and a patient. And it has its faults. But generally I’ve had excellent care, as do the patients we care for.

If I had to pay that I'd not be able to feed myself for a month?!
And to be diagnosed and treated by a series of nurses and doctors in a general hospital would cost a lot more than £350?

I don't really see how you compare emergency human medicine with veterinary care.

I just wonder what real difference to the NHS charging for GP/A&E appointments will make?

Chances are those poorer outcomes and late diagnosis issues will be made worse. And everyone who can afford to pay for their initial consultation will almost certainly not be able to afford treatment beyond a prescription for antibiotics or similar so the load on the NHS for x rays, MRI scans, investigative treatments, inpatient care, operations etc etc etc will be identical because they aren’t affordable and there are already private options available in those areas which haven’t taken the burden off the NHS.

Except you being seen sooner, how does paying for A&E help?

Yes but you cannot continue a conversation which has the ultimate result of denying medical care to the poor either…

I’m sure in other countries there are preventable deaths caused by inability to pay for medical care and there are later diagnoses and poorer outcomes because people won’t pay until they absolutely have to because the situation has become dire.

I got your point OP and I agree with you.