We need to start charging for NHS services

[Fragmentedbrain]

£15 for the GP
£20 for A&E
NHS routes to paid-for fast track treatment
Options to pay for nicer rooms

We need to stop putting working people on disability benefits for want of a functioning health service it's barbaric

NI does not "pay for the NHS". NI is a government slush fund and doesn't have to be spent on anything specific.

Classic mumsnet. Assuming everybody can afford these amounts.
Have a look at the state of the nation’s health in America if you want to see people dying from treatable diseases because they can’t afford healthcare.
America is a third world country in a first world suit and god forbid we go anywhere along the same route.

The NHS being run as it is is not sustainable. Too many people in this country take advantage of it by ruining their own bodies through gorging on unhealthy foods, guzzling down booze, binging on drugs and living lazy, sedentary lifestyles. Something has to give.

Out of pocket expenditure on healthcare in the UK has risen and risen due to the difficulty of accessing NHS services. Meaning e.g. people paying directly for treatment/procedures/medicines, insurance, fundraisers and crowdfunding. On some estimates it's already as high as America (the FT had some figures on it).

Maybe the government should give us a tax credit for out of pocket expenditure on healthcare. It would encourage people to make their own arrangements and free up resources. It would be fairer than charging per use when there's an element of randomness in who gets repeatedly/seriously sick.

There are mote countries than UK and USA and the unwillingness of people in UK to realise that will be the downfall of the system

It doesn’t work that way in other countries that do have a co-pay. Our cancer statistics are bad relative to others partly because we hate to bother the GP.

The system has failed. It's over. It will either become a system that only the poorest use, as it's so bad that everyone who can, will make their own arrangements. Or we try radical alternatives. Like charging .
That would be better. It's better to have many people invested in the service. If it's only the poor who use it, quite honestly not enough people will care about their outcomes to hold it to account and services will get worse and worse.
We need to start charging now and limiting services. But this won't happen as politicians scared of the electorate and it would be unpopular.
So the rich and the middle earners will flee to private and the poorest will be left with the debris.

I’m not paying for my blood pressure review. I had to take my own readings with my own machine or visit surgery twice a day to use their free machine. Then we just talked. They wanted one week of readings.
I am losing weight and getting fitter but menopause.

Hopefully not having to be paid for every appointment for an ongoing issue.

It's taken two years of repeated appointments to get a referral to try and sort out recurrent thrush. Probably about £1500 worth of appointments at £80 a go. I'm now seeing the GP probably every six weeks to get a prescription for treatment as pharmacists won't sell it to me because I've taken about 10 of the tablets this year and had a week long course of the stronger pessaries.

I (personally) think people should be given a civil penalty/ fine/ whatever you want to call it for failing to attend pre-booked NHS appointments. It’s unfair to charge those who do attend.

I'd think along the lines of -

4 free GP visits per year (or 2, or 6 whatever). Pay for any more than that unless you have a chronic illness or another illness that requires multiple GP visits. Or you meet a means test.

Remove over the counter drugs/creams/etc. from the prescription list.

Two free A+E visits per year, £50 for any others unless connected with an ongoing illness.

A missed appointment at GP counts as one of the free visits.

I haven't thought it out forensically, but just some thoughts to begin with.

I've had to see / speak to a GP 5 times in the last 3 weeks. I don't have £100 in my bank account. So I certainly wouldn't have been able to see them. And would now be in hospital costing one hell of a lot more.

Locked up for the night, but are they fined, too? There should be a statutory charge, similar to what there is for parking or speeding offences.

Attacking the disabled now? How utterly vile you are

Are you serious? we are already paying out for these people now you expect us to pay for our appointments but the rest of them get a freeby. Definitely not your having a laugh.

Or have a look at most of the rest of Europe who charge a nominal fee, are they all dying in the streets?

Why, why, why, does everyone always immediately go to the worst example, the USA, rather than the best, Europe.

Oh, and while I'm in a soapbox, dentistry is not universally free either.

I am a vet (so people pay for appointments)
The amount of avoidance of coming back for necessary rechecks so things don’t fully resolve, by the time you do see things back they’re really bad, and the client blames you. The frequent demands for repeat prescriptions without having to seen - even for controlled drugs, the expectation of a phone call from the vet to avoid being seen, the expectation that they can demand antibiotics because they’re a customer and the customer is always right, the pressure to be able to diagnose and cure everything in one visit and without incurring costs for procedures and tests (unfortunately I don’t have a crystal ball, a magic wand or x-ray vision). The moaning about appointments running late, even though the reason is a genuine emergency which put you behind.

Removing the free at point of care element for the nhs would open up clinical staff to another level of entitlement and pressure from some patients, particularly if the patients weren’t seeing any tangible improvements in nhs care despite paying more.

and this is a big reason why it wouldn’t work.

There would likely be an exemption for those on UC, disabled etc and they would be demonised more than they already are.

Because people who go out to work suffer too you know honestly some people want everything for free each household should pay not just those working. I’m sick of hearing shit like this do you realise people with a mortgage can’t choose not to work even if they are dying why the fuck should we pay out more than we already pay if your on uc you pay like the rest of us or we all get it for free.

That's pretty naive sadly. Of course they would still turn up they just wouldnt pay any money etc. And staff won't refuse to treat them.

I think people should take responsibility for their own health so if you are a smoker and need medical care you pay for it. So many conditions could be prevented by people taking better care of themselves instead of relying on someone else.

Definitely people should pay for pregnancy care then? Wait...

Make them pay on the door before they get in.

I'm sorry to hear that. I wish you the best of luck and that you can keep your head above water.

Really surely this would need more staff on the door and card machines what about people who just haven’t got money. We are living in country where some people go without food or heating. The druggies pay for methadone at the chemist that would go well. Erm sorry mr smack head that’s 10 quid card or cash sir? Or the drunks who get pip for fuck sake why? Oh and we just keep letting the immigrants in and they pay fuck all and then what? You do realise the government are too blame for all this crap. Both of them all in it for themselves. Paying for better nhs has to be all or nothing.