Sajid Javid states patients should pay a fee for GPs and A&E visits

[MushMonster]

Just woke up this morning to this

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/20/sajid-javid-calls-for-patients-to-pay-for-gp-and-ae-visits

I so wish we could get early elections.
I had more than enough of this lot!
They will use the strikes to push in policies like this before we can chuck them out, following Thatcher's model to the letter.

The NHS seems to be in crisis and I dread the thought of needing any treatment at A&E.

I’d be more than willing to pay £66 for my A&E visit or £20 to see a GP if it meant that I’d be seen within a reasonable timeframe and get the care that I needed. I pay when I go to the dentist and it’s just one of those things that you come to accept.

if it’s means tested I don’t see an issue with it. The NHS can’t carry on as it is and there isn’t an infinite pot of money available to bail it out. Nobody has come up with a better solution other than raising taxes for everyone and I’d rather pay for my own treatment than extra tax every month to cover everybody.

Wealthy man suggests paupers pay for NHS services. Typical of that lot.
There is an absolute crisis here where I live. I am an NHS podiatrist, because of the strikes, recently there was no A&E open in the locality and all the minor injuries were shut for days on end - nobody to staff them.
Patients were coming into our clinic with injuries needing help and the more serious cases had to drive themselves or their relatives to Devon for A%E.
Meanwhile these utter twats are just sitting on their arses ignoring it all.
Labour are no better.
This crisis is due to decades of non investment in the NHS.

Don’t mind paying but

don't want to pay twice - ie National Insurance and “private” fees, they pissed my NI contributions up the wall

what about people that can’t pay?

ugh.

This is true though so as much as people get angry at NHS coming up it needs to be acknowledged, so somehow the changes are dealt with.

Not sure payment is the answer

I actually think a system like that is needed to deter the millions of missed appointments and time wasters.

Everyone is criticising the politicians (understandable!) but where are the people who are supposed to run the NHS. Where is the Chief Exec of NHS England? I can't name him or her and I guess many people can't. He or she should be held to account for what is going wrong and be telling us what the future plans and strategy are.

My GP practice before the pandemic had hundreds of missed appointments every month. I don't know what the answer is but there has to be some sort of penalty for just not turning up.

A nominal fee - say £5 - would make the time wasters think twice. Charging for a GP visit is completely normal in many other countries. Why do we think we're so special in the UK?

With this lot in charge, I don't trust that any money paid for visits wouldn't be funnelled off to some third party contractor that just happens to be a party donor or similar. They're too corrupt and unpopular to be able to bring in any such significant reform.

Oh here we go.
Where was all that extra nhs money that brexshit was going to provide for the NHS?!
Need this lot of wankers out of power.

Same as for prescriptions would work, some people get a free prescription, the same could be used to determine who gets a free appointment.

The NHS is amazing, but it’s broken, I’d happily pay a fee for a GP or A&E visit if that money went back into the service.

I can't wait for a Labour government. It sounds like it's going to be amazing!

No corruption, no jobs for the boys, a perfectly run NHS, more money for everyone.

NI contributions have never balanced the books on NHS, not even since day 1.
Any fees should really be viewed as a top up not “paying twice”.
People on low incomes shouldn’t have to pay- it should be means tested, but I’d be happy to at least pay something
For those who are against it,what’s the alternative? Because if you don’t want to contribute extra through taxes or pay for a consultation then the NHS is going to have to really limit the care it offers, then we really will have a 2 tier system

Prescriptions may not be the best example in favour of this policy, because the very large majority of them are non-chargeable but we still have to maintain the payment system and infrastructure anyway.

I suspect many of us would find the more normal level of government corruption that existed before the current shower to be quite a breath of fresh air. The MP expenses, cash for questions, Bernie Ecclestone, 90s Tory sleaze etc almost seem quaint now.

Here is the NHS chief exec this morning.....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64354661

I am also NHS staff and as everybody knows it is broken, completely, worst i have ever known it after 28 years as a Nurse. I would pay a small amount of insurance if it meant I had easy and quick access to medical help when I needed it. We simply cannot carry on as we are, I had a patient die a few weeks ago after I called 999 and they had to wait 7 hours for Paramedics I could see they were very very sick and there was no help, it was awful, my worst day as a Nurse. I am going to work this weekend with a very heavy heart.

@MichelleScarn yes we can pay for it, but we don't get to actually use it 🤦‍♀️

My teeth are crumbling in my mouth as I can't get access to an NHS dentist and can't afford private. I haven't been able to see a dentist in over 5 years, I'm supposed to have free treatment for a year after having DC but there isn't an NHS dentist in my country that is even taking people onto a waiting list. I pay tax and NI.
This will be the same- people will die.
Fuck Sajid Javid, Fuck the Tories.

Countries with insurance/copayments still provide free care to those on very low incomes and obviously to children. I would guess at least 50% of people in the London A&E would have fallen into that category when I've been there. So I'm not convinced it would make as big a difference as ppl think.

We’re pretty much the only country in the world where health care is totally free and it doesn’t work.
I agree we need to add in some fees. Mainly to stop people wasting precious nhs resources by just not turning up.

But it will be paying twice, while some will never pay at all. And as ever the people getting fucked over will be as ever those who earn just under that magic threshold to claim access benefits. Where on earth then is the incentive to work for people in that situation?

I hate saying it and I never thought I would but its shit, and again have seen posts on here where people in that situation can't even vent about it without being berated and chastised for feeling stressed about finances and then accused of 'wanting to bring back the workhouse'!

Me too. We had a text reminder for our son's fracture clinic appointment quoting £180 as the cost to the NHS of a missed appointment. The level of missed appointments is quite shocking.

I'd be happy to pay, partly as the current GP and A&E model isn't working.

As with everything there will be a small number of people who abuse the system.

But I'm not willing to believe it would all be fixed if the people who intentionally miss appointments for no reason,(there also are many missed appointments due to NHS admin inefficiency) or call an ambulance for a cold, or turn up to A and E with a papercut, were going to be charged £5 or even £20.

In fact a £5 fee would probably cost more than that to issue or administrate

And what about people who are employed but have chronic conditions and so need a lot of appts?

Stupid of them to get cancer, epilepsy or diabetes ay?

It didn't go up in air, it went to their mates and family members.

And you have to be happy and gracious about this or you are inherently evil!