to think that the NHS should NOT be privatised?

[LeftWingTwat]

I am not arguing for no reform, all organisations can end up with waste/corruption etc. etc. However, reform doesn't NOT have to mean privatisation.

It is a myth the private sector is more efficient, what it is is more profitable, but profit has become the measure of success. Profit should not be the measure of success for healthcare. It should have no part of healthcare. When it does we can see the stark results in the US and it is US companies who are circling. US companies who have spent billions, billions of dollars lobbying their own government for the right to make enough off healthcare to not only have enough for themselves but have billions surplus to lobby with. While people die.

Privatisation of healthcare is based on the myth that people's healthcare experience won't change too much, that you will still be able to afford what you have now. This will not happen.

The government promised to protect the NHS. The government, elected without majority, is deliberately taking it apart piece by piece without mandate from the people, this is not democracy. The government is taking it apart without consulting the people. Governments are supposed to be the servants of the people, our representatives, rather than our masters, cutting up and parceling out what we pay for in taxes for their own profits and for the profits of companies beyond our democratic reach. Companies that will not just suck out money from the system but from our country in tax loopholes and tax havens.

This affects us all.

shriekingharpy -

do you think the NHS should provide gastric band surgery?

On one side, consider the benefits- prevention of diabetes, joint problems, heart problems ... the list goes on.
But it's not just the operation there's the skin reduction after.

And what about the patients' responsibility?
This doesn't happen overnight.
And if someone has such poor health and mobility that they become obese then chances are surgery would be too much of a risk.

What I wouldn't provide on the NHS would include
tattoo removal - you have them done, you pay to have them removed
vasectomy reversal- again you choose to have it done (and go through the counselling before) you pay to reverse it
cosmetic surgery like varicose veins
and if someone goes off to a private clinic or abroad to have cosmetic surgery (often against medical advice) then why should the NHS pay to mop up . And alot of NHS cosmetic surgeons say the majority of their case load is repairing someones elses mistakes

I,m actually on the fence regarding band surgery.
It seems wrong to offer something for a problem that on the whole is reversible with diet and exercise, BUT if someone is so big or had repeatedly failed at dieting they will cost the NHS more in chronic medical problems due to their obesity than the surgery would cost in the first place.
I dont think they should do skin removal though, unless it was impacting their mobility.

maybe we should look at charging for missed appointments. Dentists do this currently and no one is up in arms about it.
Did not attends cost the NHS a lot of money and also waste appointments that could be used by others. thus reducing waiting times.
I do feel that people take the NHS for granted. GP appointments for a cold or flu are pointless and I think if we had to co pay something towards it, it would reduce these.

The healthcare staff here are appalled that we still have Crimean-style wards and shared bathrooms. They think that's revolting and backward (which it is).

Very few hospitals have Nightingale wards any more.

I've been in and out of hospitals the last couple of years. I've also worked in them, NHS and private.

I do not want to be in a private room, I want to be in the sight of nursing and other staff.

There is a reason ICU, HDU, CCU and PICU don't have individual rooms, even in hospitals where all other rooms are single or double.

People who smugly say they will have their baby in an NHS hospital privately 'in case something goes wrong'. Really, do you think doctors are going to be there waiting for you to have an emergency god forbid.

Yes actually they are. Well someone is. They are not sitting twiddling their thumbs, they are working but they are on site.

On the other hand private hospitals don't have to have any medically trained staff on the premiss at all times. Most (probably all) do. Many have contracts with NHS hospitals to provide doctors to cover. If the hospital has maternity services they will usually have a obsgyn registrar.

Fine if you go into labour. Not so fine if you have a massive heart attack in the middle of the night.

The NHS has it faults. It has a lot of faults that have simple remedies. It is not prefect.

Private hospitals are better on the admin side. There is also less waste, as something like a medical implant dropped on the floor is billed to the patient/insurance company.

The private sector also does little if any training. One thing I would do with the NHS is that staff who have their training paid for by the NHS such as nurses should have to work a number of years for the NHS before going abroad or working in the private sector. That if you do leave then you should have to pay back some of your training.

I also think they should do more to retain their staff. I became too disabled to do my job for the NHS, so went to a private hospital. I wasn't given any options of retraining or redeployment.

sashh - How many private maternity hospitals are there in the UK?

I'll give you a big clue - its ONE. There are a couple of private MLU units but how that ends up being different to an NHS standalone MLU where you would also get transfered to another NHS hospital, I'm a bit clueless about. Perhaps you might care to enlighten.

Maternity is not something that other private hospitals cover. You will either be treated as a private patient in an NHS hospital, a private patient on a private ward in an NHS hospital or will go completely private.

So quite where you are plucking your comments about staffing on private maternity from, I'm not entirely sure. The one private maternity there is, does have 24 hr staff on hand at all times.

Might I politely suggest your comments about private maternity are comments that are coming straight from out of your backside.

*or will go completely private at the sole maternity hospital in the UK.

Sashh - I beg to differ. The NHS cannot cope with the number of patients they have, I am not suggesting that they are sitting the staff are sitting there doing nothing, I am suggesting that they are dealing with other patients hence the reason they might not be there for you!

And having had two children - one at a large teaching hospital and one at the Portland - there was a reason I went private the second time. The NHS was complete rubbish! There werent enough staff, I was left alone for hours at a time, my DH had to literally haul someone in when the buzzer was left unanswered because there was an emergency and my DS was in distress etc etc. Despite the buzzer going off he found a couple of nurses laughing and joking around the nurses station.

And when I went up to the private room I had booked on a quiet floor of the hospital and asked a visitor at the end of the day to take my DS to the nursery he said there was no one about and he could have literally wheeled my son out without being stopped.

And if the remedies are so simple why havent they been implemented already.

I forget to mention, that the problem I have with the idea that the NHS "can not afford X,Y and you should go private" is its not coupled with the ability to actually allow you to do that. Its particular true when it comes to maternity services for the above mentioned reasoning.

If for example you WANTED to go totally private, the rules allowing the cost, planning, building and running of private maternity facilities are so difficult in the UK that no one has done it outside London. And the rules of the NHS don't allow you currently 'top up' your care from within the NHS either.

So if you were outside London and WANTED to make a choice to have access to services the NHS doesn't provide as standard (such as an ELCS) then you actually have no ability to do so.

Rationing healthcare is one thing, but if its rationed you also need the ability and means to provide these by alternative means - especially if they are sanctioned by NICE as actually being best practice. They have to be supported by the people who are advocating rationing; who invariably tend to be those most strongly opposed to the idea of private health care or a two tier service.

So either you get the NHS to stop rationing certain services somehow OR you allow private services to become the norm and to set up in business so people have the opportunity to get best practice at a price. Otherwise everyone in this country gets substandard care, and healthcare in the UK ceases to be 'world class'

There isn't a third way to ensure we keep up with healthcare standards available in the rest of the world.

meddie NHS dentists aren't allowed to charge for missed appointments any more. I would explain what the new contract will entail but I was flamed last time for suggesting that dental problems are on the whole preventable.

My son has always been charged if he missed an appointment MrsMorton. When did it change?

2006... Are you in England? IIRC they can still charge in Scotland (and NI?)

Very few hospitals have Nightingale wards any more. I've been in and out of hospitals the last couple of years. I've also worked in them, NHS and private.

Sash - I have too. I have either been in a 4 or 6 bed bay or in the Crimea (on one occasion it was mixed, to boot). It might be more palatable if they actually cleaned the wards properly (i.e. to get rid of the smell of other people's piss), but for most patients it just means no dignity or privacy. I could not contemplate being hospitalised in those conditions under any circumstances. It's the main reason I would never, ever be without private healthcare in the UK, at least as long as there is no decent alternative to the NHS.

I have left the UK now and the difference in healthcare - as well as the basic stuff like cleanliness and staff attitudes - is a huge and welcome bonus. I think it's sad that people think the NHS is the only gig in town - it isn't.

I thought it was a shame that there's been no comments on this thread for a while so felt moved to add something. Do we think the NHS should be privatised?
Friends say the NHS is going to be privatised whether we like it or not. My response is do we just sit back and accept it. Privatisation and fragmentation of services will destroy the NHS. So we need to ask ourselves, whether we like it or not, are we happy for private companies to make profits from anything from maternity to end of life care. Do we want to drift to a US-model of health care where you receive a bill for having your baby in hospital (as my daughter has experienced) or your ambulance service asks you for your insurance policy details before you’re taken to hospital (as my son-in-law was asked after being involved in a motorbike accident)? For me this is a fight not just for ourselves but for my daughters and grandchildren too.
Then friends say but "ah but ... the NHS can’t cope with demand".
In 2011 the NHS ranked best in the world for quality, access and efficiency and yet we spend less on healthcare (just £2,008 per head) than Germany, France, Netherlands, Canada, US (which has a very inefficient health service) - www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health. Since 2010 £30 billion has been cut from the NHS. The debate we should be having is are we prepared to spend more to meet demand?

This is a useful link too nhap.org/join-us-nhs-fightback/facts-fingertips/

I could write essays on the subject, but think I'll just restrict myself to commenting that we won't appreciate the NHS until we lose it.

YANBU. Privatising the NHS is something that should be being done all fucking cloak and dagger like this shower of shites are trying to. Well it shouldn't be done at all, but if a party were serious about wanting to privatise or better the NHS by dismantling it or whatever it should be put to public vote, not just done right under our noses!

I think the main thing to do if you don't want to see privatisation is not vote Labour.

They are the ones who started the current trend going, and in doing so broke any idea they can be trusted. Big rhetoric about the 'nasty party' alternatives doesn't alter their own recent track record.

Personally I would trust a nhs doctor over a private dr, it just feels like sometimes the private consultants provide unnecessary treatments which make them more money.

My husband had private health insurance through work and was seen by a private consultant, we were constantly worried if any subsequent treatment would be covered by the insurance. There are so many exclusions. With the nhs it's one less worry during a stressful time.

Zeezeek I agree!