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?

Gosh, yes, I'd forgotten about this. When I had a private surgery that got difficult, they had an NHS crash team on standby with an ambulance. I was furious! I mean, I hoped the private hospital paid for it but it wasn't on the bill, so ... 😡

Also, my surgeon had been trained by the NHS, including a trip to America to learn the (then) new procedure he was using on me. His secretary told me he didn't do any NHS work, except for a bit of lecturing (for which I'll bet he was paid).

Whoever set up these NHS deals with for-profit providers was a sucker. They need re-formulating, by someone smarter.

@MayThe4th also a rubbish argument.

Many cancer treatments also don't work, so should we just scrap them as well?

I knew you'd say bigot! I had my bingo card ready and waiting let's go for full house bring it on.

If funding for fertility treatment was stopped then I believe maternity care should be self funded after a certain number of kids. You want them, you pay for them after all?

Why any kids at all? Pregnancy and birth are not illness and they are a choice, so maybe we should say that the NHS only steps in if there are specific medical complications.

Obviously, we all know that this would be an appallingly terrible and outrageous idea for any number of reasons; but why scrap it after 2, 3, 4 kids? Even if a woman has 20 children, the 20th didn't ask to be born any more than the 1st one did - and has just as much right to a safe, professionally-assisted birth as the 1st.

In fact, much as I think that having very large families tends to be a bad idea for anybody, I still never get the point that some people make about how much each child will cost the taxpayer for their healthcare, schooling etc. as the costs for each individual are front-loaded - 20 children from one family = 20 potential future taxpayers, just as much as 10 x 2 children who happen to be born to 10 different families.

I've still never quite understood why teeth and eyes have to be paid for yourself (except for limited help for children and certain other qualifying groups), but all manner of arguably optional/self-inflicted healthcare needs that happen to affect different body parts are all free. Not that I'm suggesting we should scrap the latter, of course!

I think the basic principles whereby you can qualify for basic, perfectly functional glasses but pay yourself if you want nicer ones, or you can have fillings free but gold ones are self-funded, make good sense; but that is not what we have at all. You hear and meet so many people who are putting off going to the dentist with horrendous tooth pain, because they simply can't afford it, and they end up by default in the exact same category as people who would like more gleaming white Hollywood-style gnashers to look better on Insta, but don't have the funds, regardless of the respective urgency, importance or impact on quality of life of the two scenarios.

Breast reduction except in extreme cases. I used to work with someone whose boobs were just slightly bigger than average and she got reduction surgery on the NHS. I was baffled how.

This is more likely to be due to the NHS's archaic appointment systems.

I'm still getting letters for one clinic to say that I've been given an appointment on x day at y time. Often the letter arrives after the day of the appointment so I miss it.

Surely if you need an appointment you phone and book for a convenient time not be given a random date.

I don't think the NHS should be 'prescribing' football or gym lessons at a private gym.

IVF - how cruel! Infertility is a medical condition. I’ve watched many people struggle to have children it’s heartbreaking. The average person could never afford it.

The reason the self funding maternity care argument doesn't work is because once you're pregnant, it's done. If someone is pregnant and cant afford to pay for maternity care - or refuse to - it could put their and their baby's life at risk. Whereas infertility treatment is a nice to have.

I do think keeping the elderly alive for too long when there's near to no quality of life, is a huge problem we need to tackle. Its costing the UK billions. It would save a lot more money than dropping IVF - thats for sure.

Infertility is only going to get more and prevalent, and we need children to be born to pay for pensions and adult social care when we're all older. Dropping IVF is a moronic idea, not to mention callous as most can never understand the pain of being involuntarily childless.

Where do you draw the line at self inflicted things though?
Most accidents are avoidable but people take risks and ignore safety advice or do something stupid and end up needing treatment.

Okay, so in your game of trumps.. should ensuring we keep elderly patients alive as long as possible be prioritised over mental health services?

This thread is slowly descending into the plot of Denzel Washington’s ‘John Q’.

Free prescriptions in Wales and Scotland. My understanding is that due to there being a finite pot of money other services for Scottish and Welsh residents suffer. Those on certain benefits will continue to get them free as will under 18s and over 65s. I pay in England about £11 each month for 10 out of 12 months and as I get 5 prescriptions every 28 days for Parkinson’s which I’ve had for 5 years since I was 45 so I have at least another 10 years paying. A single prescription is £9.35 so I’m getting my other 4 prescriptions for less than £1.65.

Having a child is not a right, and if there is not enough money to go around then people who are ill should take precedent for the available funds.

Thing is, is that these are two very separate waiting lists. One does not affect the other because its very separate departments and specialists and surgeons.

Reminds me of the smiths lyric (or was it morrissey as a solo artist)

'Poor woman, murdered in her very own bed as she lay, but that's okay, because she was old and she would have died anyway'

You seem to be missing the point.

Those resources are allocated in the first place.

So if the NHS decides to stop one thing, the resources will be diverted elsewhere.

@Notsoyummymummy2 I agree! I think dentistry needs an overhaul - bonkers that a lot of teens get braces for the look of teeth and not for medical reasons. It's so expensive.

And also agree about cheap medicines like paracetamol. And some OAPs should be charged for prescriptions. Maybe some kind of means testing. Not all pensioners are just reliant on the state pension

Did you need any sort of assisted conception OP? If not, you're not in a place to judge whether it should be offered on the NHS imo.
Completely disagree. This just highlights a lack of recognition that we all pay in through taxes so we all can have an opinion. The bottom line is if you fund one thing then you cannot fund another because resources are limited.

Where did I deny I was a bigot?

You do know that the word transphobe has become fairly meaningless these days and is pretty much short hand for 'someone who doesn't believe in gender woo'

So you think that GRS shouldn’t be funded because what? Because you’re a bigot? A transphobe? Because let’s not pretend that people think it shouldn’t be funded for any other reason than their own prejudices.

Leaving aside any questions of whether or not somebody is deserving of GRS, as it is not a case of repairing what should be there or previously did work, the impacts can be, and frequently are, devastating and seriously deleterious to the recipients of the surgery - many of whom are given grossly unrealistic expectations with the negatives skated over beforehand.

If not wanting to see often young people given mutilation 'surgery' - women having healthy breasts removed (an alarming number of whom fully assume they can always grow them back if they revert to taking female hormones), men having healthy penises removed and replaced with a perpetual wound - is hatred of trans people, then I dread to think what loving them looks like.

There’s not much point in debating this kind of thing. The decisions of what to fund or not should be based on objective evidence.

People saying "no cosmetic surgery" where are you drawing the line? Is someone with facial burn scars allowed it to improve the look of the scars? Can someone with a cleft lip have rhinoplasty to make their nose look less uneven and more normal?

You are absolutely right, you did not deny you were a bigot. Seems like a strange badge to wear with honour.

@ChungusBoi is spot on.

I’m off to bed!

@magicthree I really hope their doesn't come a time your expecting any of our ivf children to perform a life saving operation on you as a doctor, to teach your children as a teacher, to care for your elderly relatives in homes as their carer, to save you from a burning building as a fire fighter, to come to your rescue as a paramedic.... it wouldn't be your right....