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?

Also some can't get GP appointments, because of the vacancies in GPs. Where I am there are no vacancies, and I can easily get appointments. A decent system has to value and invest in its staff. The NHS does not.
Return the NHS to those who provide medical care, and reduce management.

The US medical system paid for a kidney transplant
but will not pay for the anti rejection drugs
so the kidney is dying
and the person is back on dialysis
so will never be well enough to work - ever

a bit of a waste of a 33 year old don't you think ?

The UK produced less than half of the doctors on the GMC register. The NHS may drive a few away, but we have NEVER trained enough clinical and medical staff in the first place. Why? Because that's what doctors' and nurses' unions want. It increases their value, and allows them to flit from employer to employer at agency rates.

As for Southern Rail - that chaos has nothing to do with privatisation. It's everything to do with a unionised workforce and the unions' political ambition. State involvement in public services is toxic!

Southern rail is all about a Conservative party allowing a train company to run amok. They through their negotiations allowed outrageous things on the legal agreeement

The rest of railway services have a unionised workforce as well.

How do you explain then how Nottinghams dermatology centre that was a centre of excellence under the NHS, is now failing to even provide a basic service under privatisation?

And there are lots of GP vacancies. These have to be tackled. There are simply not enough GPs to provide a decent service, however it is funded.

Yabu for many of the reasons already stated. Outcomes for mothers and babies in the UK post-birth are better than almost anywhere else in the developed world, including the US under private health care arrangements. Pil have both been treated successfully for cancer (mil for breast cancer, including complicated reconstructive surgery, fil for bladder cancer) and my dad has been operated on swiftly and effectively for skin cancer, also including reconstructive surgery. Of course there are elements that can be improved and there are huge inefficiencies and waste, but it is second to none for treatment of life threatening disease and emergencies - despite the pressures. Let's concentrate on fixing the bits that don't work as well rather than dismiss its many successes and treating everyone equally, regardless of background.

There's a huge amount of waste on prescriptions and I'd like to see more education in this respect. For example, as a high earner who is entitled to free prescriptions as I'm on maternity leave, I'd rather pay for things that can be obtained over the counter for less than the prescription charge. A lot more work can be done to educate people about the cost of medications versus the cost of subsidised prescriptions. I'm sure many more people like me would make different choices to alleviate pressure on the NHS if they can afford to do so.

I also have family who have worked under a NHS service that has been privatised. Same staff delivering the care as under the NHS. The difference is that management constantly encourage them to fiddle the figures so that it looks better run than before. My family member refuses to do that, but plenty of others do. My family member is actually seeing less patients than under the NHS management.

DJ. Obama took care of that, insurance companies are no longer allowed to deny coverage for preexisting conditions, however, since the incoming administration is bent on eradicating anything to do with Obama and Obamacare in particular, the short answer I'd give you is : you're about to be fucked.

This might interest any mums to be here, there was a case recently of a just post partum mother who was charged on her itemised delivery suite bill for 'skin to skin contact' with her newborn i.e. she was billed for the action of being handed her baby so she could hold him.

I can't speak for Nottingham, but I know that in Greater Manchester ten years ago something like three quarters of all Consultant Dermatologists were over the age of 50. Dermatology demand has risen much faster than most other specialties as all those package holidays in the 70s and 80s have started to come home to roost as melanoma in a boomer bulge population which has also just hit the peak age for basal cell carcinoma (which makes up 97% of skin cancers and is basically an age-related condition). It is also possible, I think uniquely amongst medical specialties, to qualify as a GP without ever doing a rotation in Dermatology.

If you were running a service that you predicted was about to implode, wouldn't you privatise it and blame privatisation, rather than thirty or forty years of shortsightenness and chronic underinvestment?

After all, that's what governments do… (railways, water utilities etc)

I earn £37k, pay cheap rent (£600pcm in the South East), and have no kids to take care of (although do pay £60pcm for my DSD's childminder).

There is no way in hell I could afford private health care. And there are so, so many people worse off than me.

YABVVU. Everyone should be entitled to decent health care provision, not just those who can afford it.

BTW, my series of Qs above weren't to one specific poster.

"The NHS can't continue as it is" keeps getting trotted out as a little meme, and I really would like to know what people who say this MEAN.

Personally, I would like to fund it better and would happily pay more tax to do this. And I support the NHS taking over social care - but only if properly funded and if experience then shows it works.

I'll consider most ideas, but as I'm well aware of the problems of outsourcing - and I didn't even get onto client capture and end-of-contract syndrome - I'm not going to rush headlong into that as a widespread good. I also don't have some mystical reverence for the private sector, and am not motivated by Osborne's boasted "opportunities for private profit" in healthcare, so my wish list doesn't include idealogically motivated privatisation.

(And I'm certainly not going to promote outsourcing and then turn round all surprised when letting of govt healthcare contracts goes exactly the same way as all letting of all other contracts. )

It would be good if there was some way patients could feed in their ideas for how money could be saved in the NHS. The last ward I was on was an old one, but it was very well run. And it was simple things that made a difference such as a HCP who did breakfasts from a trolley, helped everyone with menu choices, and handed out drinks. The ward mainly had very elderly women in it, and the HCPs work meant that everyone got enough to drink, and got food they could eat. An important part of getting better.
But some wards have outside caterers who just dump trays and go. Maybe this costs slightly less to do? But I have seen it leading to issues with vulnerable people not drinking or eating enough.
I also think maybe trained volunteers for sites such as mums net who can give advice about when to call an ambulance, would be good. Some people do seem to call ambulances or go to A&E when there is absolutely no need.
I also support the spread of effective preventative work. The stop smoking initiatives have been very successful. There needs to be more work on this kind of thing at Government level and the NHS.

Increasing insurance payments based on individual risk has costs and problems too. People would have to be employed to work out your premium, which would alter frequently. Perhaps you may be forced to take a genetic test? Have the brac genes, your insurance would shoot up. It's not like you choose your genes!

Return the NHS to those who provide medical care, and reduce management.

Do you really want to employ someone who's spent several years training to be a doctor then several more gaining experience and further personal development £150 an hour to do managerial tasks?

Nope that is not why the Dermatology Centre in Nottingham has imploded. It imploded because the newly privatised centre could not keep good staff. They left and went elsewhere. Remember it was a centre of excellence so had attracted the very best dermatologists who had the choice to work elsewhere. Now it struggles to recruit and keep staff who can provide a basic dermatology service, and has relied on overseas locums that cost a fortune.
Healthcare depends on good staff. You have to keep good staff on board. One thing that those who talk about privatisation have often not yet realised.

I'm American. I haven't read all of the responses but I think you are WAY idealizing the private system. From a consumer standpoint, it was even harder there to get a GP appt than it is here, and every time you go you have the privilege of paying a copay (in our case it ranged from $30-50, and this was considered a high-end plan.) Insurance premiums are very high and getting higher every year. Prescription costs are even worse. Healthcare is a very significant cost for most people, and the results aren't really better than here.

*professional development

I am not talking about Drs being managers. And who is talking about £150 an hour? But I know personally people who have been recruited into NHS management who do not know the first thing about medical care.

Wasn't hitchingbrooke an example of a privately run hospital that went wrong?

I also have a friend who had an operation in a private hospital paid for by the NHS. The operation itself went well, the aftercare was shocking.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-35433215

Yes Hinchinbrooke was run by the same private company that took over Nottinghams dermatology centre. It fucked up both of them.

I've got MS and my third and current treatment is 11k a dose. 8 doses in total and two hospital stays as well. Monthly blood tests etc etc for five years. Can't imagine many insurers wanting to pay for that or being in the position of having the disease progress because I can't afford the treatment.

There is a massive national shortage of Dermatologists; it has long been an unattractive specialty and the ones who have recently retired had no-one coming along behind them to replace them.

I imagine that one from a centre of excellence could probably name their price anywhere in the country. What you're seeing in Nottingham is being repeated in Derm units the length and breadth of Britain. Whilst privatisation may have given them the final push, it will not have been the main driving force, I promise.

In a wholly private system, a properly run company has a long term incentive to ensure the supply of talent coming through, and retain them. In the NHS it's always someone else's problem, you won't lose your job over it, and you can always throw more money at it which then piles up as an eye-watering deficit with no consequences to the individuals who did it.

I do wonder if the NHS could be helped financially if they started charging akin to when you go to the dentist, so at the dentist's its £18 odd to be seen, £50 odd for tier one treatment and £200 odd for tier two treatment which is capped. Those who are not working/on benefits/pre existing conditions etc could be exempt, like it is now with prescriptions.

This would stop people wasting GP appointments, provide revenue for teh NHS and contribute in some way towards the cost of treatment.

It seems to work in the dental care side of things, why not the whole of the NHS?