NHS queue jumping...

[DafferDill]

DM had to have an ultrasound, rushed through by her GP.

She was told it was a 2 week wait, unless she paid £70, in which case she could be seen the next day.

She opted for the latter and was seen on the dot, which is unusual for the hospital.

She was in two minds whether to pay as it felt wrong in principle, but obviously was incredibly worried...

Aibu to think this two tier system within the NHS is pretty appalling?

There will be X number of slots available for NHS patients and Y number of slots set aside for private patients. There will be the same number of slots available on the NHS whether the private ones are used or not. The NHS raises income from selling the use of technology at times when it is not using it - it may be staffed by the same employees who are working outside of their normal NHS contracted hours.

Your mother has not jumped the NHS queue as she paid for a private scan and not an NHS slot. There are very strict rules about this.

You can see the same doctor privately or on the NHS in the same hospital.

Anything that cannot wait for 2 weeks for, I presume, an ultrasound scan is likely to need to be seen on the day, i.e. by the admitting team.
So, really, I'd just see this as rather cynical preying on the worried for financial gain angry

Well said Pacific.

Techncially NHS queue jumping would be literally jumping up the NHS waiting list - which is allowed if you're an urgent case. Taking a private appointment is not.

Wow, bold fail

I am horrified by what is happening to the NHS, and all so, so sneakily and subtly.

Op, I hope your mum is ok - forgot to say that earlier

In my area, if you have a private scan earlier, you are slotted back in to the NHS waiting list to see the consultant more quickly. I had a private scan that showed something that needed operating on urgently, I was operated on that night in the NHS.
If I hadn't paid for a scan, I would have been paralysed. I had an appointment for an MRI in three months time if I didn't pay.

There are often private Patients to coming in for surgery where I work on Saturdays. I get paid extra money for coming into work on Saturdays to do this if I want to do the work. There is no slots available on Saturdays for nhs as we don't normally work Saturdays. If the nhs clinic said oh let's run Saturdays, that's fine but I only work part time. I wouldn't increase my hours so slots wouldn't increase. I only work extra because they pay me so much more.

I had to have another mri scan after seeing my consultant two weeks ago. I had the option of waiting 8 weeks at the local hospital or travelling an hour to get one on the nhs at the private hospital where the nhs spinal unit is. I chose the private hospital (free) and had it the following week.

I guess I've freed up a slot at the very busy local hospital and haven't taken a place from anyone else as its only nhs spinal patients who go to the private hospital, which is where I have all of my treatment.

There is always the availability if you can pay. I was on a waiting list to be seen for an ongoing problem and my appointment kept getting cancelled - for 8 months. I called up the doctor's private secretary I was seen at a cost of £150 within twelve hours.

Makes my blood boil, but I'll pay whatever it costs to protect my health.

I don't see this a queue jumping. She paid to go private, she didn't bribe someone £70 to go in place of another NHS patient.

However, if that option was never available, occasionally I might consider extra nhs work.

I think there is a problem with allowing staff to work for competing companies if you like. My DH works in private industry and us not allowed to work at the weekend for a competitior!
Your extra reserve as a person in needing cash would then be directed to nhs work.

Technically it isn't queue jumping, in actuality, it is. She hasn't paid for better or different equipment, better or different facilities, or better or different staff. She has paid to avoid the queue. Private patients want treatment at convenient times - they don't pay to use facilities when they would not otherwise be useful to NHS patients, they pay to get access to everything when it suits them. If your dm hadn't used the queue jumping private service, however, no doubt someone else would have done.

So really paying money to be seen privately ultimely harms the availability of staff for the nhs. Thus I take the private one Saturday but the next when it's an nhs list, I am much more likely to say no.

What is happening to the NHS is neither sneaky nor subtle. The government has been quite clear that it believes in low tax and virtually no state. You cannot run a NHS that way, so it's pretty bloody obvious what is happening!

Yes, is is obvious, but is sold as 'improvement' and on the back of staff goodwill.
IME the general public has little clue just how bad things are and what they are up against when it all folds. Reds 'goes private'.

This has been going on forever, its not new.

The general public just likes to bury its collective head in the sand and pretend it is being conned, rather than admitting to suffering from a case of severe inertia. We are all just sitting around and watching everything being dismantled.

I did this 20 years ago, it's not a new thing

Technically, it is queue jumping. I'd do it if needed though. Think about it; you're using NHS resources, sneakily we are watching the NHS become privatised. As others have said, it's been going on a while.

I recently was referred via the NHS for an urgent MRI scan. Urgent, I assumed, would mean I'd wait a couple of months. I got a letter from my local (NHS) hospital for a Saturday at 6 pm less than a week away. It was a private company with one of those scanner vans. It made me feel weird, even though I desperately needed that scan.

NHS Consultants work privately too. They don't work for the NHS full time, they have very lucrative private practices. They often have their NHS staff doing their private work too (eg typing up letters and reports, they work late and get paid).

The NHS is largely being run by private companies now on a profit basis. Its is still an NHS as we don't pay (though I forked out £24 for prescriptions this week )

Scooterloo - any private work is undertaken outside NHS hours.
NHS secretaries are very badly paid and many are very happy to take on their consultant's private work and be paid more for doing it. They are not allowed to use NHS resources unless the consultant is paying for it. There would be very harsh penalties and disciplinary procedures otherwise.

Things have changed a lot in the last 20 years.

Thank you 3littlefrogs - I wasn't suggesting there was any mis-use of NHS time.

That's good scooterloo - I have worked in the NHS for 40 years and I know that some consultants have large private practices, but they are in the minority - mostly gynaecologists and orthopaedic surgeons. Most of the rest are working way over their contracted hours in and for the NHS.

It upsets me when I think that people generally think this is not the case.

I have worked with some amazing people who do a lot of voluntary work in their spare time too - they just don't shout about it.