Would you pay to see the doctor?

[justasking111]

The IMF has said that the government will need to raise taxes. One way is NHS charges. This will be means tested I should add. It's being covered in the financial times, telegraph and others but hidden behind a pay wall. I don't know how to archive, if anyone else does please do.

I don't know which one I would choose, it's a thorny problem.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/25/raise-taxes-working-people-charge-for-nhs-imf/

Definitely yes. The NHS is in a terrible state. Look at the Junior Doctors strike. However it ends there will be yet another bill to pay out of taxes.

Let’s look at a European model. They work perfectly well and stop all the time wasters. There is a thread about Freecyle whereby the consensus is that when the item is ‘free’ people just have to get in first, get something for free. Then they don’t turn up to collect or mess the seller around. I know the NHS is different but make a GP appointment £xx, those on lower incomes can get it back if they turn up.

It won’t happen under this Labour Government though. Too busy trashing the economy and business.

The only way in my view is a cross party group of ministers review or even a referendum but they would want years and years, and it would end up each side trading political points. Just look what PMQ is like.

I know a number of older people who just rush to the GP over almost anything.

They have the time to do it.

They are often very vocal so just in case they are seen. My late Mum used to mention her age and then cried if they couldn’t see her that day. This eventually ended up with her wanting home visits with the crying if they couldn’t come that day too. I had registered POA with the surgery and they did actually call me to discuss after it was getting too regular.

This was only the start and I did manage to get a handle on it but it took many hours of tears, discussions and promises before it was really stopped. She honestly couldn’t accept she was getting older, she hadn’t planned anything for her old age so going to endless medical appointments made her feel like she was trying to do something about and maybe one day she would be cured.

There may be a 15m missed appointments stat but it would be interesting to know what fraction were:
Patient not told of appointment
Patient tried to cancel/change but no way of doing so
Patient turned up; building denied such a service existed (this happened to my DH and DD recently)
Appointment didn't actually take place as Dr called away/necessary equipment wasn't working/blood work hadn't been done
"Appointment" was a call back many hours after request and patient was driving/teaching/on the loo
Appointment was telephone call and wrong number had been written down
Patient arrived for appointment but couldn't wat longer than an hour (long delays)
Patient arrived for appointment but wasn't told they had to fast, so sent away

I mean, these things are common!

Maybe 2 free a year, then you pay
More than 2 is perhaps indication you are a bit of a hypochondriac

Not if you have a disability or a chronic condition, many people have their conditions and meds managed by their GP. Having more than 2 a year doesn't mean hypochondriac - you might need repeated bloods every 3 months or scans to check something is being managed. You will have screening tests like smear tests, mammogras (which should be free so then they don't turn into cancer or another conditoon - costing much more). People who need a yearly check for a condition like diabetes, asthma, or bipolar. People bringing their children etc. Medication reviews to ensure that people meds are working etc.

I'm ambivalent about it tbh. I rarely go to my GP, only when I need to. I'm glad that they're there though when I do and I don't need to worry about what's in my bank account.

I do think that the NHS needs to focus on what treatments it's going to offer, although having said that invariably there's always someone who'll be unfairly penalised (eg IVF, plastic surgery, expensive drugs for whatever reason etc)

Yes I probably would, it’s taken me 4 weeks to get a GP appointment & it was done over the phone just to get a prescription for iron tablets, the receptionist refused to ask the GP if I could have them, my bloods said I needed to see a GP, I used to buy my contraceptive pill online because I couldn’t get an appointment with a nurse (would ring 2 weeks before I ran out even though I know can get them for free)

Husband needed a health form for his shotgun license this month £55. So it's a good point.

I think private GP around £75 a visit

Medication review? I've never had one of those. Asthma clinic, not been seen since COVID. Smear tests every five years now, mammogram done at hospital if you find a lump.

Might be better in England of course.

Mammograms are dobe every 3 years from 50 to 70. Obviously if you find anything before then, you'll be referred on the 2 week pathway. After 70 you can self-refer every 3 years as well if you want to.

Smears yes every 5 years. People on controlled medicine have medication reviews (essentially they can only order them a few times on NHS app before they need to see a doctor to authorise or change prescription - this is often 4/5 times on NHS app before you need it). Depending on the medication (how many tablets and dose) this could be once every 2 month - e.g some people will be giving a dose which runs out every 2 weeks. You also have medication reviews for non-controlled medication but less often.

As I mentioned before GP surgeries are meant to do minimum yearly reviews for chronic conditions like asthma, bipolar, diabetes. As I said you should contact PALS or your GP surgery practice manger to complain if they are not doing this. Perhaps you haven't booked the appointment? My GP sends me a text to remind me to book it, but I still have to book it myself on the system, they just send repeated texts till I do.

They should charge for missed appointments, no matter who you are. I forget how many there are, but it’s a huge number that would make a meaningful difference to waiting times, assuming people cancel them rather than pay the fine.

Unfortunately there’s already a massive two tier system. I have medical conditions but I have given up on the NHS and use a mix of self paying and insurance. For GP, I have unlimited private insurance as most people working in professional jobs (lawyers/bankers) both online and in some clinics in London . I would really love to pay less taxes and for GP to cost money as me and people like me don’t really use the NHS any more. This is a shame as health outcomes in the UK are already diverging between the rich and poor

I paid £20 something for the Boots on line Doctor, had a few UTI’s . They only gave me antibiotics once, had to go back to NHS doctor.
I had antibiotics for 3/4(?) days and kept getting UTI’s , saw another Dr who gave me them for 7 days and that seemed to get rid of them. Tried the D manose too.

I’d charge for missed appointments. My dentist did this once when I was a teen and I’ve never forgotten since.

The GP provision is so bad where I live it may mean that paying for an appointment would make it even harder for those people who can't pay, to get an appointment at all.
For context, a routine appointment can take up to 4 weeks to get, apparently this is due to recruitment issues, whatever that means. Recent appointments I've had have been with locum GPs.
During the last 4 years I have twice had to resort to seeing a private GP to get a timely appointment which isn't acceptable but occasionally necessary.
If charging for appointments is to happen I believe that the proceeds of this should be spent on recruitment and retention.

GP surgeries already operate with profit in mind. Most are private businesses and prioritise treatments/consultations that trigger additional payments from the NHS!

We don't have the NHS app. That's going to cause chaos at our surgery when finally introduced if it cancels meds unless you have a review. We do get the odd text but that's more a Welsh government thing. Smoking, drinking, drugs how to stop kind of thing. That the surgery forward.

We're still at the ring at 8am stage for an appointment, sorry they're gone try again tomorrow.

The app is supposed to go live in October but our surgery computer system has so many glitches it's always going kaput. When it does even the electronic sliding doors don't work, the GP has to walk down long corridors to reception to call your name out.

Our health board has been in special measures for a decade. One year they mislaid 112 million pounds according to the auditors who quit when blocked by the chief executive. The whole board of trustees resigned in disgust. The Welsh government had to intervene it was chaos.

Pals are toothless. They're treated like mushrooms, kept in the dark. It's a thankless task. Compensation payments are high. Botched treatment, surgery, get shunted over to the private sector.

Croeso Cymru.

No, I wouldn't pay for it. There are many many ways that the government can cut the layers of management in the NHS and other ways to make cuts. The NHS is not run by people who know how to run a business. Because its not their own money and they dont have to answer to anyone or lose their jobs for poor performance they continue on in their roles.
Sorry, but the solution is not to just keep asking people to pay MORE on top of the taxes they already pay to have access to the NHS service. We just need an Elon type person who has run his own massive businesses to see the overall picture and to devise a system that works. Throwing more money after a bad situation is never the answer - it wont work.

My GP uses the NHS App. It's brilliant. Letters and test are on there, prescriptions, etc. If I need something routine I send a triage form and it gets done.

One thing that I'm not sure was efficiency or plain luck was that just before Christmas I had a chest infection and got advice from 111. It advise to make a GP appointment ASAP. I checked the app for appointments and there was one there for Monday morning. There isn't usually. Did 111 release it for me to book I wonder?

Yes. And I do. Haven’t used an NHS services in nearly 20 years.

Yup, I pointed this out upthread.

The telegraph promoting a right wing agenda ? I won’t have it

No.

Also in the financial times and the independent. As stated

I get texts to my phone not on the NHS app for chronic health review. You can go to your GP and sign a form called Summary Care Record - everything from your health record for the whole of your life goes on there. Letters you get will be scanned etc. I don't even get that many reminder for appointments on it (but the plan is for the whole of the UK by 2028 - to have everything on one record in the app and also for hospital's, GP's, even if they aren't in your trust) which I hope will happen. But it does mean I have access to my tests.It doesn't completely cancel the meds - it tells you when you click the 5th time for a renewal of meds that next time you need to see a doctor so you book the appointment ahead of it. My surgery has just changed this to now you can also request on a form and they'll read through it, as long as everything's fine they'll renew it. PALS sounds very bad near you - you can go to the Parliamentary Health Ombudsman I think.

@Odin2018 Yes let's have an Elon style system. Not like he cut thousands of useful staff in USAID, or the State Department or the Department of Education. Not like he said he'll cut $2 trillion of waste but only cut a fraction of that amount. U.S retreat from USAID will boost the influence of China and Russia. 300,000+ already died from the cuts around the world and estimates show by 2030 it will be q4 million. The damage will lead to further malnutrition leading 163,000 child deaths this year. The cuts to HIV medication could lead to 4 to 10 million new infections and 2.9 million deaths worldwide. If some of these programs which were preventing spreads of disease like measles around the world get cute - they will spread across the world. Not just in Africa or Asia, they will get to Europe as well.
And if you don't care about people around the World - then cuts of the Department of Education will mean those in rural communities don't get access to school as much and programs for disabled children will be cut. Major cuts to clinical trials (NIH research) cutting programs for new vaccines, cutting programs for a major longitudinal decades long on women's health. Cutting a program looking for cures for cancer. He cut
98% of climate programs cut and early warning systems for weather (we saw the impact of FEMA in the Texas floods, when the warnings were too late).