Private education and healthcare

[LeafUsAlone]

I'm just curious as to why they are considered morally indefensible when people being able to afford better quality clothing, houses, safer cars etc aren't commented on in the same way?

Considering both private healthcare and education doesn't necessarily mean a better quality, why do people get so annoyed over them?

Actually I do think that the NHS and state schools would be better if private medicine and education didn't exist because the resources, particularly of staff, that are currently in the private sector would go back into the public sector. I know it can't happen and people have a choice etc etc but it's out of hand now and needs regulation.

It is horrible what is happening to the NHS right now. It literally pains me to see it. The pandemic caused waiting lists to grow, people went private which I can understand but here's what I see that people don't seem to acknowledge: Staff are cutting hours and leaving in their droves to go and work in the private sector. Many of my colleagues work 1 or 2 days for the NHS and the rest in private practice. Highly skilled consultants trained by the NHS for 15+ years. There is a huge workforce crisis in the NHS right now and the private sector is a big contributor to that (well that and effing Brexit) The more that staff leave the more the NHS can never catch up. The Tory government do nothing to stop it because they want it to happen. Half of them have shares in private healthcare companies or their mates do

The NHS is hugely valuable. For instance we can negotiate drug costs and other supply costs that are much lower as the NHS is a monopoly purchaser, we also have huge ability to do research because of having access to all NHS records. These things will be lost when it is all fragmented amongst private providers. It's the poor and chronically sick who will lose out. My patients with chronic schizophrenia already can't get a service because all the Drs and nurses are working in private ADHD clinics and then we have to repeatedly hear how crap NHS MH services are. I will never do it because those are my principles but I am in a very small minority now whereas private practice used to be niche now everyone is at it.

I also redistribute my own wealth. I give a regular chunk of my income to charities that accord with my values.

I also don't think people abuse the NHS cos it's free. The determinants of poor health choices are linked to poverty and generational inequality. It's not about telling poor people to eat more veg it's about public policy that makes it easier for people to make better choices like the smoking ban and soft drinks tax. I want to see more of that. The Tory government abolished Sure Start centre that were a really good idea to improve health and educational inequalities at a young age. I never knew why they did that. I am just hoping that a Labour government gets in and that they have the money and the balls to make a proper difference

I guess I would be less against private services if they trained all their own staff rather than cannibalise NHS resources thereby redirecting them to people on the basis of ability to pay rather than on need. It's the most regressive thing ever. It's not somehow extra resource. When you pay a Dr to see you privately that's one less person that Dr is seeing on the NHS who might be in more need but unable to pay.

What a load of nonsense. It's not a 'choice' to forego modern medicine just because the NHS is massively underfunded so that treatments that are nowadays standard and life-saving / life-improving are not available here. Other countries have better (public) healthcare and schools; is that also an 'unfair privilege'? How shit do public services have to be before some people admit that going private is not actually a 'choice' but the only way to survive and prosper?

I do think the NHS has got into such a state that it is now incredibly unsafe - certainly, this is my direct experience. GPs are no longer gatekeepers, but barriers, making a bad situation even worse. A&E is overwhelmed by the consequences of catastrophic GP failings, and those who would otherwise be healthy are being made seriously ill by lack of access to care. Hospitals are stuffed full of the chronically sick, elderly and demented, and those who could have been kept healthy and productive for society are being neglected until they are acutely, dangerously ill, or their undiagnosed, untreated condition has become a long-term, expensive health problem or a death sentence. Self-preservation requires an ability to pay to be seen where necessary, now, imvho. This crass Government knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Trained by the NHS? Not the majority: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/13/two-thirds-of-new-doctors-are-from-overseas-report-reveals/. Which is ironic since it takes qualified staff from those countries that invested in their education. Most universities in Europe are free of charge (i.e. funded by tax payers).

It is not a choice. My DD could either have waited 5 years for spinal surgery on the NHS (no joke) with her back rapidly deteriorating and pain worsening, unable to go to school or even see her friends, or we could’ve remortgaged our home in order to raise the £50,000 to pay for it privately which we ended up doing. We were literally pushed into a position of go into debt or watch our daughter suffer further for years on end and see her life prospects dwindle. You are in a very fortunate position to really believe that the care in the NHS is adequate or timely, and that insurance is really a luxury, obviously you haven’t needed it much over recent years.

Indeed. I work in a state secondary too.

Do I think the education system in this country is unfit for purpose and needs a massive overhaul? Absolutely. Am I in a position to make that happen? Sadly not. Did I do what it took to get my children into the best school for them regardless of my principles? Too right.

I don't think that would work how you think. The USA has an insurance based system and I don't see much evidence that individuals take better care of themselves as a result. In fact, as I understand it, spending on healthcare per capita is much higher there so the only thing it has achieved is making insurance and medical suppliers money.

Nowhere do I say it is currently adequate or timely.

Of course you had a choice. You are fortunate enough to: own your own home to be able to remortgage and have enough equity in your home to take out the necessary amount. You chose to access that money and to spend it on private treatment. Countless millions in the country do not have any way whatsoever of raising £50k by any means – those are the people that the perpetuation and growth of private healthcare harms. Please see @ThePure ’s posts for a very thorough description of how this harms the NHS.

Regardless, you seem to be mistaking my personal beliefs for judgement, which is not my stance. I do not judge your choice of the route you took to gain timely treatment for your daughter. Acknowledging something is a choice is not a bad thing. It’s simply an acknowledgment.

The sense in which it is a choice is that you had a house to remortgage. The people who really don't have a choice are those who literally cannot pay and in the end they will wait longer because that surgeon is doing private work with half his time and not on the NHS so the circle goes around.

That's not to say that I blame you. It's not something that individuals can carry the can for but you hear people saying that them going private is 'easing the burden on the NHS' which could not be further from the truth. In all honesty despite my principles I would also violate them if one of my children was suffering and I thought I could save them. I have always had NHS care for myself and never jumped any queues (staff can't actually do that)

The trouble with that however is that when people are desperate it is open to private Drs to be profiteering and recommending treatments that are not actually indicated because they make money. I have certainly seen that happen.

I once did pay for my mum to have a breast cancer drug privately that was not available to her on the NHS. I was desperate for her to see 70 but to be honest it didn't work, didn't buy her any extra time and was probably a waste of money. I expect NICE was probably right not to fund it and perhaps it was best for my conscience that it was my own money I wasted.

Cross post

What are you talking about? Of course having adequate clothing is a human right! Clothing your child unit an optional extra! That's why there's no VAT on children's clothes 🙄

Not true Royal Family does now pay tax. See

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9807/

Fancy clothes aren't a human right, however

I have actually sent my children to the local comp which was RI for all of DD's tenure there although it has just managed to get to good so I think that proves I have quite a high threshold for selling out.

Had she been genuinely suffering in terms of being badly bullied or not having some SEN met I might have considered going private but I did not feel the need to do so just so she could have the theoretical 'best education'. I guess I think education, like parenting, can be 'good enough'.

She got 7s&8s at GCSE and she is predicted As and A* in her A levels at a state 6th form. Maybe she would have got some 9s if she went private but that's not a worthwhile difference to me (or her now she's old enough to have an opinion)

Personally I think most private education is a con and not worth the money.

As said many times upthread, varying expense of clothes and cars do not actively promote inequality in society. Education and healthcare do.

My friend has two children who became medical students. Both intend to work overseas once qualified. She's heartbroken knowing that although well now so can travel. One day she won't be able to. So won't see them, their future wives, grandchildren. But understands why they're not staying.

Imagine if she couldn't afford flights

You can say it all you like, doesn't make it true. The point is, do people have adequate health care, education and clothing for their needs. If not, why not? What everybody else has or how they managed to get it hasn't got anything to do with it. We could all poke our eyes out and go round naked and we'd all be equally badly off, but it wouldn't be the optimal solution. I'm sick of this race to the bottom.

So, rather like expensive clothes and cars, then?

In Wales our health board is management led. Surgery rationed. Patients that surgeons deem top of the list management go through weekly and decide who is worthy. It's frustrating. So they do a lot of private work because they have the time.

We're in a retirement area so lots of downsized buyers from Cheshire, Lancashire who sell a big family home buy a small bungalow or apartment so have a kitty. They do use the private sector for hip, knee operations because the waiting times can be years.

The spire during lockdown built an amazing unit £6 million in Wrexham. They've just opened another in Abergele another £6 million.

To my mind if these pensioners go private and surgeries are rationed that shortens waiting lists for those that cannot afford to pay.

In that they are a con yes but as has been pointed out many many times as there is not a state funded car or clothing industry these are not unethical in the same way because they do not take away resources from a state funded institution that is for the public good

But the surgeons doing those private ops are not a separate workforce. They are NHS consultants who do a few days private work and were NHS trained. They only continue to work for the NHS for their pension tbh. If all those surgeons worked full time for the NHS there would be no waiting list

We all pay our taxes and NI and should be able to access decent education and health care. I refuse to scapegoat people who are 'lucky' enough to be able to pay for something again that they've already paid for! Just lets the government off the hook for the appalling failures in our health and education system.