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.

That's a nope from me. America is a perfect example of why privatisation doesn't work for healthcare.

Difficult to evaluate the net effect

With no private health care the NHS wouldn't have to pay for private care because the doctors and nurses would not be working privately, so that would be cheaper- even ten years ago the private sector got a quarter of its profits from the NHS

And the other factor is that complex and expensive stuff , and a and e , tends not to be covered by private insurance

What about the European system. I wish people wouldnt try and close down by using the US system as scaremongering. Something has to be done. It cannot limp on like this. They don’t know how to spend the extra money they have. France and Spain have great systems. Why not a review of those?

I am with you urgen. Every time there's a suggestion that the NHS could be improved, the troops wade in. I spend a lot of time commenting on MN health and politics threads, and I recognise most of the serial offenders, and their grammatical and syntactical quirks, from left and right alike.

I don't tag anyone, except to agree, and I post to be helpful so I never make a personal comment. But I have always been frank that I think that the NHS given what it costs us all should do the basic stuff much better, and that IVF and radical treatments should carry a supplementary charge.

@Changechangychange this reply goes back several days, so apologies. But when you talk about the cost of medications, most Rx are for very basic meds. I had one (private) Rx filled and the cost was less than the dispensing fee. Surely that is a very poor use of public money?

Trust I think

I for one don't trust the current government to want to reform the nhs for the public good - I think they believe the American approach ( if it doesn't work for you it's your own fault) is the one they emulate

Just on this page, I know that Duchess is one of the posters who turn up every time to pour scorn on any attempt to improve health provision that doesn't suggest just throwing money at the problem. I D K how to counter the issue, bit it is a problem.

XingMing I agree, I'm not sure why there's such opposition to exploring alternatives.

NHS staff have described how intolerable their working conditions have become, and I don't think patients or doctors alike would describe the current level of patient care as optimal.

Posters have described how the systems in France and Germany (and Switzerland and Portugal to some extent) work well. How they have a healthy level of competition which drives standards in hospitals, access to specialists is more straightforward and how pre-existing conditions/cancer treatment is covered by the state if needed.

I'm not sure why we're so closed-minded to looking at the healthcare systems of our European neighbours? Appreciate there's a painful transition but I think we will have to look at other options eventually.

lot123 · Yesterday 21:41
agree, I'm not sure why there's such opposition to exploring alternatives.

lack of trust of the Tory party to turn it into a profit making organisation by the back door

What’s the alternative? Carry on as we are? Risking people’s lives?

As someone with two life long medical conditions, a mother in care, a father with cancer and working all the hours to pay my rent, and I’ve lived in America and the UK, no thanks. I’ll die as will my family.

What’s the alternative? Carry on as we are? Risking people’s lives?

the alternative could be worse and more people could die - Tory’s would let the bodies pile high,added to which why would I have to start paying for something I’ve paid my whole working life for?

we all die. That's life's only certainty. No one is getting out alive. But being treated for the illnesses that happen during life is important. When you live as long as my poor DMIL93 with severe memory loss and constant muscular-skeletal discomfort plus the usual aches and pains of extreme old age, fear of falling, loss of all upper body strength and complete terror of anything unfamiliar, there's nothing to look forward to; at the next stage she won't recognise us. She knows and we know that she would have preferred to die 10 years ago. I took her for a chest X-ray today; heaven alone knows what the GP who asked for it to be done thinks it's going to reveal that might improve her quality of life. She wants release.

If there was a euthanasia option, DMIL would have taken it, several years ago. I think I would vote for the option for anyone very aged, or very very sick. DMIL is not very sick but she is heartily fed up with living.

I think given that you’ve admitted you don’t vote, you’ve lost your right to an opinion. How dare you be lucky enough to live in a democracy with free education and whinge about something like this, without using your right to vote?
the part of the NHS that broadly works as though privatised right now is GP surgeries, and we know how brilliantly that’s going

@Ravenpuff93 , was that directed at the OP? Hasn't been seen in AGES. But the rest of the thread is well worth reading as a rehearsal of all the varied options and directions for the future of what and how the UK's health system might look like and how it could possibly be improved. There are almost 500 posts here, and most of it has been very thoughtful and considered. Please read your way in first. Then, please add your views, and any useful statistics. This is not a scratchy argument thread.

And apologies if I am trying to sound like a moderator... I didn't start it, but I think it's been valuable, and I would like it to run its course without rancour and point scoring. Profuse apologies to any PPs who feel I am overstepping the remit.

I don't understand why people don't recognise the underfunded of the NHS as deliberate. It's underperforming because the people in charge of the purse want it to be underperforming. That way, the general public will get more and more frustrated and, eventually, like this thread, demand that the problem is solved. The Tories can then roll at further privatisation as the "solution", being almost invited to do it by the public rather than imposing it on them. Minimal publically-funded services and a push for "the market" corporate control is a cornerstone of Tory politics. The same thing is happening in education.

It was, yes. I have read the previous posts. Some of them are interesting, I agree. I suppose it was partly that which made OP’s question seem all the more depressing to me. That so many people wade in who don’t even bother to vote or recognise the role of the current government in systematically underfunding the NHS

I disagree @Iamnotthe1 . My opinion is that it is so important and so highly valued that no one is willing to suggest anything different and unfamiliar. There will be (probably several years) for everyone to get used to the changes. Inevitably, things will go wrong along the way. But if my DMiL and DM who are both over 85 die during the journey, I can mourn them. I would lament the loss of a parent of a young child (like my niece's husband, in good health BTW) who didn't get any care needed much more.

But a privatised or insurance-based system doesn't necessarily bring better outcomes. In fact, if we look at the USA as a model, it is most expensive but least efficient or effective healthcare system of any developed country. As such, it also has the worst health outcomes of any developed country.

Whilst a more private healthcare system here wouldn't have to look like theirs, our experiences with the privatisation of previously nationalised services has shown quite clearly that profits come way before people.

Thank you @Ravenpuff93 . As you'll probably know already, I think the NHS is too big and unwieldy to perform well but I don't think it's very badly underfunded, just wasteful and resistant to change. Procurement is badly coordinated for such a large organisation. Systems are all over the place. I really don't want to copy the US model, but I could absolutely get on board with a system modelled on the French or German system (and pay a little more for it). The real hard work is in making the transition smooth enough for everyone to not realise it's in progress. And I am not clever enough to suggest a path forward.

@Iamnotthe1 how many times do I have to write that I am not advocating a US model? I deplore that as much as you do.

But there are better alternatives, like Germany, France and Australia. All big populations with similar requirements and demographic age profiles, but with much better health care and outcomes. Yes, the spend per capita is modestly higher (1%, 1.5%) but the NHS is not working well for chronic conditions or mental health, and increasingly not for routine care either.

People taking responsibility for their own health instead of becoming unwell with self inflicted ailments would help enormously!!!

But do you really believe that our Government would create a hybrid approach that still had the majority funded through the state rather than jumping down full privatisation? Even if we started with a German-style system, it'd soon escalate and we'd be a full scale USA system in no time at all. There's a huge idealogical issue here as well as practical health and finance based ones and it would factor in with a Tory Government.

The NHS does need refinement but that can never happen when it is being deliberately underfunded, and by choice not necessity. That's the first issue to deal with.

Deguster(?) You must be on a fabulous wage if your tax and NI is £45,000 per annum!