What should the NHS not fund?

[Username721]

Saw a thread on IVF for lesbians and some people felt that IVF should not be for anyone on the NHS. So it got me thinking.

Is there anything you feel should be exclusively private treatment? The ones often debated are things like weight loss surgery, cosmetic procedures, treatment for avoidable illness such as smoking-induced ones, liver failure through alcohol abuse, drug rehabilitation…

Thoughts?

I don't think NHS money should pay for meals for people in general. Paying for food is something we all have to do

Saves the NHS money though, as a fit and full patient will be ready to leave hospital faster. Meaning no extra stay, no extra nights bed, nursing and doctor care etc

I'm so sorry about your DS

@luxuryisforme kind of you, thank you

Personally think NHS should be used to maintaining health and improving it. So maternity services should stay, but not IVF. If they stopped spending so much on electives (IVF, contraceptives etc) they'd have more money to actually help the people that need it medically, and reduce the ridiculous waiting times.

It's interesting to hear, would you consider sharing the reason your child is on puberty blockers. I find it very hard to understand why parents consent to this but know for some it may be a life or death situation.

If they stopped spending money on contraceptives, they would not end up with more money overall.

Precocious puberty with a detrimental impact both now as they're too young and in future as it will adversely affect their final adult height as well as increasing their risk of developing things like osteoporosis. They have a injection of puberty blockers to sort of keep them on stasis while they carry on growing and to stop the progression of puberty while they're too young to deal with it (which in itself can cause problems with psychological health as well as presenting safeguarding issues). They've been on these for around three years now with a view to doing it for another two or three. It's very safe, they're monitored at regular intervals and once the injections stop then puberty will resume as normal.

Puberty blockers are also used in treatment of some types of cancer, endometriosis and PCOS.

@FixTheBone and I've cared for elderly frail folk with multiple co morbidities in crit care who've not been allowed to pass away naturally because they've had recent surgery.
We were once told that a 90 year old patient loved dancing. She did. 5 years ago.

Something that used to happen, not sure if it still does but Income Support used to be cut after a certain length of hospital stay.
I can't remember the details but I remember it being discussed when I was a child.

I wasn't suggesting they starve, of course. 🙄

Well how do you suggest someone who's ill in hospital gets fed without the hospital kitchens?

Not everyone will have daily visitors, especially not once they have been in 2 or 3 weeks.
Complicated cases may well be miles from family who may well be juggling jobs and children. Or be to old and frail themselves to help much.

@Sugarfree23 tbf I don't think that poster means get rid of hospital food, I think she just means patients would pay the hospital for it.

Hospital kitchens will function fully. Food will be served. NHS funds will not be used to pay for food, the patients will. It's just a thought. I don't claim to have all the answers. It may not be possible but where it can work, it would save a lot of money.

@WeWereInParis how, though?
Working age people already have enough financial constraints, not everyone will be paid when in hospital SSP isn't a lot, but the bills at home still need paid.

I'd rather see them scrap universal free school meals than ask sick people to pay for food.

What about those who can not afford it? Even if cheap the cost is going to be at least £10 a day.
As I said I would just get someone to bring me in cereal bars and fruit as that amount would be unaffordable to me.
No hospital is going to provide 3 meals a day for £2, which is what I would pay at home.

They aren't 'very' safe. I don't know what research you've done but there was a massive lawsuit in the US.

www.statnews.com/2017/02/02/lupron-puberty-children-health-problems/

Five years is a really long time to take GnHRs. I hope your child is okay.

@FlyOnAWing exactly you could guarantee they'd be folk living on a box of dry frosties if hospitals start charging for food.

Where do you draw the line, no free toast after birth or coming round from surgery? Is the biscuit at the blood bank free or not?

@Sugarfree23 Exactly. For many of us being in hospital means a loss of income anyway. And I do the making cheap meals with pulses that is not possible in hospital.

So whoever made the decisionsto a) do her surgery, and b) take her to icu need to review their decision making progress.

To be honest, what you're saying means nothing without proper context in any case. She may have just been the 1% of 90 year olds that don't survive, or it may have been poor decision making.

I could just as easily make an argument for letting anyone with a hip fracture die without treatment since 35% of them do anyway within 2 years... Ignores the fact that the figure would be 60% without surgery... Problem is, nobody knows which 60%.

My child is absolutely fine, that lawsuit is over five years old and things have moved on since then, and I trust her hospital team implicitly.

It won't save a lot of money. The NHS spends less than 0.5% of it's budget on food.

The problems it would cause will cost more than that to deal with.

I've just looked up UC and hospital it gets reduced after 6mths which is actually quite a long time but carers allowance looks like it stops sooner.

Do those suggesting stopping free food realise that? And did you note what the poster said that it was 0.5% of the NHS budget?

It’s only in recent years the nhs stopped funding homeopathy. I was shocked they funded it at all let alone right up to 2017, a friend however stayed off powerful sleeping drugs due to it and was devastated when she lost her nhs homeopathy. It did help her and kept her off those medications and I’m sure there were others too but I was shocked at them funding it for so long.

I don’t like to judge at what should and shouldn’t be funded.

I also think it will be a sad day when we only aim for life saving treatment. Is that the life you want for you and your loved ones? No medications and surgeries to improve quality of life?

It’s too easy to get caught up in ‘self inflicted’ stuff too, we are learning more and more about things. Addiction is often genetic and then a life trigger. If someone has a gene and then suffers a trauma, should we really sit there and point a finger saying “that’s self inflicted. You don’t deserve treatment”. Of course we haven’t found all the genes and all the causes so how will you justify who has the ok type of addiction and who hasn’t?