NHS now saying stuff is free.

[MixMaxChop]

Dear Mrs Chop

Welcome to NHS breast screening. We would like to invite you for your free mammograms. We have made you an appointment in a hospital that is not local to you in the arse end of a city that does not have any access from the railway station and parking is strictly limited and none of your previous mammograms have ever been in this city before but that’s not the point.

Free??

A) it isn’t free. My NHS contributions have paid for this many times over.

B) Surely “free” is the whole point of the NHS

C) are they craftily prepping us to have to start paying for services now in a stealth move to privatise the NHS?

Free grabs the eye

put free on any marketing material and there more likely to read it

It sounds like you're moaning about the location being inconvenient. Which I fully understand.

I don't drive and was sent for a mri scan at some bizarre hospital I'd never heard of that seemed to be near enough abandoned, an it cost me about 90 quid in taxis. I've also had to refuse a bone scan as it was hours away and I had spent all my money on the taxi to the MRI!

But saying it's 'free' is just to try and lure people into going. I wouldn't think that part to be particularly sinister.

Surely the more worrying thing is that there are (supposedly) people out there who don't know that the NHS is free.
Why don't they know this? Who has put the thought in their heads that they might have to pay? Everyone but the most ignorant recently immigrated would know this, and even most of that group would know.

Or, actually there are not any such people out there, everyone knows the NHS is free, and that this is just a form of marketing, virtue signalling to distinguish themselves from the private sector.

You do know that Labour first started the privatisation years back?

They aren't, they abandoned that.

As an aside someone that I know attended their routine mammogram, was surprised to be diagnosed with breast cancer, luckily it was caught early and she is now in remission. I'm not saying this will happen to you, just that I'm really grateful for the NHS for providing them.

@MixMaxChop
I'd be annoyed at the location of the service. Can you change it?

There's a mobile unit in my area, & I've been able to change from near where I live to near where I work as the days/times were more convenient.

The difference is you don't have to pay beyond your tax/NI contributions, Reform will change that.

Oh. OP I understand where you are coming from. Language used is subtle but there it is. Free. No need to say anything about that . And it isn’t free either.
A mobile unit would seem a better option.
Phone and ask if there is one that would be a better option for you. I wouldn’t mention the wording.

You're reaching to take offence.

Talking about location for tests, my health centre used to do blood tests on the premises, it was so straightforward, pop upstairs after seeing the GP, book an appointment and come back a few days later. Now they no longer offer the service, all phlebotomy is done at a "centralised hub" in the city centre,. After you see the GP, they send you a link to make a phone booking. It takes at least 5 attempts to get through on the phone line which is only open for a few hours in the morning to book and then I have a 40 minute journey there and another 40-minute journey back again, The actual tests takes a couple of minutes.

Exactly.

Life would become so much harder for many working families under Reform.

Agree with this.

Like the fire service and other 'free' services, the NHS has been paid for, by us and our families, for generations, via tax.

Ie, we built it, and it is currently 'free' at the point of use.

The education level on this site nowadays is almost as troubling as reddit. Then again, even though education is 'free' (tax supported) it isn't quite in fashion at the moment.

I think it's more likely that there's low take up for mammograms and someone saw a YouTube video on marketing and thought inserting the word 'free' would increase 'sales conversion'...

I would challenge the concept of "free" because my last mammogram and other appointments are at an excellent facility with very high parking charges and no where else to park within walking distance. It's like a stealth tax and has been known to cause financial difficulties to people with lots of appointments and a low income.

And the parking aspect was almost certainly run by a private contractor, set up to leach public money into the private sector.

Lots of health things cost money.

travel vaccinations aren’t available on the nhs, you have to pay.

eye tests can be free under some circumstances and not in others (I’ve had to pay).

dentistry isn’t free

if you are not born in this country it can be hard working out what is provided on the nhs (and even then eg prescriptions have a charge) and what isn’t.

i actually think it’s good to make it clear

NHS has been described as "free at point of delivery" for as long as I can remember.

It is free at the point of need.

They are trying to use language in as clear a way as possible in comms to make sure that people don't see any additional barriers to attending the screening.

YABU.

Gawd that's bad. Our local GP used to do bloods too but the roof caved in on the room they did it in about three years ago and for some reason they haven't reinstated it. It's now in a few places, none of which are particularly convenient.

It almost feels like they are trying to put stuff in obscure locations to deter people using the service!

Are you serious? So you will vote reform in, knowing they don’t care about the nhs staying free, and will blame labour?

@Bjorkdidit We have contacted you by letter because the post is cheaper and more reliable (not, obviously) than email, which just about everyone else now uses as there preferred form of communication for such matters.

There are good reasons why Email is not used to send out details of medical appointments. It is not a secure method of communication and the system would rely on people keeping their Email address up to date.

But neither is the post. Letters get lost or delayed. It is common to receive a letter telling you about an appointment that happened several days ago.

Other members of the household could intercept the post. People could forget to update their home address.

Emails can be sent encrypted. Or people can be sent a bland text/email asking them to log into an electronic account such as the NHS app to see details of the appointment.

I'm one of the ones who got diagnosed in my first ever mammo, and I'm grateful for that and would advise anyone to go.

And I can see that 'free' is just to reassure people who've had to pay for eye and dental checks and might think this has a cost too.

But I just had to chase my latest monitoring mammo after six weeks of worrying, and it turns out the results are sent from NHS Wales up to England to be processed and then back to us punters in Wales... 🤷‍♀️

The receptionist sounded as baffled and frustrated by it as I was...