To say the NHS should be privatised?

[Cheekypeach]

Preferably only partially, but still. I was talking about this with DH yesterday who is adamant it should stay as it is. I said I don’t think it can survive in its current form, and I for one would rather pay more and receive a better quality service. AIBU?

There are apparently a lot of doctors who've taken early retirement from the NHS, who'd be available to continue working privately

And you’d want to be treated by a doctor out of touch with current practice who does far fewer operations and therefore becoming deskilled? No thanks. The real appeal of my surgeon when I paid privately was that he does cataracts all day long, I wouldn’t have wanted one who does a couple a month

@GreenFingersWouldBeHandy

If you want to pay for private healthcare, there's nothing stopping you from doing it now. But you won't receive the full support services of the NHS.

Not really, my idea of part payment is that the NHS saves the same amount of money as it pays towards the private. I.e. if for a private scan (like my OH), each scan apparently "costs" the NHS a couple of hundred pounds (according to consultant), so why doesn't the NHS contribute that £200 towards someone who wishes to go private, so that they pay, say, £600 instead of the full £800? Seems a no brainer to me to reduce waiting lists and strain on the NHS. Especially when, like in my OH's case, the NHS "wasted" £600 on 3 aborted MRI scans because he couldn't tolerate the tunnel.

So this is not about reforming the NHS.
It is about how I get taxpayers to partly fund my private medical care.
Bloody hell!

If you want to go private go ahead. But no taxpayers should not be partly funding private healthcare.

Ah so what you really want is taxpayers to subsidise those who use private healthcare?

This.

@Blossomtoes

There are apparently a lot of doctors who've taken early retirement from the NHS, who'd be available to continue working privately

And you’d want to be treated by a doctor out of touch with current practice who does far fewer operations and therefore becoming deskilled? No thanks. The real appeal of my surgeon when I paid privately was that he does cataracts all day long, I wouldn’t have wanted one who does a couple a month

Lots of doctors retire in the their 50's so have a lot of useful working life left and they won't be de-skilled if they start doing more private work as soon as they "retire" from the NHS.

Obviously, if they retire, then spend a few years playing golf and holidaying, and then try to return to medical practice they're going to be out of date and out of practice, but I was thinking more of the recently retired, many of whom were basically forced to retire due to the way they're paid and their pension schemes, to avoid suffering punitive taxation (I know that's now been addressed to some extent)

I actually think you have a real cheek. Lots of people who could never afford private healthcare are on waiting lists. I don't care how much you pay for private healthcare. And taxpayers should never subsidise healthcare.
What next? Demanding taxpayers partially pay heating bills in mansions because they cost so much to heat?
Some well off people have no shame at all.

@Blossomtoes

Ah so what you really want is taxpayers to subsidise those who use private healthcare?

This.

It's the opposite. It's getting people who can't afford 100% private to go private with a small subsidy from NHS which is just the amount it would have cost the NHS anyway. So, it's getting people who can pay a little more, to actually pay more to go private to relieve the NHS.

was thinking more of the recently retired, many of whom were basically forced to retire due to the way they're paid and their pension schemes, to avoid suffering punitive taxation

They weren’t forced to at all. They chose to be highly paid tax dodgers. No way would I put more money in their pockets.

@user1497207191 So well off people can jump NHS queues and poorer people can't.
It is an appallingly unequal proposal that rewards the better off.

Absolutely 100% no. It needs properly funded and valued but having the NHS is worth fighting for. Can you imagine being poor and having an ill child and having to consider whether or not you have to choose between food or medicine? I don't want to be a customer of a business. Healthcare and education are vital.

[quote Monopolyiscrap]@user1497207191 So well off people can jump NHS queues and poorer people can't.
It is an appallingly unequal proposal that rewards the better off.[/quote]
Envy/jealousy is not a good look, especially when there are options to improve the NHS for those not so well off, i.e. by relieving pressure, reducing waiting lists etc. Still, better to cut your nose off to spite your face I suppose.

@Merryhobnobs

Absolutely 100% no. It needs properly funded and valued but having the NHS is worth fighting for. Can you imagine being poor and having an ill child and having to consider whether or not you have to choose between food or medicine? I don't want to be a customer of a business. Healthcare and education are vital.

But you ARE a "customer of a business" every time you use your GP practice, a dental practice, getting a prescription from a pharmacy, getting a free eye test (if eligible) etc - all those places are private businesses being paid by the NHS for the services they provide.

@user1497207191 advocating taxpayers money should be used to benefit the well off and disadvantage the poorer is not a good look.

Seems a no brainer to me to reduce waiting lists and strain on the NHS. Especially when, like in my OH's case, the NHS "wasted" £600 on 3 aborted MRI scans because he couldn't tolerate the tunnel

The NHS didn't waste £600. Your husband did.

And you want taxpayers to contribute towards your private healthcare? What a cheek!

Envy/jealousy is not a good look, especially when there are options to improve the NHS for those not so well off, i.e. by relieving pressure, reducing waiting lists etc. Still, better to cut your nose off to spite your face I suppose

It’s hardly envy to want health equality for everyone. It’s one of the founding principles of the NHS. One of the ways I justified my private surgery was that I wasn’t taking a place on a very long waiting list, I certainly didn’t want the NHS to subsidise my decision. Better the money stays with the NHS.

@GreenFingersWouldBeHandy

Seems a no brainer to me to reduce waiting lists and strain on the NHS. Especially when, like in my OH's case, the NHS "wasted" £600 on 3 aborted MRI scans because he couldn't tolerate the tunnel

The NHS didn't waste £600. Your husband did.

And you want taxpayers to contribute towards your private healthcare? What a cheek!

No, he really didn't. If you've got a phobia, then you've got a phobia. The NHS wouldn't give him any alternative options, not even sedation. He managed previous MRI scans, but he's been poked, prodded etc due to long term cancer so many times, he's now got some pretty severe health anxiety issues. He told the oncologist he couldn't tolerate the MRI machine, yet the oncologist just said "try it anyway" - that was the extent of the NHS "support" for him. We researched upright/open MRI scanners ourselves and found a provider - apparently, intolerance of MRI scanners is very common, as we discovered during our research. It's not as if OH wanted a scan himself - it was something the oncologist insisted on, so hardly something OH did for fun.

I'm not talking about going private for a nice view from your bedroom or an espresso coffee machine in your room. I'm talking about essential things that the NHS simply doesn't provide.

@Blossomtoes

Envy/jealousy is not a good look, especially when there are options to improve the NHS for those not so well off, i.e. by relieving pressure, reducing waiting lists etc. Still, better to cut your nose off to spite your face I suppose

It’s hardly envy to want health equality for everyone. It’s one of the founding principles of the NHS. One of the ways I justified my private surgery was that I wasn’t taking a place on a very long waiting list, I certainly didn’t want the NHS to subsidise my decision. Better the money stays with the NHS.

Trouble is, that "equality" nearly always means a poorer service, i.e. race to the bottom.

It’d definitely be a race to the bottom if we started pulling money out of the NHS to subsidise private care for those who can afford it.

@Abhannmor

All my American friends are adamant the NHS should keep out private health providers. They speak from bitter experience.

Private health providers have shareholders to keep happy and health insurance is there to make profits for their shareholders, too. They'll do anything they can not to pay out. I remember seeing a clip on the news of an American athlete who'd injured herself out walking, crying as she sent away the ambulance that she couldn't afford to use.

The NHS needs to be adequately funded, not sold off to make rich people even richer.

NHS dentists were privatised and it’s not worked well

Lots of doctors retire in the their 50's so have a lot of useful working life left and they won't be de-skilled if they start doing more private work as soon as they "retire" from the NHS

They may have lots of useful working life left but thats irrelevant if they no longer wish to work and have chosen to retire.

If they just wanted less NHS work, they can do that now, without retiring.

Envy/jealousy is not a good look, especially when there are options to improve the NHS for those not so well off, i.e. by relieving pressure, reducing waiting lists etc. Still, better to cut your nose off to spite your face I suppose

All that would happen is the Govt would put less money into the NHS per person, just as they have done with education and 1000s choosing to go private, they cut per pupil spending in the state sector.

We only look good on int comparison tables because student loans and private education is included in the spending.

@Digestive28

NHS dentists were privatised and it’s not worked well

Exactly. It is almost impossible to get an NHS dentist where I live. Some people have very poor teeth as a result.

If it's privatised we will have thousands of people bankrupt due to medical expenses and others dying on the streets. We should have a better insurance system; France and Germany manage this fine.

@KTheGrey

If it's privatised we will have thousands of people bankrupt due to medical expenses and others dying on the streets. We should have a better insurance system; France and Germany manage this fine.

France and Germany have good insurance systems because theirs are mixed private/public systems.

@Digestive28

NHS dentists were privatised and it’s not worked well

Dentists were always "private" businesses, just like GPs. Dentists haven't been "privatised" at all, just that lots of them decided they preferred their patients to pay privately, no doubt thanks to botched contract renewals over the past 2 or 3 decades.