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.

The NHS is not ‘free’ 🙄🙄 We do pay for healthcare through our tax system. It is ‘free at the point of use’ which is not the same as ‘free’.

The OP thinks you have to wait three years for GP appointment and claims to have inside knowledge about the state of the NHS despite only utilising private healthcare 🙄

The problem with privatisation is we are simply not very good at it in the UK, can you name anything that has been privatised, that is a success in terms of outcomes for the consumer ?

I utilised the NHS up until four years ago. I had to wait three weeks for an appointment with a GP. Now I can see one in less than hour who actually spends longer than two minutes talking to me and actually prescribes.

This!

Mumsnet sometimes feels like the place where political influences like to do their social media campaigns.

I'm feeling quite cynical. At least on twitter they do it as a political party or easy to spot bots.On mumsnet all you need to do is set up a user name...

But I'll bite. The nhs is underfunded. We have the least amount of mri scanners than almost any other comparable Western nation. We have poor diagnostic equipment.... i coukd go on...we train mefical students but dont have enough medical training places for when doctors leave medical school...The ONLY advantage privatisation might bring is it might stop successive governments reforming it and instead let it solve its own issues and evolve. The country should learn from dentistry - it was effectively privatised. We now don't have enough dentists - nhs (most have given up) and private dentists. People now just don't go and end up in a&e when in chronic pain with an infection. The likely outcome of privatisation is even busier A&Es with problems that have been left to become chronic.

The govt moved public health into councils and effectively stopped health promotion and preventive care. If you really wanted to make a difference to capacity you would focus on this and poverty. Which is the main cause of health issues (both physical and mental health issues).

Privatisation would be a simple fix to complex issues. Therefore it won't have much effect because those with the poorest health just won't take out insurance

By the way my GP practice is great.

Privatisation will cost more.
If you have a £100 to spend on health then in the NHS that £100 goes to health.
In a private system that £100 is split up between shareholders, large salaries and bonuses for CEO's, cost of billing and collecting payments. How is that better for patients.

The NHS does need an overhaul. Labour tried to standardise IT across the NHS, funding wait list initiatives, paying staff well, and targets for wait times and it worked. I worked in the NHS for 37 years and you could feel the difference when it was Labour or Tory.

But currently we have this weird situation where hospital budgets are now split by departments and each department is charging each other instead of the hospital having an overall budget. Now we pay managers and finance depts to track and audit spending within each individual department rather than what we used to have which was 1 finance department covering the whole hospital.
Internal markets within the same hospital, when the funding is all coming from the same place (government), is a waste of money, time, and resources.
Thus was brought in by Thatcher as a pre requisite to privatisation to make it easier for billing services in the future.

"Now I can see one in less than hour who actually spends longer than two minutes talking to me and actually prescribes."

So you want healthcare instantly whenever you want it - and you want them to give you whatever you want, no matter whether it is appropriate or not.

One of my main concerns about private healthcare is that it will lead to even more defensive medicine, with over prescription and over provision of tests to those who demand it (and can afford it of course), rather than those who need it.

COVID treatment for the elderly? Private? Or not. I mean it's the day when Sunak he would do nothing about waiting lists.

NHS experts are the best. Private medicine has its own problems and uses. But it doesn't mean the clinical judgment displayed is better.

Which other countries are laughing at us? My family in America are in awe of our healthcare. When my friend’s baby was born with vein of galen she was taken by helicopter to great ormond street for emergency surgery and once to Glasgow. In a support group for parents of dc with the condition my friend learned that the condition was a death sentence in USA as no insurance would cover it and the surgery cost more than a house.

my cousins spend $300 a month on inhalers for their one dc for asthma. Their family costs have to reach $10,000 a year before the insurance will kick in. They’re civil servants.

Rather than saying nhs is dead, how about looking at how we can save it?

Privatisation hasnt worked well in the water industry...

It hasn't worked in rail...several companies taken back into public ownership...

It hadn't worked that well in forensics...https://mosslaw.co.uk/forensic-testing-scandal-is-your-drug-or-drink-driving-conviction-safe/. With two companies not behaving well. By the way the company with a Tory mp on its board was then located covid contract whilst jnder investigation...

Why would it miraculously work well in the nhs?

The article said
“ in the decade preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, UK health funding grew at a slower pace than before, with a growth rate falling below the long-term average. The pandemic triggered additional funding injections, which were much needed but did not make up for historic underspend. Between 2009/10 and 2021/22, the cumulative underspend – the difference between what funding would have been if historical growth rates had been maintained, and what was actually provided – reached £322 billion in real terms.”

“I’m not advocating for anything other than people paying for healthcare and prescriptions. To stop taking advantage and placing more pressure on a delicate system. This country can’t afford free healthcare, it’s not sustainable.”

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻^ totally agree.

My G.P is rubbish, can’t get an appointment and when you do completely uninterested.
I ended up hospitalised in the end. I won’t be going back, I’ll pay privately.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/press-releases/new-study-international-health-care-systems#:~:text=The%20UK%20also%20spends%20less,has%20four%20times%20as%20many.

People might be interested in this..

That's your choice. Can you get insured for something you were hospitalized by?

Evidence is everywhere you look.

@JLArthur, we also have private insurance and it's useful for some things.

What it won't cover is long term conditions, eg my sons asthma care isn't cover neither my longterm condition (even though we had insurance before either of these developed) if you have a serious injury and needed major trauma care, as this is only available on the NHS, and would take major investment by companies if they ever where to do this.

I use it as a supplement to NHS care, I could never use it instead off as that wouldn't work and is the same for a lot of people in similar circumstances.

I would happily support a hybrid system of care like other EU countries or finding a way to fund the NHS properly. I would never support a fully private system.

Yes, and how much did that cost?

£50/£100?

I think the average income per GP per registered patient is something like £75 per year, for as many appointments as they can get. If you multiply £50 by the 300m appointments per year, you're looking at a cost of £15bn, compared to the current spend of £4.5bn, so essentially tripling the money spent, but removing half the population from accessing the service.

The NHS is not free. But we don’t pay enough National Insurance to fund it properly.

In Germany health insurance is almost 15% - which is shared 50/50 with the employer. On top of that you have a separate care insurance, unemployment insurance and pension contributions. Even students without any income have to pay Eur200 per month.

It is still free at the point of use. They had introduced GP appointment fees at one point but had to stop that as they found people were putting off going to the doctors until their problems became much worse/more expensive to treat.

£30 a month is laughable - it will make no difference.

This whole thread is a none too subltle advert for private GP services, which, given that they will be dealing with someone who is prepared to pay, is fine. It's a self limited class of people with minor medical conditions taking themselves off the NHS. That is someone's choice but it shouldn't be mandated for everyone else. You won't get a better clinical judgment, you might get a better class of chair, and a wider range of pills.

If i was paying a £50 fee to see a GP i would expect to be seen ON TIME not 45 minutes later Be careful what you wish for!

@SnakesAndArrows

"UK health funding grew at a slower pace than before, with a growth rate falling below the long-term average"

"Between 2009/10 and 2021/22, the cumulative underspend – the difference between what funding would have been if historical growth rates had been maintained, and what was actually provided – reached £322 billion in real terms.”

+++

Exactly- spending on health grew / went up or increased but just not as fast as it had done previously. But his is still an increase and not a decrease.

£322 billion is the difference between what spending on health would have been at the previous growth rate and what it was at the actual lower growth rate. But this is still an increase and not a decrease.

No, I don't support privatisation, paying for appointments, an insurance system etc. I support continuing to pay for free at the point of delivery healthcare through taxes.

The US system is awful, very expensive and actually very inefficient. Many people end up paying more through insurance than they would for a tax funded system. Many employers keep workers on casualised and part time contracts rather than pay for "benefits" such as health insurance. My friend in her early 60s really struggles to get migraine medication as insurance companies change their policies for it.

And because insurance is risk based, surviving cancer, or living with it for a few years past initial diagnosis, can be really devastating. I had a friend (who apparently died a few years ago) who had a reasonable income in retirement and lived in Manhattan until she was diagnosed with cancer. Her treatment was quite successful but her insurance didn't pay all the bills, and then there's the issue of being insured as a survivor in her 60s or 70s.

Here, my dp is 60, overweight, smokes and has epilepsy and other long term conditions, diagnosed in his late teens, plus more recent issues over the last few years. I'm in my mid 50s and have never smoked, but also overweight and unfit with some problems and a recent diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. I have been very short of money for the last few years but things are now looking up a lot, but if one of us, or one of our kids, gets seriously ill, this will probably affect our finances again quite badly, but in a system like the one in the US, it would be just devastating. My mum was diagnosed with advanced cancer, and lived for 6 years 8 months afterwards, over 4 years from a terminal diagnosis, much longer than expected. I know of other people who live longer, whether or not they're ever in remission. An insurance based system can't possibly cover everyone against the possible complications and recurrences of cancer, dementia, old age and everything else.