So there's apparently not an NHS anymore?

[MattDillonsPants]

www.independent.co.uk/voices/terrifyingly-according-to-the-world-health-organisation-definition-the-uk-no-longer-has-a-nhs-a6923126.html

Is it so? ;(

arpege the NHS isn't set up to manage chronic health conditions, especially ones like eds. That is one of the nhs' biggest failings and if privatising elements mean people like me and your friend get the help we need then bring it on

*For years

Care workers in care homes wont be able to afford to pay out to see their GP.

Do you really want them going into work and passing infections on to your elderly relatives and then you have to take time off from your well paid job to sort it out!

Be careful what you wish for!

The reality is thst the NHS isn't sustainable - and it's not free. It's a bottomless pit and quite often because it's deemed to be free the service is poor - and you're supposed to be grateful for that poor service !
It's easy to say tax people more - but the uber wealthy are mobile. The reality is for the 'well off' rather than uber wealthy is that tax levels are already v high - and pay a v high share of the overall tax burden. As they should - but the reality is a lot of people pay very little. We need to raise productivity and earning levels of more people.

Helena just as well the national living wage is coming in then isn't it

To me the nhs seems to run on the basis of if you're capable of standing, walking (mostly) and performing basic tasks (half the time) then you're well.

Which is depressing.

Same as social services. If demands of caring for a disabled family member haven't actually killed you yet then you're probably OK to continue with no support.

It should be an embarrassment to a first world country.

But Arpege, the answer is more money. I know women who have mastectomies and chemo in Germany have the option of going to a rehabilitation residential for a week to help them. Sounds wonderful, but it costs. I would pay more, most will not.

Its not a living wage Its a rebranding of the minimum wage.

Living wage is classed at £8.25 an hour.

But we can not get a better service on a privatised healthcare service. If we want better, we have to pay more.

Well they did it with dentists and now it's the doctors / hospitals turn. People will need health insurance eventually I'm sure. But of course even that depends what you are having done..with each extra the premiums may go up. I have often tried to get travel insurance for my daughter with a long term condition...the company says no, they can only insure for conditions which are not her long term condition. So she travels uninsured for that condition... The one that we want insurance for obviously.
The govt don't want to be responsible for the national health care system .That is why junior Drs have been accusing the Tories and Jeremy Huntof not caring about the vulnerable and the poor. At the moment, if you are elderly, have a heart attack, heart failure , kidney failure and get repeated admissions to hospital, ITS FREE. If you have a stroke ITS FREE. It doesn't matter what you need its free. For Drs it won't make much difference ...it will be more difficult to communicate between trusts and it may impact training but Drs will probably be paid much more. So they have been fighting for their patients, not for themselves.
Drs have been trying to tell everyone and the govt spin machine has silenced them .BBC don't discuss it, you will never hear BBC discussing privatisation by stealth or a genuine discussion about the NHS or the Dr dispute.
This govt do not care about the NHS workforce as illustrated by not listening to the junior Drs concerns. No one has been listening.

Completely agree Surrey, there is a small percentage of people that pay for the NHS, most people are net beneficiaries who demand more and more without the money being there.

The answer isn't more money. The nhs is a sieve - you can pour in as much as you like but it'll run straight through and won't make a jot of difference

And ill people are going to have their ESA cut by £30 a week so how do you square that circle.

When I got divorced in Germany I was prescribed a mother and child week long residential relaxation therapy.

Can you imagine that in the uk!!

I have chronic conditions that private health insurance won't cover

People with ill health simply aren't good for business

BUPA won't go near my epilepsy or long term issues resulting from a spinal injury

The market isn't terribly interested in helping such issues

Thatcher started it 20+ years ago, all the medical bodies were screaming. No one paid any attention.

Blair helped it along a bit. Now Cameron is finishing the job.

It's not under the radar. It's been happening for a long, long time.

That's because people misuse the service and there should be tighter restrictions on treatments. I think that there is still a lot of waste in the NHS from working in it since 1992.

Arpege ..the NHS does treat long term conditions every day of every single year. If you want to slander it like that can we have some evidence please.

Wigeon is right - this is not news and it is not true. No one has paid or will pay to see a GP or go to a hospital. This is scaremongering crap.

And as usual, we are forgetting that GPs are, and have always been, private organisations.

bananafish medical insurance can be covered by primary legislation which forces companies to accept you.

Germany runs subsidized schemes for (among others) the self employed and the unwaged. Plus whole families are covered under one policy, they can't exclude pre existing illnesses and your insurance premium is also subject to national caps.

I find a lot of this pro nhs rhetoric hysterical and plain wrong to be honest. Trotted out by people with no experience of any other system.

Yeah just great that the living wage is coming in... Unless you're under 25. Four years until I'll qualify for the living wage, four years of daily joint dislocations and other potentially serious symptoms (severe EDS here, which the NHS has been treating).

So we're not productive enough to deserve the living wage (despite working full time and raising a DD) but we still have to pay for the privilege of having a chronic genetic disorder?

To me the nhs seems to run on the basis of if you're capable of standing, walking (mostly) and performing basic tasks (half the time) then you're well.

What claptrap.

Thank you Wigeon for a thoughtful post. We have a home in France. Care there is better.

In the UK we are supposed to be grateful for sloppy standards. It needs a rocket and it needs reorganising. In the ladt twelve months I've seen the best and worst of it. The best bits are no longer making up for the worst.

So what happens to the people who can't afford medical insurance, because those subsidised schemes are practically worthless?

We see in the US, the incredible difference in experience between the 'haves' and 'have nots' in terms of healthcare. Colleagues who work in healthcare in the US hate the fact that what they do is totally determined by people in offices who base their decisions on statistics and finances rather than clinical need. The backhanders are unbelievable, it's immoral.

People who cannot see what we are losing are people who can not / do not / will not see the bigger picture, as long as they're alright - nothing else matters. I see it in Tory voting friends, they have this ridiculous idea about public sector services which is based on the daily mail and the experience of their friend or neighbour, they vote Tory because it's the best thing for them and then they realise their mistake when the help they need / have been receiving is taken away with immediate effect.

The choice isn't uk vs us system, and by painting it in such black and white terms the pro nhs crew are devaluing their argument.

If you want to preserve the uk system tell me why it should be preserved. Don't tell me that it's because the only alternative is a us model because that simply isn't true.

We could all benefit from a good honest look at the alternatives, rather than a rending of garments on social media.