NHS should charge people

[Brideandpredjudice]

AIBU to think that people should be charged a fee for wasting the time and resources of the NHS and to think this might help with some of the current problems?

I was just reading a thread where someone had purposely done something that they shouldn't have done before their appointment, which meant it couldn't go ahead. Why do people think this is okay?

We can't continue to have a free health service if it's misused like this and perhaps the only way to deter people would be with a fine. No idea if or how this would work in actuality and how they would police genuine mistakes from accidents, but it's so infuriating. They should at least be pushed back to the bottom of the queue.

I recently had to pay for an appointment because the waiting list was over 12 months. I wonder how much shorter it would be without all the missed appointments etc.

Myth... pay roll taxes fund France's health service.

The insurance system is funded primarily by payroll taxes (paid by employers and employees), a national income tax, and tax levies on certain industries and products. Ninety-five percent of citizens have supplemental insurance to help with these out-of-pocket costs, as well as dental, hearing, and vision care

So very much like us, with eye and dental all but fully privately funded.

We've a shit NHS because of historical under funding, its usually always been 1 or 2% below the EU average and over 40 years, thats billions.

Insurance systems don't magic up Nurses Doctors or buildings.

You are a counsellor seeing people with mental health problems and you are surprised that some people may struggle to make sessions?

Do people make their own appointments or are they allocated? Do they get good notice and a reminder of the appointment? What is the process for cancelling or changing an appointment? What are the actually numbers on no-shows?

Its possible your group has the only NHS appointment system not designed by Kafka, in which case please share it with the rest of the NHS.

its a slippery slope though..
fyi it was insinuated that I wasting doctors time when I didn’t accept a diagnosis. Turned out I had a life threatening PE.

No it doesnt.was a discharge summary wouldnt entitle anyone to extra benefits or a place in social housing.
To get sickness and disability benefits you need lots of proof of not only your condition, but also how it affects your day to day life. The same for getting more points on a social housing register

From next year, working pensioners are paying ni again.
My husband is 72 and still working. He paid ni from being 16 to 65 and at 72 will have to start paying it again. He did pay into a company pension scheme for years but it went bust due to fraud by the company and the compensation all the members got was a fraction of what his pension would have been worth.

Apologies, not RTFT, but rather than charging people to use the NHS, which is already funded by taxpayers, why do we invest so much money in treating illnesses and so little in preventing them?
So many illnesses and conditions could be prevented, if not entirely then at least improved by preventative care in the first place.
It makes sense that if you dont become poorly in the first place, you wont need medical care.
Obviously this wont work for everyone, but there are millions of people living unhealthy lives, making poor choices when it comes to their health and then expecting the NHS to foot the bill when they inevitably become unwell.
As an aside, but still relevant, I would like to see basic eye care, basic dentistry and prescriptions available free of charge to everyone.
This would prevent people with poor uncorrected eyesight from driving or operating machinery, prevent lost time at work from toothache, and prevent common illnesses treatable via prescription drugs from being spread around infecting other people.

I'd like to see individuals taking more responsibility for their own health before they burden the NHS with the inevitable results of their lifestyle.
I'd like to see all of that before I agree to go a step further and charge people to use the NHS.

Are you sure this isn't for a dental appointment?

I get it for hospital appointments too

It makes sense that if you dont become poorly in the first place, you wont need medical care.

It makes fuck all sense if your profits are dependant on curing people. Or rather "curing" people.

You know what drug companies fear ? A cure for cancer. Just imagine how much they would lose in those (ideally) lifelong treatments that are a licence to print money ?

It probably says what the cost to the NHS would be if you didn’t show up. There’s currently no charge for missed appointments.

@BritWifeInUSA

I’ve lived and worked in both and done the sums. Taking the lower taxes into consideration and all of the premiums and OOP maximums, I’m still better off here.

Do you or any of your family have any chronic conditions, which are not covered by health insurance. Do you know anyone who has lost their job due to I'll health so that their health insurance is no longer valid.

Easy for the suns to change. The story is very different for relatively young healthy people. The point is to consider those who are less fortunate, especially through no fault of their own.

Well, all well and good charging and fining..,
The government would need to pay me first to make that possible as I cannot work (cater for severely disabled child).
My DC has appointments across two or more sites.
They make appointments that clash (frequently) m, reschedule without consideration of anything else that might be taking place - like at another medical setting for DC.
I pay for ongoing counselling and Sertraline from carer’s allowance.
Mostly this is needed because I developed PTSD and anxiety after an assault by an NHS consultant.
So counselling costs me £30 a week (I’m fortunate it’s so cheap): £120 a month at least plus almost £10 for Sertraline. So £130 a month, largely because of the NHS (the doctor who assaulted me and the senior executives who have been busy creating false statements to present to court and who are paying a law firm to fight me in court and probably spending a fortune to do that).
Subtract £130 from £270 (carer’s allowance) and I have £140 a month. I need to pay for petrol to get to these and my daughter’s appointments.
I need to have a mobile phone - which currently costs me £40 (or more) a month.
Petrol is about £40 a month. So after that I have £60 a month which I’m also supposed to pay council tax from.
My DH doesn’t earn a lot.
I’s just love to be put through another immensely stressful and cruel court case for not being able to attend two appointments, 70 miles apart for my DD.

But let’s pretend we are all bourgeois now, eh?

Well, all well and good charging and fining.., The government would need to pay me first to make that possible as I cannot work (cater for severely disabled child).

Alternatively just remove your access to the NHS. Then you won't get any appointments to miss.

Not my suggestion, by the way. Just one I heard recently doorstepping. Not sure I managed to swing that voter.

Well, on another thread What advice would you give the new PM?, a poster is advocating universal euthanasia at 70 to solve the problems an ageing society causes the NHS.

I have four years remaining.... time to get on with the bucket list... yikes.

Lucky you. I have less than a year before she’d have me topped! 😂

Good idea in principle but I can imagine the grief staff would get from aggressive serial appointment missers. How do you force them to pay? Appointments would need a deposit upfront.

Restaurants take a card number when you make a reservation, and make you aware that £x per person will be taken if you fail to give proper notice before cancelling. No shows were a big problem for restaurants until this started.

I've never had to sit on hold or play telephone roulette for hours with a restaurant in order to change or cancel a booking.
Bookings I make with restaurants are at a time and place of my choosing, not allocated to me with the appointment information sometimes arriving far too late to have any hope of attending.

Large companies do not put money into proactive customer management systems because of love - they do it because its a sensible business practice which saves time and money. Implementing some post Victorian business practices would help address a lot of the "patient problems" although it would make it harder to blame patients for the problems.

It'd just widen health inequality, you can't afford to pay for a missed appointment you don't seek treatment in the first place. Of course there are time wasters who hammer the nhs but this isn't the answer. I'm not sure the "send them to the back of the queue" works either, if for example someone has cancer and misses an appointment you punish them by making them wait longer to be seen? It then just costs more as they end up with more advanced cancer. It doesn't work. The suggestions on here just punishes people who are unfortunate enough to have serious ill health or aren't very wealthy. Those who can afford to pay or have minor ailments just carry on as they were, how to widen health inequality.

No, no @ThirteenLuckyForSome ... you only leave a deposit... you wouldn't pay unless you missed the appointment.

I agree. NHS managers clearly aren't bothered about missed appointments because if they were, they'd improve their systems.

Over 65s have been paying NI their entire working lives.

My MIL gave up work in her 20's like thousands of women of her generation, is now in her 80's and never worked again.
Not unusual.

Same here.

I wasn't always like that either, but ms has destroyed so much of me, and I really really can't help it. I have appt nt reminders everywhere, calendar, phone, e-calendar, dh, dd, but I will still miss something occasionally. It shames me.

MS has also removed most of my independence, my ability to hold down a job even really crappy ones, and so I couldn't even pay a tenner.

This new attitude so prevalent in society terrifies me, really terrifies me.

That’s just the Health and Social Care levy though isn’t it, not the full NI contribution.