Just privatise the NHS

[user1237865]

Totally prepared to be told IABU but I've just got to the point where I think the NHS is so far gone it should be privatised.

Totally outing so I've Name changed. In NI we have 2 private hospitals but they don't do emergency's, they don't do ante natal care. Really they only provide you with an appointment with a consultant who will then decide in treatment which in most cases will happen on the NHS. If it's something like cataracts they'll do it but the private hospitals here don't do anything major. Perhaps the rest of the UK is the same. I'm not sure.

Today DSis was sent to A&E by the GP. DM and her have now been waiting 7 hours to be seen. While waiting another man collapsed and died in front of them. I think this is beyond ridiculous how can they let this happen?! If people were seen in a decent time frame this would be less likely.

FIL has terminal cancer again nowhere to treat him when he gets recurring sepsis so most times he sits on a chair (around ever 2 months) for 36 hours getting an IV in A&E before he's finally gets moved to a ward.

I paid for private ante natal care each time I was pregnant. It did give me appointments every 3 weeks and scans with a consultant but when it came to giving birth it was a time when the consultant was working a shift for the NHS thus using their resources and beds. Yes the care was probably therefore cheaper than had I been paying for my stay in hospital too but it isn't an option here.

The whole things a complete joke. Those willing to pay/ have insurance are still stuck blocking the NHS which in my opinion should be there for those that can't afford their own treatment or can't get insurance through their job.

Surely if a lot of it was private, pay would be better, meaning more people choosing it as a career (and not leaving) meaning people actually get proper care! Though so much of what I think could be wrong as I don't understand it all fully.

Just look at America. Rich doctors, bankrupt patients, opiate addiction, unnecessary treatments because they make money.

If the NHS was funded properly, restructured a bit in some areas, we trained more doctors and nurses and paid them a better wage things would be very different.

Wel this thread is going to go well isn't it 🧐

Private nursing pay and conditions are generally worse than NHS ones which is why quite a number of private hospitals run on agency staff and in private maternity units attached to NHS hospitals, it will be the regular NHS midwives doing bank shifts.

The NHS is systemically underfunded. We spend less of our GDP on health than any other Western nation. It’s cheap and when it’s funded it’s efficient. Money is the answer to the NHS, proven by the fact when the budgets went up, so did patient satisfaction. People don’t want to believe it’s that simple but it is

Totally fair then it's a case if it's under funded. But why? The whole UK can see it's a complete disaster so why not fund it properly? Who would have any objections to this?

Private service providers cherry pick the profitable cases. Ultimately it’s all about profit, and it’s more expensive

A friend moved from NHS to a private hospital here she's a nurse. She prefers it the pay is better, the hours are better but what she said annoys her most is it's full of referrals for people from different countries and it's still as busy.

The right wing free market government that we have chosen to elect maybe?
we have chosen a government that openly believe in a low tax, small state model where in theory the wealth ‘trickles down’. Funding state healthcare is in direct opposition to this.

Of course if you consistently underfund it, the opposition to privatised care will also be much less, but I don’t know if that’s a plan or simply a beneficial side effect

The Tory government that’s who! They can’t ensure their friends make loads from privatisation if they don’t runt he nhs onto the ground to the point people, like you, Ask why we don’t just privatise it. Another couple years and many people will vote for the candidate who promised to fix the nhs by privatising it and making them pay health insurance because they’ve seen family and fiends die unnecessarily. Said health insurance will help keep the poor poor while giving it buck profits to the insurance companies who are probably Tory donors already.

Of course not all Tories verge on the libertarian anymore than all of labour are committed socialists but our current government have been fairly open about their political views.

I agree OP. The evidence shows the systems where the money follows the patient is best practice and that a universal insurance would be better for everyone's health and more cost efficient. But being 'free' at the point of access is such a golden cow no politician wants to challenge it....even when it's been proven to increase all our risks of disability and death.

Again I can't comment as I know nothing about politics and don't vote as we don't even have a functioning government in NI just a bunch of clowns.

What I do know is this isn't the fault of the NHS staff they're burnt out. Everyone I know that works there wants a way out of it and their pay in nothing short of a disgrace

I’m a doctor in a country with both private and public systems.

The private system simply cannot provide good care. I would never have major surgery or be admitted with a significant problem to a private hospital (I’ve worked in a few), nor permit that for a loved one.

I no longer work in private hospitals (the pay is 3x what I receive in the public, and the work very much easier) because I cannot do so in good conscience.

The answer to an inadequately funded public health system isn’t to put one’s faith in the market.

The tories have underfunded the NHS for decades, and failed to provide enough training opportunities for an adequate workforce. Yet people keep voting for them, and complaining about the NHS (not me, I've never voted Conservative).

The reality is that most people in the UK couldn’t afford any care on the NHS privatised. Often people who can afford private care pay for it.
If there wasn’t such an enormous gap between the majority of people’s incomes and the cost of health care it might be possible but as it stands, it is not. We don’t have health insurance built into wages and most people don’t earn anywhere near enough to pay for a single operation, let alone ongoing health care.
for instance, I cannot work because of my daughter’s disabilities. She gets DLA - we have to use the mobility component for a WAV. Do in total, with child benefit and my carer’s allowance my “income” is £735. I have to pay for her clothes, my clothes, my phone bill, council tax, school clothes and so on, petrol, birthday gifts etc.. I have a large family so Christmas alone costs loads. My DH works but his take home pay is probably about £20,000.
there is zero way that we could pay for a single surgery.
Privatisation is not the answer. Higher corporation tax funding the NHS is actually closer to an answer.

Switzerland apparently had the best healthcare in the world. According to google (as I'm not very bright) There are no free, state-run services here – instead, universal healthcare is achieved by mandatory private health insurance and some government involvement

You lost me at the "don't vote" FFS.

From what I understand of the American system health insurance (for those who can afford it) is more expensive than what we currently pay in tax for those healthy people who don't need it and doesn't cover a lot of stuff for people who do need it. E.g. a ventolin inhaler for an asthmatic - free at the point of use now may cost £300 a month for some people. Insulin can be in the 1000s. As Jonie Mitchell said - you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

America is always mentioned in comparison but it's not the only country that operates a private healthcare system.

You mean Switzerland the wealthy semi-tax-haven with a population of only 8m compared to our 70m and minimal defence spending? That Switzerland?

The NHS is struggling because it's always been underfunded so it's political, not systemic. Even at the start in 1948, the sheer level of unmet need nearly overwhelmed it because people who'd been forced to go without basic medical and dental care previously quite rightly came forward for treatment, making the original estimates way under.

Healthcare free at the point of use but funded by taxation I.e. the NHS is the most efficient way to fund healthcare. In the US, a third of the vast amount spent on healthcare goes on just the admin involved in processing insurance claims, which the NHS does not need to do.

Insurance and paying as needed also encourages overtreatment and overpricing. The main reason why people's houses get repossessed in the US is because of medical bills.

Health care is not a market good like buying a loaf of bread. I can buy a loaf one day, try it and decide for myself if it tasted good, whether it was a fair price and whether I would buy it again a few days later. Health care is too complex, there's a basic asymmetry of information between provider and consumer. It can't be left to the market.

The NHS is a good system but it can't run on fumes forever. Funny how there was money for the banks in 2008 but none for this even though NHS cutbacks now costs far more in poorer health outcomes in the future.

But most GP surgeries are already private. Why are you not all up in arms about that?

Australia does, and employs coercion to get you to join private health schemes that give less and less for more and more. Anyone earning $90,000 (about £52,7000) and up is taxed for not having private health insurance.

Oh, and the age pension is means-tested.

"Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community."

“No society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”

“It [the NHS] will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.”

all quotes by Nye Bevan...

all true.....

as is the other quote I like by him...

“No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.”

Why do people continue to vote for a Tory government if they are the ones who consistently underfund the NHS?