CherryPavlova - I don't think people are confused at all! HOW GP's are paid is irrelevant to patients, to a degree as they ARE still paid out of the nhs budget yes? Frankly it goes back to the inception of the nhs I believe when to be perfectly honest to my mind even at that point it was greed motivated GP's to refuse to be properly part of the nhs and Bevan had to give in to their demands as they are essential to the service.
And they're STILL imo being greedy, getting payments on top of their basic (not small!) salaries for providing certain services that actually are bloody obviously part of the job THEY ALREADY GET A SALARY FOR! And refuse to provide these services unless they are paid.
They won't work evenings, won't work weekends, won't do home visits even to bed bound patients, won't do bank/public/local holidays, won't even do NORMAL BUSINESS DAYS between Christmas and new year, many also take several days/weeks off either side of Christmas and new year.
And do you not consider that PART of the reason junior HOSPITAL Drs and nurses and other lower down the rung staff are working crazy hours is because GP's and senior hospital Drs are working part time hours for full time pay? Not the whole reason no but certainly a factor I believe.
"And before you say "put your prescription in earlier" well we have tried that one I was told it would not be put on the system and that i would just have to put it in again." I've had that too! - again when trying to be prepared for the Christmas shut down! That time of year I am of course more vulnerable to chest infections and thus asthma flare up yet its murder getting life saving meds sorted.
Want2b - I'm not asking or expecting you to make "certain statements" that's kinda my point - that the statements you ARE making are not from a point of actual experience. So how would you know if Medicaid works well?
"make medical exemptions on prescriptions only for that condition (e.g. insulin free if diabetic but not antibiotics unless for a diabetic infection)" sorry but that shows a blatant lack of knowledge of how diabetes and indeed how the human body works! No dr would definitively know if a patient got a bacterial infection due to being diabetic or if they'd have got it anyway. There'd be no consistency.
"Sorry but I’m not buying the too poor line." It's not a "line" 😡😡😡
The sick and disabled are the ones most likely to BE poor. They're also the ones most likely to have difficulties dealing with the mountains of bureaucracy that is dealing with our nightmare benefits system! Not least because they may not even be conscious or otherwise able to deal with it when stuff goes wrong! PIP and all other benefits are being massively messed around at the moment and people are LITERALLY dying as a DIRECT result - and the ministers involved are obfuscating and even outright LYING about the facts of this. If you literally physically don't have the money for a 90 minute taxi, no family or friends with the means to Lend this to you, no commercial companies (well reputable ones) will lend to those on benefits, even charities have cut RIGHT back and even the arguable possibility of an "emergency" loan from the govt would take several days to come through by which point the op date has been cancelled exactly WHAT are people supposed to do? Also bear in mind this wasn't the patients cock up! Have you been on benefits in the last 12-18 months? Do you even know how long it takes from first filling in the form to actually receiving something like pip? Even if you don't have to take it to appeal (which most do)?
"And yet again PIP has to stretch to the moon and back. Many people are paying their rent with it due to cuts to other benefits." This too!
User do you even know without looking how much pip is?
"Disability and sickness benefits, if you qualify for them which is increasingly difficult, aren't the vast fortune people seem to think they are." Omg yes! Some on here seem to think it's £100,000's.
"at the expense of those who actually need help." How on earth is that true?
Re returned meds being destroyed - it's tampering/contamination but it's also in case they've been stored incorrectly - many medicines need to be kept in a cool place but they haven't been.