NHS plans to charge for hospital stays

[kathleen567]

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/24/charge-patients-for-hospital-stays-to-help-fund-nhs-says-report?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Looks like plans to charge patients for their stays in hospital on top of rising living costs/energy bills. Thoughts?

The drip drip of privatisation by stealth

I really hope this never happens.

The NHS isn't planning to do this at all. It's just a recommendation.

Well something has to change, but I'm not convinced the money would go to the areas of the NHS most in need.

This proposal would render healthcare unaffordable to many.

We are lucky to have a comfortable household income but following a recent prolonged stay in hospital for DD I couldn’t help wondering how some families afford it as things currently are. 10x travel to hospital (90mile return trip) was £200 alone. Never mind the physio that the Doc suggested but the wait is 8 -12 weeks so £45 a week for upto six months. That’s without eating on the go, coffees, hospital supplies and little treats etc.

Our government and NHS advisors need to take their heads out of their arses and imagine living on the breadline!

They aren't plans at all. They are proposals put forward in a book.

Raab, Patel, etc put forward "proposals" for all sorts of red tape bonfires in their book (sic) 'Britannia Unchained'. Now happening, and some

The NHS was never safe under the Tories

Or they could just save a shit tonne of money by thinning out the entire commissioning arm of the NHS and holding organisationa like CSUs to account financially. Thats where the sly privatisation is happening.

If a pensioner is in hospital for a certain time, their pension is reduced. So, some people already do pay.

This. Do people know that if you’re on certain benefits and end up in the clink your benefits might be entirely stopped after 4 weeks?

But this guy isn't a politician and has no sway. He us a former chair of East Kent acute hospital trust. It's just a suggestion to follow the German route. There are no plans at all.

well it can't continue as is but I thought lots of stats were prolonged by lack of social care & bed blocking so doubt this will improve this issue.

I do think blanket free prescriptions over 60 is unsustainable

No one pays for prescriptions in Scotland and Wales. If they can afford it, why can't England?

Can they afford it? I guarantee in England that anyone aged 40 & under will not be getting blanket free prescriptions when they hit 60.

& think it will change in the next 10 years.

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1644030/nhs-gps-private-dentist-uk-healthcare/amp

there’s also talk from the royal college of GPs about privatisation of GP appointments.

They could also scrap the artificial internal market which employs thousands, causes bad decisions throughout the NHS, and just create extra layers of bureaucracy and inefficiency costing huge sums of money for very little benefit.

Most GP practices are private businesses anyway.

If there are any concrete plans for reform, I'd hope they remove the "capitation" funding model and move to a pay per visit/treatment model, even if it's the NHS who pay. GPs should be paid for what they do, not the number of patients on their books! It would be a much more reliable link between their costs and their income!

Exactly this - precisely what I would assume would happen if they thinned commissioning back to the bare bones or moved it into trusts.

Also ref GPs… don’t they already get paid for what they do via the QOF system?

This 100%.

People need to stop with the 'all political parties are the same' line and engage with where the different parties are. Of course Labour had some privatisation - it is quite mad to have zero privatisation these days. But the Tories do not want the NHS to exist really, they want a US-style system.

This is what Ireland is like. Unless you are on a v low income you pay - €60 per standard GP visit; €80 per night in hospital (capped at €800); €100 to visit A&E unless referred through a doctor; all prescribed meds paid for; dental treatment astronomical;
I’ve always envied the NHS and while it’s obviously in a bad way I hope it can be revived somewhat so you don’t go down the pay for everything road

I am not so convinced about charging people to stay in hospital, but, i have been saying for a long time i would completely agree with a charge for people who are not using the most appropriate care, or who waste appointments. I.e. A&e for long term painful leg (when gp would be a bettet first step) or a gp appointment for a papercut.
The NHS doesn't work in its current state and whilst not the only issue, i do think people need to start taking accountability for wasting resources

so you don’t go down the pay for everything road

Atm it seems the vast majority of people want to pay for nothing. Which I get, but it’s not working, and I can’t see a way in which it ever will. There’s no line. You break a leg, it gets fixed, there’s a defined cost. But with more people having chronic conditions, both physically and mentally, we just end up with spiralling costs. And lots of things are justified because of “quality of life” and not because there’s an actual medical need. All of this is fine of course, I’m not against that, but we need to be a bit more realistic about how much the NHS could and should cover completely FOC. I wish we had a Government who had the balls to say that and then come up with a solution. Something like paying for hospital stays is not the answer IMO.

Also, while I’m on my soapbox, AFAIK (happy to be told otherwise) the NHS doesn’t deal with any of the proactive prevention. All the healthy lifestyle (smoking, drinking, obesity) stuff, plus vaccinations, sexual health stuff, is all dealt with by public health which is funded outside of the NHS. And barely funded at that. Why don’t we spend a bit more money helping people not need the NHS in the first place.

A health care system that is free at the point of care will always be underfunded. It's a black hole.