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.

The majority of my patients can't afford £25 for an appointment so I guess my service would close and patients would suffer.

The tories deliberately underfund the NHS so they have a case to privatise. And then they can pull a Matt Hancock and hand contracts out to their fat cat donor friends.

it needs to be avoided at all costs. We are plunging headlong into a financial crisis. How do you think people will survive if diabetics have to start paying £200 a week for their insulin, if people with cancer have to sell their houses to afford treatment? If have having a baby costs £10,000 for a basic vaginal delivery without overnight stay? This is what it costs in the US.

Given the number of people who cannot afford private dentistry, why is privatising the nhs a good idea.
Dentistry is a two tier system and if you are lucky you get excellent nhs dentistry. Many people can’t get an nhs dentist and therefore have rotten teeth.
Ifvthe same model is followed for all medical care there will be people who cannot afford care and unable to access the free care. I strongly suspect doctors nurses and other HCPs will prefer to work in the private sector or more affluent areas where there are fewer social problems and the patients have better lifestyles, so some areas will be left with minimal services.

The us is always the comparison. There are other countries that you pay for healthcare you know.
The top 5 countries for healthcare in the world all charge but the government pays the bulk of it meaning to the average working person it's affordable. I'm sure those that cannot work probably get it for free (or at least should do)
When a service is totally free it gets abused and that's what happening in the NHS it's abused by people not showing up for appointments, it's abused by GP's sending patients to a&e unnecessarily, it abused by people going to a&e when they shouldn't and it's abused by people getting things like paracetamol and e45 on prescription.

The us is always the comparison. There are other countries that you pay for healthcare you know.

yes indeed, but sadly we tend to emulate the bad parts of the US instead of the good parts of other countries

I think the overcrowding in A&E is due to the change in approach at GP (semi privatised) surgeries who seem to go out of their way to avoid face to face consultations. People are making the decision that they would be better off to go to A&E and be seen and dealt with.

You are incredibly naive if you think only people who can't work, can't afford to pay for healthcare.

You're whole attitude to be honest is revolting.

Imagine how many people wouldn’t see a doctor because they couldn’t afford it?

All the people with money who can book appointments when they like because £25 is a pittance to them?

@Merryoldgoat I think you mean rich insurance and drug companies.
My sister is a doctor in the US and she sure isn't rich. My cousin's wife is a paediatrician in the US and neither is she. My father was a doc there, head of his department and while comfortable worked extremely hard and long hours to get there (not well off until about 60 years).

You just stated in a previous post you don't vote at all in NI.

If non-voters in NI voted against the DUP we would have a government, it is them holding the public and the public money to random.

@user1237865 the fact you don't even vote means you lose all credibility to even start this discussion. But I suspect you are not quite as you seem anyway.

PMSL at the 'abused by GPs sending patients to a and e' - have only sent appropriately, including being sat with them waiting for an ambulance and review all admissions when notified. Then again, we never stopped seeing F2F and have offered more appointments than ever over the last few years. The change over the last few years has been the inappropriate work thrown over the wall by secondary clinics for services they are commissioned/paid, during COVID and subsequently. Will have to fund salaried pay rises internally and need to look at nurses to judge how staff will manage the effects of post 2010 pay erosion on top of recent inflation. AfC doesn't cover PNs/ANPs/HCAs. Next practice have returned their contract and other practices locally looking to do the same, some to go private and some to locum. Am seeing early career medics leaving the profession entirely. Mission on the way to being accomplished by the government and their faithful supporters in the press.

Privatisation doesn't always help or improve public waiting lists or hospitals.

It's the better option for those who can afford it.

Private health care centres have popped up everywhere in Ireland over the years by more people using them you'd expect the public list to move quicker.

Not a chance.

It pushes poorer people into debt because you either wait 2 year's on an mri or pay €270 to get one in a week.
........

Point being Privatisation isn’t always the answer.

The NHS being free for all is amazing but when it is surviving instead of striving it can be dangerous.

A small hospital charge or gp charge for those who can afford the money would help and possibly deter people who visit too often.

There is a €60 euro gp charge in Ireland, the local pharmacist is the gp.
You only visit if everything else fails.

Very low earners are excluded from charges.

Why do people always say 'look at America'? There are 195 countries in the world.

Why are people so scared of private? Our GPs are all private, engaged by the NHS to provide services, nowadays on not-fit-for-purpose contracts it appears from the number of people who can't get to see a GP. But the system worked from the inception of the NHS until recently.

We, with our unique (almost unique?) free-at-point-of-use system, have some of the worst health outcomes among developed countries. It's possible to pick certain conditions and show that we are better than x,y and z countries for condition a or b, but overall we do not perform well.

There are many people who work in the NHS who don't think that the problem is underfunding, but rather the use to which the money is put. Ever increasing layers of management, new equipment which doesn't really perform or last or isn't appropriate, and is dumped, also endless changes of systems often thanks to a new manager with new ideas, thoughtless use and discarding of smaller items of equipment, agency staff rather than use the money to pay a decent salary to permanent staff, provision of unneccessary items that might be nice (last time I was stewarding at a Covid vaccine session a manager was insisting that we give out bottles of tepid water when about 90% of the vaccinees had their own bottles of water that they preferred; we got through over 100 bottles in one session, mostly unwanted).

195+ other countries. Corporates from how many other than USA paying £10s-£100s of millions to lobby a receptive government. Is there any realistic political trajectory to a lovely Western European delivery model, let alone one with adequate funding. Most of the non-partisan research I've seen seems to show the England NHS relatively over-performs relative to funding. How will introducing transaction costs improve that?

@Merryoldgoat @salmongrey
so you think the vast majority of working people couldn't afford £50 a year to visit the GP (twice per year seems average enough)

You also think that those with money would book unnecessary appointments just because they have spare funds?

Ireland ranks higher for healthcare and you've to pay there (if you can afford it)

Why would you be visiting your GP unless you needed some form of assessment or treatment from them - paying for the appointment will be the tip of the iceberg? Your posts scream naivety on how healthcare is needed for people who actually need healthcare.

How do you propose people pay for hospital care?

For healthy people, it might only be £50 a year but what about families with children, people with disabilities or chronic illnesses? And it’s rarely just a GP appointment. What about prescriptions? Referrals? Hospital stays? Surgical procedures?

How much would you personally want type 1 diabetics to be charged to remain alive?

There are lots of European countries which have perfectly good mixed private-public systems, all involving extensive government regulation.

If we "just privatised it" then we wouldn't end up with that. We wouldn't even end up with the US system, which has some extensive state support and restrictions on what healthcare providers can do. We'd end up with a Nigerian-style sink or swim system.

I wouldn't necessarily be against a Royal Commission to pick a best-of-breed healthcare system from our neighbours. But we would lose a lot that is valuable about having a truly universal healthcare service: data, flexibility of staff, NICE, pharmaceutical negotiations. And we'd have to introduce a whole layer of bureaucracy to manage payments, which would cost serious money. I'm not sure that's worth it to dissuade the worried well from bothering their GPs.

Whatever happens, we as a country need to pay a lot more for healthcare.

@Simonjt the government should cover that one as from what I can see they do in Ireland.

Every time I've experienced healthcare in a European country with a mutual arrangement, it has been quick, good and high quality. Eg my toddler developed a temperature, and we had to see a doctor to get liquid paracetamol. We had an appointment immediately at a local health clinic, they did routine bloods analysed on the spot, identified that she actually had the influenza virus, gave her immediate antivirals, and she was better the next day. The bill for our insurance company for it all was 300 euro but would have been free for someone local under their national health insurance.

I'd be in favour of a continental European healthcare system as I think the NHS has reached the end of the road for patients and staff alike.

Appreciate that corporate private healthcare schemes are more generous than personal ones. But ours costs £250 per person per year with one £100 excess. It comes with a free private GP service (you can usually get same day appointments) and pre-existing conditions are covered. Across our family, we've seen five different consultants this year, one the next day and all within two weeks of calling up.

I've had major surgery with the first available operation date a month away, for an operation that's a two to three year wait on the NHS. I picked my surgeon and the hospital. I'm very grateful to have the insurance, it makes a big difference to my stress levels when a medical issue arises.

I'd give up most of my monthly subscriptions ahead of private healthcare.

So you actually trust that under a private system the UK would cover it?

Are you aware that it took years of fighting for NICE to even approve basic care for type 1 diabetics? CGMs were only approved for all type 1 diabetics in March. Until it was approved in my area it was cost me £50 every two weeks, I’m lucky that my area approved it for use in 2018 and I met their criteria, some people has to wait until April this year.

I know working people with long term health conditions visiting their GP several times a year. What happens if they can't afford that £50?