to think that anybody who bowls up at A&E to have drink-induced damage to themselves repaired...

[duchesse]

...should be charged a token but significant £100 by the hospital? Might make em a bit wary of pissing away £50+ on drink then taking on the first person that eyes em up wrong? AIBU?

SS

QED

I'm sure there are a few who haven't partaken punkatheart (not that that's a big whoop de doo), but it's the people judging other peoples situations as somehow undeserving of compassion without knowing the specific ins/outs of everybody elses lives, when I'm sure they're not whiter than white.

A tax should be levied on the judgers according to the level of their outrage, say £20 for a small going up to £100 for a full on cats bum mouth and loud tutting.

I'd have paid about £2620 by now, with £12440 pending

op; you're being completely ridiculous - drinkers and smokers practically pay for the NHS via indirect tax! - A packet of cigarettes costing say £6.00 will have around £4.50 swiped by the government, same with alcohol. ( and don't forget, most drinkers & smokers work so are paying direct tax also )

and if you want to get into morbid statistics - smokers and drinkers ( generally ) die earlier than their boring veggie friends, so they will end up costing the country less. if you live to be 100 you will cost the country £££££££ in pensions and other forms of care ( dementia anyone? )
you are extremely ignorant when it comes to ecomonics. I suggest you go back to school.

I've never been drunk....but I've come close

OP I can sort of see where you're coming from but tbh we'd charge everyone then! I work in a unit where people get referred in and frankly about half of them you just think 'what on earth were you thinking?!' People deciding the best possible way to get rid of garden waste is to throw some petrol on it and light it, cut tomatoes up in their hands with incredibly sharp knives, use circular saws without the safety covers etc etc. ALL of the above done whilst stone cold sober (not by one person obviously!)

People drink, smoke, eat to excess, drive stupidly, do sports (rugby players I'm talking to you). The NHS is here to help anyone and everyone. It's not there to differentiate based on whether we think they inflicted the injury/illness on themselves - it is up to the government to tax appropriately or to run educational programmes to try and change that behaviour. Because in the end a policy such as this will only disproportionately affect lower income people.

Don't bring smokers into it. We already pay a surcharge to the NHS far in excess of anything we use.

I don't really think the OP is right about drunks, but I understand it and it would be amusing to pretend to bring it in just to make a point.

My husband was sitting at a bar with a mate. They were both drunk. But behind them a brawl broke out. His mate was glassed in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious and requiring 25 stitches to close the wound. My husband was glassed in the face, a cut requiring 10 stitches over his right eye.

Neither one of them ever saw their attacker(s).

So they should have been made to pay £100?!

Oh I wasn't having a go at you. :) Just wanted to make the point that smokers are sort of already doing what the OP wanted.

The tax on drink is different. Although it could be used to pay for the NHS I was referring to the specific surcharge on cigarettes which was added many years ago to pay for smoking related diseases. In theory this 'tax' goes directly to the NHS.

'I challenge you to find one person who's never been an arse at least once in their life SockShitter '

I can honestly say I have never been drunk in my life.

Having said that I think the OP's idea is unworkable because it is so difficult to draw the line. Someone could have a drink then have some sort of accident that is unrelated. Do you spend money doing blood alcohol levels because some other conditions can present like drunkenness. I would worry that someone in the latter category would be left as passers by wouldn't want to incur them a fine.

What I would quite like to see though is automatic fines for those who abuse healthcare staff verbally and physically.

If the NHS ceases to be free at point of delivery - in whatever circumstances - then a founding principle has been flung out.

I do not support introducing charges for any form of emergency treatment, regardless of why it is needed. It is even free to visitors to UK. Long may it stay so.

I didn't necessarily mean a pissed up arse xstitch, but anyone who's done something stupid and thought afterwards they were being a bit of an idiot and could have avoided any negative consequences.

Easy to judge with hindsight.

While you're here xstitch, and don't feel you have to answer, but is there any specific reason why you've never been drunk?

Not saying you should have been or anything.

Just wondered whether it was a deliberate choice or has just panned out like that by chance.

Deliberate choice. Like to be in control of my senses. and be aware of my surroundings. Reinforced by working in a hospital with people with Korsakoffs, cirrhosis etc. (Yes I do know I could still get another form of dementia). I also have a fear of vomiting so reducing the chances of that are always good. I have often had a lot of grief for it from lots of people going on at me about I have to get drunk. Just to note I have never tried to stop someone drinking just the once took their car keys after they had been drinking and tried to drive.

Was in an accident on Monday. The police were highly amused when they asked the last time I had had alcohol :).

I worked in a non clinical role in A&E for six years. My OH was a paramedic for about the same time.

Drink really was a factor in a huge amount of the cases that we saw. Binge drinking wasnt anywhere near as bad as it is now. We had our regular 'problem drinkers'. They were very time consuming. Some were agressive but most were incredibly tragic. 40 year olds who looked 80. Horrible problems with their stomachs and throats and bowels.
Then there was the weekend crowd. Alchohol poisonings, passed out, injured, beaten up, hysterical.
The vicitims of someone else's drinking - beaten up partners, abused children, unlucky passers by.
The drink drivers.
The drink driver's victims.

My OH would be called out by people who wanted him to 'watch me while I go to sleep incase I die' her regularly got assaulted and insulted by people who would dare give him a sideways look if they were sober. He was bitten, hit, spat on and threatened with knives.

This was about 10 years ago. I dont know for sure but I suspect it hasnt got any better.

Thank god for children's A&Es. I once spent a few hours in the majors dept with DD when she had a chemo induced fit. Can you imagine what its like having to fight pissheads out of your child's cubicle hours after she has had a fit and only a few weeks after she has been diagnosed with cancer?
It was like hell. Proper hell.

So although I have compassion and do not want to see anyone untreated, drinking is a huge big massive problem for the health services. To deny it or minimize it is naive.

NurseSunshine that was my point too. All that happened at the hospital was a nurse looked in my ear to check the cotton bud was within her reach, said "I'll get the forceps" (flashbacks to birth of LO) and came back with a fancy pair of tweezers and pulled the cotton bud right out. No idea why the GP couldn't take a quick look and do the same. The nurse did say that if it had been deeper I would have needed to go to Ear, Nose and Throat for an appointment but the GP should have been able to at least look and make a decision and take a bit of pressure of a busy hospital department.

springbok has a very fair point - my ds1 (17) has been to a and e three times for rugby related injuries, followed by expensive outpatients appts, physio and an operation. He's never paid a bean in taxes, cost the nhs a fortune and we say sport is healthy
although it's always a tempting option of the mid to far right to suggest point of use charging for smoking/drinking it is totally unworkable, and in all honesty nearly everyone in a and e could have avoided it - take more with that diy project, watch before you cross the road etc etc ad nauseum

OP, not sure your idea would actually work but I do agree with what you're trying to say.

I think the emergency services are put under an enormous amount of pressure due to alcohol related incidents. We do need to change the drinking culture in this country.

People with sports injuries are very rarely disruptive though. The last few times I've been in A&E (with non self inflicted pneumonia and asthma), the doctor treating me and the receptionist taking my details have been interuppted by drunks barging in and shouting. I've also been harassed by a drunk who came into my cubicle while I was waiting, and I really was feeling very shitty at the time. They're so disruptive to the work of the staff there and to be honest, the drunks who I saw didn't actually seem to have anything much wrong with them, but seemed to be "regulars".

What the solution is though, I don't know. Can't make them pay, because they probably don't have any money, or will sue for not being treated. It seems to be a sad indication of the degradation of society.

BBC1 is discussing this very question right now!

As I mentioned further down-thread, my (unworkable) scheme wouldn't affect smokers as they are very unlikely to end up in A&E with smoking problems. I think an automatic fine for unseemly behaviour in A&E would be the next best option.

Evidently you can't not treat people who need treating, but you can expect and exact the highest possible standards of behaviour from them if they are going to get bladdered and need medical help. The thing is, a) will they not be the same people who are allegedly unable to pay a levy for their treatment under my scheme (even though they will presumably just have spent a small fortune on booze).

The thing is, if you are a belligerent drunk, just how much in control of your behaviour are you when you've had 10 or 12 pints?

And as the daughter of a now 72 year old/30 units a day alcoholic, I can assure you that some alcoholics do both make it to a pretty creditable old age and go slightly gaga and develop physical ailments other than cyrrhosis. Not everyone who drinks heavily dies young and healthy.

Oh dear, I missed it Punk, what did they say?

..it was just like here: someone brought up the idea of fining drunks and other people shot in down in flames. It basically goes against what the NHS means - which is free treatment for all...