NHS Privatisation/Reform

[JLArthur]

What does everyone think of privatisation of our NHS system? As someone that is in complete support of privatisation, paid prescriptions and appointments to alleviate pressure on our healthcare system I'm interested in what others think. I feel like we have no alternative, no money, not enough resources and skilled healthcare professionals are available, many are choosing to work over seas.

Unless you're destitute or an immigrant/asylum seeker in need of immediate medical assistance on arrival then we should be paying for the healthcare and prescriptions received. Whether that's paid for by private insurance policy or without. With private treatment you'll benefit from reduced waiting times, more time to talk to your doctor, less time in waiting rooms and you sometimes be assigned a case worker who will support you through treatments.

NHS dentistry is slowly but surely changing to a fully private system. At first, some were quite happy to pay £50 a month for a dentist.
You can still get a dentist privately there are no shortages ....for £50 a month.

Yet the massive queues for NHS dentists and the many many tales of people pulling their own teeth out clearly show the general population cannot afford £50 a month, so how will they be able to afford medical care ?

It is in the countries best interest to have a healthy workforce, it increases productivity, and by default increases taxes.

Perhaps if upon becoming an mp, a caveat of the job would be enforced sole use of the NHS for the term in office .......

Something needs to change but moving towards a fee based system hasn't worked for the oral health of the nation.

Day centres around here disappeared long before the last 13 years!

In every country there is a free form of national health care and they have absolutely the same issues. Some people need expensive treatments, some need private and can afford it, some are surviving, some are dying on operating tables. the NHS is not the first or the last system with its own successes and failures

@Kazzyhoward - well, I think there was not a situation where councils went bankrupt.

The slightly panicked gerontocracy who vote Conservative and who now rely on public services like the NHS often pop up on Mumsnet to say things like "why isn't there anything?". If they haven't provided for themselves by this stage then they are just very entitled. Get some private medical care... oh no wait that costs and no one will give me it unless I pay nearly everything I've got since I'm over 60...

There are some good points here. I’ve worked in health and social care since the early 90’s.

We’ve never been able to provide community care properly. It does waste time travelling and now breaking down entirely. The new mental health hospitals don’t look after people very well either - see Sky reporting on sexual assaults in mental health hospitals.

Both Tories and Labour closed hospital beds - they shouldn’t have. They should have kept social care in house where the carers were better trained.

The NHS says people block beds and it’s all social cares fault but the reality is that the NHS routinely denies sick and dying people continuing health care so social care is illegally funding care packages for extremely ill and dying people in the community. This leaves little money for day centres or preventative social care which would keep people out of hospital in the first place.

The NHS has mostly become a self serving organisation which sucks money in and doesn’t focus on what it should do which is look after people well before they get very sick and when they are very sick look after them then.

Anybody who thinks that privatisation will help is actually delusional. See dentistry as an example.

Preventative care is important, through health education and outreach initiatives etc, but those services were decimated by this government. because they are aimed at long term benefits and don't show immediate results they were the first to be slashed.

My view is that emergency and life saving treatment should be available free at the point of need on the NHS, everything else needs co-funded by insurance based system based on some of the European models.

Since 2012 there has been changing in the funding structures and insertion of coporate bodies in the nhs to slowly americanise the system. Your reaction is precisely the result of years of attack on the service that has started since 1989.

Be informed and resist because the money is going into the wrong hands to create a false demand for private services and if we don't make a change our kids will bear the brunt of this greed by hvg to pay into an insurance system.

Here are some resources:
What is happening in your area:
https://privatisation.everydoctor.org.uk/

Public Matters video campaigns

Struggle in the Lords

I am hoping Labour can make a change but the last labour government accelerated the sell out. Put pressure on them in the next election and don't give up! Good article here with more background.
https://labourlist.org/2023/11/labour-health-policy-nhs-privatisation-public-ownership-wes-streeting/

The most defenceless in society are easy scapegoats for the pickpockets behind the scenes.
Think about what happened to the Post Office, a public band ruined by greed and corruption.
Stop the Steal.

The NHS is a lot cheaper than other systems to run but it has been defunded over the years. Instead of giving it extra money (and raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for that,) the NHS has had to cut beds and staff. We pay less per person than other countries for healthcare. We have less beds per person etc . That’s the main problem I think. Now NHS lacks capacity and can’t cope so private companies step in. Outsourcing to private companies costs the NHS more than treating in-house and just speeds the decline. It is the profitable parts that the private companies take on. Once private companies are involved they want to make a huge profit and it becomes very expensive.