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

How does every other business manage to take payment? You hand over your card details when you make the appointment, and the amount is debited accordingly when you make your appointment and/or when you attend or fail to attend your appointment. It's quite simple.

I was seen as a time waster but then further down the line it turns out I did have something wrong with me (very serious) which should have been discovered at the apparent time wasting appointment.

If charges were to become a thing then they should be charged for accusing patients of time wasting in the cases where they can’t be arsed and there turns out to be something wrong. And that would mean they are actually the time wasters.

We already do pay through general taxation and national insurance contributions so no I'm not willing to pay additional fees.

Wow, you extrapolated an awful lot from my post there, none of which I actually said.

Online bookings are managed locally

Have you seen how much tax there is on cigarettes? The government gets £8 billion a year from it and the estimated cost of smoking related diseases to the NHS is £2.1 billion. Smokers are already paying for their healthcare nearly four times over.

What exactly am I paying taxes and national insurance for these days then?

Can't get a GP appointment or an NHS dentist, transport is shit, social care is in chaos, the retirement age will potentially go up and on and on it goes.

Just expecting people to keep paying more and more to get rubbish services in return is not going to work.

Government first needs to sort out its own mismanagement of public funds, included the money wasted on too many civil servants and consultants, MP expenses and vanity projects and end the million wasted on illegal immigrants.

If I am expected to pay to see a GP then I also will expect my taxes/national insurance to go down...

The NHS is badly run, very few would disagree. There are layers of inefficiency piled on top of more layers of inefficiency. They really need to start again from scratch. Everything should be available with just a few clicks on the NHS app. Doctors and hospitals should not be sending paper letters (!?) to each other in the year 2025. Manually typed letters at that. Not when in the private sector you have AI bots talking to each other and doing business in a matter of seconds.

Because some people are unable to work, that's why. What would you have them do - live on the streets with no healthcare?

agree OP, just as it is in many countries, which have a much better service. Also there is something in people placing higher value on services they have to pay for, and there would be fewer missed appointments. People might also take more care of their health given that they would have to pay towards their care. It also needs to take payment from non-residents before treatment, as is also the case in many other countries.

No I never said anything of the sort I’m saying we should all be entitled to it. Why should I go to work pay for everything for myself then pay for others on top of what I’m already paying. I have illnesses as well I’m just not in a position to give up my job due to ill health so I just suffer and if I had to pay every time I needed blood tests or a dr appointment I couldn’t afford my mortgage, bills, etc.

Do you agree if everyone who gets benefits should be exempt are you happy to pay for others.

I live in a country where we pay for GP visits (children are free), and people on a low income still have to pay, but a lesser amount.

No one chooses to be so disabled that they are unable to work for a start.

I believe it should stay as it is but if it doesn't then things need to be in place for those who would otherwise be unable to afford it or those who need to use it more because they are either disabled or have medical issues which means they would be penalised for needing to use it more.

The only reason I'm on UC is because I lost my job due to my son having cancer and complications from cancer caused by the NHS delaying surgery he desperately needed which then caused a long hospital stay and my son to be disabled. They made the mistake, why should I then have to pay for that?

My options at the time were to lose my job or leave my child with cancer terrified and alone in hospital to cope with his new disability on top of his cancer diagnosis.

Implemented correctly this could be a very sensible solution.

The people saying people can’t afford £10 so they won’t get treatment and will die. This model is popular in many other European countries and works, people aren’t dying there on the streets because they can’t afford to phone an ambulance.

People need to take some responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.

Like others have suggested there could be caps on the amount of charged visits per quarter relating to the same issue. For example you suspect a chest infection, visit doctor pay £10, they tell you it’s probably viral. 4 days later no it’s getting worse? You get another appointment no charge as it’s for same issue, you get prescribed antibiotics and pay prescriptions charge. Doctor wants you to go to hospital to get a chest x ray as it sounds particularly nasty, this is free as it’s the same issue.

Another example would be an older person requiring hip replacement. They see GP pay the £10, then everything from then on regarding that hip replacement is free.

My brother broke his leg earlier this year. £20 for an and e admission. That’s it surgery, hospital admission, pain meds, physio etc all included.

It’s not going to stop people who actually need the treatment getting it. What it will discourage is missed appointments. It will discourage people who attend the GP often for lots of different ailments often. My mum is a nurse practitioner and she sees the same patients regularly for non related issues, one week it’s back ache, then in a fortnight it’s a cold that needs no treatment, then another week later they have had a bout of anxiety.

It would also stop people going to a and e for stuff they could have had treat elsewhere

I'd be fine with people on benefits paying a lesser amount. But they should pay something. There should never be a case of working people paying for something while those that do not work get it for free.

Which Facebook Reform group has been telling you people on Universal Credit get motobility cars? 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️ Absolute nonsense. Only people on higher PIP get cars, which comes off their money.

and parents with disabled children on high rate mobility DLA can choose to get motability cars too.

I have a wheelchair accessible car for my son.

Bevan wanted to get everyone in work too though.

People also pay tax which contributes to healthcare in the countries where there is a charge to visit a GP. Why do you think the UK is so "special" when it comes to healthcare?

Where I'm from, the way OP suggests is pretty much how it works: a small fee to see the equivalent of a GP, payable at the point of booking the appointment, so cancellations are less likely, and if they do occur, the appointment is paid for irrespectively; A&E cannot be used as a substitute for seeing a general practitioner and some interventions and minor procedures in A&E incur a charge.
People on specific means-tested benefits are either exempt or charged according to a tiered structure. Children are free.

Personally, I would like to see a system whereby people who present to A&E with injuries or conditions indicative of alcohol misuse are breathalysed on arrival and, as well as being charged for treatment, instances of admission being flagged with the person's insurance companies (home, motoring, health and life). It really shouldn't be OK to use up precious resources treating people for injuries which wouldn't have occurred had the person not been under the influence of alcohol. Ditto drugs. The nights when people tend to drink more and get into dumb scrapes and mishaps as a result coincide with the time of the week when there are fewer staff working in hospitals, making it really scary if you're a parent of a child needing emergency care or an elderly person having to wait on a trolly because Sam has smashed his knuckles or Gerry sprained his ankle side-stepping off the kerb. Casual alcohol misuse should be made problematic the second it encroaches on other people via the use of services.

We need someone like Bevan in charge of Labour today. A party for working people. He'd have been disgusted at modern "benefits culture" with people who don't want to work, full stop, and people who limit their hours to maximise their benefit entitlement.

I don't think he'd be too impressed with today's NHS either with doctors constantly going on strike for more money and drunks and druggies causing havoc in A&E wards with no repercussions.

Tax on cigarettes does not cover the cost of smoking to the economy. It's not just treatment in the NHS, its lots working days etc.

I have been admitted to A&E well under the influence of alcohol. One time, I had no recollection of being taken there at all. I just remember being discharged hours later.
However, it was linked to my poor mental health. I had also taken an overdose of medication at the time.

Mental health and substance abuse are very often intertwined. Should I be charged for my treatment?

This is where I come unstuck and wobble on my resolve, I must admit, and thank you for bringing it up. Addiction is an illness -I have two alcoholics on one side of my family- and would love for more comprehensive treatment programmes to be made available to support them to address their illness. I suppose I would like to foster a culture-change over time where, through attaching consequences to injuries sustained while casually misusing alcohol, such as brawling on a night out, such behaviour becomes embarrassing and unacceptable.