To think a privatised health service would be an improvement?

[WhiteStars]

At the moment we all have to be grateful for the overstretched and often inefficient service we receive. I had a 9am appointment today with a nurse practitioner. At that time in the morning she was already running 25 mins late on her appointments- how?!

She also couldn't use her computer system so I had to then wait for a doctor to come and issue the standard repeat prescription (I couldn't get this over the phone as needed a blood pressure check). The doctor then issued the wrong medication and only corrected it when I noticed she had done the wrong thing on the screen.

All very minor but not a great service at all really. We all know how over stretched the service is and everyone says it's at breaking point. Why is everyone so against paying for health insurance and getting a better service or going private?

It's not uncommon to hear of people waiting weeks to get an appointment and not being able to book in advance. The government would save an inordinate amount of money that could be ploughed into schools whilst subsidising some health services but with people paying an annual health insurance fee. We already pay for prescriptions in England. I would rather have a better private service than the NHS as it is now- on it's last legs and not really fit for purpose any more. AIBU?

Nothing stopping you joining BUPA Op leaving the NHS for the rest of us plebs

Your national insurance number should be all you need to access free health care. Surely that's insurance enough. Everyone over the age of what? 16? Has one. Simple.

Any baby or child should also access free health care anywhere in the country.

YABU. So many people that can't afford to eat or heat and you want them to pay for health care too. Disgusting attitude.

In fact, you're being irresponsible and selfish for using the National Health Service when you can afford to do otherwise.

I rather like knowing my tax goes to healing the sick, training nurses and promoting the well being of my fellow citizens. It means just by working, paying tax and not being a whining selfish pig about it I'm automatically accruing positive karma.

People travel here from all over the world to access out NHS they don't seem to think they would be better paying privately (which they should - this should definitely be stopped)

I have private cover and have had two minor operations this year one of which I had done privately and one I went NHS. Both were excellent service (and the private op was done by the same consultant I would have been sent to on NHS anyway)

The American system seems ideal when you are working age, relatively healthy and getting on with life. you would get an efficient, cost effective treatment.

Then real life hits, you have a child with additional needs, you try and reinsure after you had a bit of chest pain (that turned out to be indigestion), you get a bit older, have a long term medical condition, made redundant or god forbid retire. It all gets very expensive very quickly. Before you know it you are choosing between antibiotics and basic foods.

You'd soon be wishing you were spending all morning waiting for a late appointment in a warm, reliable (albeit late) and free GP's surgery.

I went private for a small operation and four hours in hospital with an operation which lasted approx. 20 mins cost £3,000 plus follow up appointments - 2 at £220 each. The operation wasn't a success so what was the point? I had it done because of the long waiting lists on the NHS and the fact the condition affected my job.

I don't think at my age (50's) with my pre-existing conditions anyone would give me health insurance so where would that leave me and people like me? In Scotland we have free prescriptions - I would rather pay for mine and plough the money into the NHS. I realise not everyone can afford to pay so exemptions would have to be made but I'm sure there are ways of saving money. I have family members working for the NHS and they say the waste is colossal in some ways and in others they run short of supplies on a daily basis.

We pay a fortune to hospital administrators and nothing seems to work. Instead of employing people who are there for short term results and big bonuses we need to employ people who really care.

I don't want to live in a country where people are afraid of falling ill because they cant afford treatment.

If you think it should be privatised and are not happy with the service you receive from the NHS then why not go private yourself? Of course we shouldn't privatise it

Be careful what you wish for. Most americans work 2 jobs to afford insurance. On top of insurance companies trying to get out of a paying out;

The nhs needs work yes but so lucky and priviledge we have it.

I have lived in a country where healthcare is private. Every move they make you can hear 'kaching'

Also I work in the nhs.. For example an endovascular aortic aneurysm repair costs thousands of ££££ and sometimes with 1 patient we use 20k worth of equipment. Can you imagine having to have the insurance to cover that 1 operation? Your premiums after would sky rocket.

The option to go private yes. But not the norm.

YABVU.
In the USA people are bankrupted by their medical bills.
Not everyone has medical insurance.
Obamacare is unpopular and doesnt works as well as the NHS.

At the moment we all have to be grateful for the overstretched and often inefficient service we receive.
No we don't, that just what the Tories would like you to think.

DH and I were talking about this the other night, and looking at ways we could try and find a private GP in our area, as getting appointments at our local surgery is beyond a joke. We don't even try anymore, and just use OOH so we have no ongoing healthcare. But instead of contemplating private insurance/healthcare, shouldn't we all be standing up to the Government and telling them to stop sending billions of £s in foreign aid, treating foreigners on the NHS without them paying, come out of the EU as we voted to and stop subsidising every country in Europe - and put all that into our flailing NHS before we lose it.

YABU. My dd was born with a rare life threatening condition. To date I would estimate she has received over £1 million worth of care. She is 2. It literally reduced me to tears of gratitude to know that the NHS would do whatever it took to make her better, no matter who she was, her life mattered. If we had been in the US we would have been fighting with our insurance company over which aspects of her care they were willing to pay for and facing astronomical insurance renewals. I have seen stories of children in the US with the same condition and what their families have had to go through.

Also, some services have already been outsourced to private companies, and if anything they are running less efficiently. There was a treatment that she needed that we could have done at home if we had been given training (1 day). The training had been outsourced to a private company and there was a six month waiting list. This meant my dd had to remain an inpatient for an extra two months. Hardly cost effective!

She is doing really well now, thank god, and thank god for the NHS.

What a wonderful idea. Let's introduce a health care system where people die of an infection because they couldn't afford the antibiotic treatment or appointment with the doctor. Or better still a system where you can only be insured if you have a low risk profile so anyone with breastfeeding cancer history in their family or genetic diseases can go whistle for specific care that'll see to their needs. Yep sounds great! It's certainly one way of reducing the population...kill off the poor

How about you go private, almost all routine NHS work is available privately. It's only emergencies where you'd have to suffer the NHS and it's creaking ability to save anyone's life irrespective of their ability to pay.

If you're a real person OP you are a muppet of epic proportions. If you're a lazy journo fishing for a story then quite frankly fucking off and do some proper journalism!

Ffs sake autocorrect and ranting. Breast cancer not breastfeeding cancer!!!!

The answer is to take out private health insurance yourself

As Pebble said, if you want to go private, nobody's stopping you. I don't recommend the US system though. We spent $7000 on healthcare last year on top of our insurance premiums, and that's with a fairly good insurance policy and no significant health issues.

Why does everyone refer to the US system on these threads? There are so many alternatives. I've lived in two European countries with state run insurance schemes that offered a much better service than the NHS without being noticeably more expensive. The US healthcare system is terrible but it is not the only alternative to the NHS.

YABU.

The NHS is purposelessly being underfunded so people won't care when they decide to get rid of it.

My friend's dd was airlifted to great ormond street at 3weeks old. She has a rare condition that has led to 3 sessions of brain surgery and she's regularly monitored. Friend joined a fb support group for families with the condition and guess what? Only the English dc survive as in the US it is rare for it to be covered by standard insurance and even those with insurance were required to pay £300,000 in addition to the insurance. Private healthcare is not better imo.

Why was your nurse over running? Maybe she had a family disaster at home or perhaps the patient before you came in for something minor that turned out to be more serious.

I fear you have rose tinted glasses.

I do believe there need to be changes, and they are happening slowly, but privatisation is not the answer imo.

YABU.

Mother charged for holding her own baby after a CS in the US. No thanks.

My sister would be dead if she lived in the US - at the time she had her life-threatening health problems there is no way she could have afforded any health insurance at all, let alone insurance that would cover the scale of her treatment. She wouldn't have made it past 35.

So no, a private system wouldn't be better.

If you can afford to pay for private healthcare and don't want to use the NHS, cough up to BUPA and get on with it, but don't assume that what you want for yourself is fairer for everybody. It isn't.

As an aside, I'm having surgery next month on the NHS, but in a private hospital. I was given a choice of two hospitals when I was referred to the consultant and just chose the one it's easiest for me travel to - when I got there I was surprised to see it was a private one. Exactly the same situation happened to my dad a couple of years ago in a different part of the country - NHS patient cared for in a private hospital by privately-employed staff.

I have regularly arrived to appointments at the private hospital to find they are running an hour or so late. Once the person treating me had the wrong notes. I got a letter with the date for my operation on Christmas Eve and I needed to ask them some questions before I could confirm - but their entire admin function was shut between Christmas and New Year, not just on the bank holidays but on the normal working days as well. I still haven't been able to tell my boss how much time off I'll need because I'm still waiting to hear (after several promises of phone calls) how long the recovery period will be.

When my dad had his op in a private hospital he was left in agony and at serious risk because the doctor couldn't manage to fit a catheter and never bothered to send anyone else in. What should have been one-night stay ended up being a week because of that mistake.

So, don't imagine that the problems you refer to only occur in the NHS.

Well I do not know of any private system in any country that is working well.
I do know about quite a few state healthcare system that are working err well indeed.

The solution to a failing state system isn't always to privatise but to improve how the current system is working.

Being private would not for example solve your issue with the GP making a mistake on your prescription.

Jeremy? Is that you?

Bitching about the NHS because the Nurse was running behind. Yeah ok.

I work in a GP surgery and believe me, the clinicians dont run behind for the fun of it. Sometimes, things happen, like something taking longer than expected or a patient is seriously ill.