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 find pharmaceutical pricing to be very off including how it's sold to various countries. i think health care could be provided better IF medications were made close to home (yup not overseas, employing citizens who pay taxes win win for everyone). although very pricey i think more needs to be offered towards mental health and addictions (long term care sheltered accommodations), this would reduce policing and social service costs even things like park maintenance.
a national program to reduce obesity, smoking and drinking might also help but this idea literally could work anywhere in most countries not just the UK.

big pharma would not be happy.

Breast implants - unless following cancer or congenital issue
Breast implant removal
Anything that has happened as a result of cosmetic surgery done abroad
Gender re-assignment surgery
Vasectomy reversal - not sure it does fund this
Nose jobs because someone doesn't like their nose
Any drug/product that can be bought cheaply over the counter eg paracetamol, calpol.
Things like the asthma injection that costs £77,000 a year per person and has to be administered yearly for life. It's too much money.

A way to save huge amounts of money will be assisted dying, which is why it will come to pass soon enough. Most people would opt out of suffering long before they die naturally if they had a dignified painless way to die available to them.

Asthmatic medication is lifesaving.

As someone who doesn't have asthma but benefits from drugs including injections for a very rare, but life altering condtion when untreated, this comment is just nonsense.

Finally one I can agree with.

There are some truly vile comments though.

I've spent 10 years as an HCA caring for many people with capacity, who are ready and willing to die but their body isn't ready to give up. They are trapped in a life of pain, misery and depression, often outliving their peers and hating their dependence on others. They all say the same thing. They wish they had the choice to die when life had peaked at a good point, rather than be stuck on a slow, dreadful decline.

Of course this doesn't apply to everyone in care, but its heartbreaking.

The idea was that it would save money by reducing hospital admissions and other further treatment for prime not eligible for free prescriptions but unable to pay.

As apparently 90% of prescriptions in England are free, there must at least be admin savings in making them all free.

This 100%. And I’m so sorry you’re going through it, it’s horrific

So an innocent baby does not deserve to have medical supervision to come into the world safely, if it’s mother hasn’t got the money to pay it?

These threads always end fairly horribly.

The NHS was created when people died of things that are now unthinkable. It was designed to nurse some childhood illnesses, deliver a baby safely, fix a few broken bones & possibly a heart attack. & work related injuries.

The NHS now funds things that it cannot afford - things that didn’t exist when it was created - chemotherapy, joint replacements, organ transplants, fertility treatments, dermatology, chronic illnesses (diabetes, MS, MND, CF to name a few).

To put things in context, one Trust I work at recently held a fundraising drive. Staff did parachute jumps to raise funds for essential equipment - pillows.

That’s how bad it is. Staff are jumping out of planes to buy pillows.

Yes. I had endometriosis which required surgery to remove.

Infertility is a disease. It can be totally and utterly devastating for those going through it.

it seems crazy to me that it’s a postcode lottery as to how much treatment is offered on the NHS. I absolutely think it should be - but be consistent across the country

Prescribed paracetamol is an essential for some pet. Those of us who are pretty much housebound but have to take eight a day for example.
Oh and it’s a myth created by the NHS that it costs them more than you buying it. When they calculate the cost they do it by adding together the cost of a ten minute appointment with a GP and the cost of the Pharmacists time, and finally the cost of the drug.

My brother in law has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. He had an annual bloodtest for something else and got a phone call from a nurse at the GP practice to say 'You've got diabetes' just like that (not pre-diabetic but diabetic). Said he would get a GP appointment in 3 months time (!) and in the meantime he had to attend an online course about food.
The course was terrible. Run by a nurse who could not answer many of the questions the people on it asked . 'I go to aqua aerobics every morning- does that mean I can safely increase my carb intake?' Didn't know.
He asked could he reverse his - she didn't know that either.
He has none of the risk factors- isn't overweight, cycles and runs , doesn't eat a lot of carbs or sweet stuff, rarely has a drink, doesn't smoke.

She gave the same advice to everyone - ages ranged from early 20s to 80s, some Type 1, some pre-diabetic, some Type 2, some very unfit, some fit, some inactive, some active, some very active, one gluten intolerant, one vegan. Was not able to differentiate her advice.

DBIL read up on diet and diabetes and spent 3 months making sure he was doing all the things he should. Went to GP appointment - didn't see GP, saw same nurse who rang him up. Bloods repeated and were absolutely normal. Have been repeated again and are still normal.

The diabetes advice and online session was terrible quality- waste of NHS money.

I had medication for depression recently - GP suggested a counsellor through the practice. She was terrible- she gave me 8 forms to fill in which she took off me and never mentioned again. Her only actions were a) to give me a phone number of a man who turned out to be someone who wanted to escort me to a volunteering activity and b) to offer to refer me to a local cafe that has a shamen who works in a back room and someone who does tapping. (I'm not joking).

The peripheral services around the NHS are not good quality.

two boxes of paracetamol parts me four days I can't get to the chemist/supermarket every four days neither would a responsible chemist sell them to me that often. So I have to have them prescribed. I would be happy with a system where certain people could buy a months worth.

@FlyOnAWing how was your line placed? Surely not in a GP surgery or in a normal appointment? Usually whatever leads to you even needing that to be placed and IV antibiotics even started is part of a inpatient process where it gets started but like you said you was later treated at home, taught outpatient and watched at home to make sure you can do it safely.. which I did say for some people it is a lot easier and then for others it’s a long winded process for no reason. Like I said I don’t know your case so don’t know which one you went through but in my own personal experience I have had it from both sides, things being quick and efficient then things being stretched out for no reason with me and some other patients in beds besides me taking up space we didn’t need to be.

I don’t think staff efficiency is the only issue.. some people are not able to leave because of equipment not being available, or waiting for certain changes to be made at their houses before going back… one kids parent straight up told the nurses they didn’t want to take their disabled child home to care for them when there are nurses at the hospital doing it as their jobs! That kid stayed there almost a year before they got a court order! Every time I was admitted he was there, same bed, hardly any visitors and when parents did come they would keep refusing even though all the equipment was ready to be taken With him!

One girl came in and was in the bed opposite me (already admitted) because “she could feel the virus”! Nonchalantly telling the nurse that she basically had nothing wrong with her but could just “feel” she was coming down with something. They admitted her just to run labs and do obs and she couldn’t wait for them to let her go have a cigarette!

She wasn’t there long as nothing was wrong with her (which they usually determine when they waste time in A&E) but all this proves the point I made in my OP which is that not every hospital admission is needed and a lot can be done at home which is cheaper and enables more patients to be seen!

I even had the hospital call ambulance to my house after my bloods done outpatient showed my potassium levels were dangerously low, so low my heart could stop any minute and I needed to go now! I refused and asked for it to be done at home but I was told it’s something that will take days in hospital. They ended up giving me Sando K I put in my tube and at my next bloods I was back to normal levels! They even wasted ambulance service on that! But not even a whole tube of Sando K over a few days through my tube and I was fine.. didn’t need added cost of the ambulance, the cannula to administer the Potassium diluted in fluids and the hospital bed in ICU.. I mean like wth!

But if we don't protect our NHS - this is what you end up with. It's a bill for a straightforward birth in the US. $10,900 of which an insurance has paid $2,800 leaving $8,100 still to pay.

Yes, if Betty happens to be your mother, you would say so.

In my case, 'Betty' died aged 62. Oh how I rejoice at the savings to the NHS!!!!

What a shitty, shitty thread. You may not think IVF is worth funding.... until your body fails to perform one of the basic functions of life and achieve pregnancy and you suffer the indescribable despair that comes from this

You may not think drunk people should be in ED, until your normally sensible, full of life teenager is daft for one night of their life and because they're drunk denied access so their diabetic coma goes unnoticed ....

You may not think that more than 2 babies per mum should receive antenatal care until you realise that this would massively contrubute to the already huge health inequality that this baby is going to exoerience if they're from poorer family and that the poor baby didn't ask to be born!

How about we just fund the NHS properly rather than letting down any of the above?

With regard to braces for teens, my teenager had braces and the NHS only fund the absolute worst cases, not those that are just doing it to look good. In my area pretty much no one got free braces for their teens! I have an NHS dentist and it's really only check-ups and fillings that are subsidised, everything else is very pricey.

Well they do actually, have you not heard of virtual wards?

Here's another one- someone who went to a local call-in clinic about a sore throat. Advice was buy some cough drops. Initial consultation was $30 - paid there and then. Bill is $179.00 minus the 30 already paid and a $29 insurance payment so $119 still to pay.

My cousin says she pays $600 a month insurance.

People forget that with insurance schemes you still have co pays.

Yes this ^.

I've actually stopped reading the posts - there are so very many shitty, ignorant ones.

The opposition to IVF is incredible. Success rates have greatly improved since Louise Brown was born in 1978. I was months off going on the IVF list when another medical procedure solved the medical issue that was preventing me conceiving and I got pregnant naturally.

However, a close friend and a sister were not so fortunate - but they didn't get funding on the NHS. My friend has three grown-up children now, IVF twins and a surprise! Two have 1st class degrees and masters with distinction in their fields; the other is a junior doctor. Now tell me those kids are not adding value to their world. My sister's twins are younger but I have no doubt they will also make a valuable contribution to society.

I just wish everyone having IVF could see success without having to sell their souls to finance it.

The greedy bastards in charge

I’m not a fan of withholding funding of medically beneficial treatments. There are alternatives to help the NHS.

imo The NHS shouldn’t fund:

• 6 figure salary management posts for non-clinical roles except chief executives
• Bullshit non-clinical training courses
• rainbow pronoun name badges and similar non-clinical window dressing

plus there should be a team dedicated to getting patients discharged from hospital beds as soon as possible. This would mean spending more on eg physio and medication / but would save loads in bed days.

Also, a more rigorous approach to collecting payments from non-NHS eligible patients would bring in a significant amount of lost revenue.

that’s for starters…

clearly a functional care system for the very elderly would save a lot of NHS funds too.