BBC news saying Scotland discussed possibility of wealthy being expected to pay for nhs treatment

[Ruizy]

Feeling a bit horrified at the prospect of this proposal. Surely it would just mean those above a certain wage would have to take out bupa style insurance. But not sure what would happen to emergency care.

At some point people need to be accountable for their own failures. SNP included.

Responsibility for funding the NHS is devolved. But health service chief execs are not SNP representatives.

Very true. Easy to demand from others

It's old age.

And how does that work for people who end up in hospital 100s of miles away from home?

Not everyone in Scotland lives near the Glasgow or Edinburgh where most of the big specialists hospitals are.
It's bad enough that people have to trek to the central belt for treatment without expecting families to provide food too.

Ah ok thank you tom, weirdly that didn’t come up when I was searching Google. So things like on going meds, dementia care etc?

Bro's MIL travelled 2000 miles to help with the care. I guess otherwise you'd have to employ someone

@name It does not come up because there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Obesity, smoking, etc come up because of drives to reduce these.

I don't mind paying more as long as everyone else is paying more too. Its the idea that people on £45k are classed as 'wealthy' and should pay more, but never actually see any benefit.

And if you had no one able or willing to do it?
My parents are dead but there have been times I have been caring for my children that I could not have done this and could not have paid to employ anyone either. So those people just die?

You beat me to that. Our neighbour should have gone into a home earlier but her sons in London and Manchester being very savvy organised local council care four times a day. She died horribly malnourished. They now have a holiday home by the sea and a chunk of money. One son was an accountant

Possibly the Chinese are very pragmatic

I would have at least expected some facts and figures on it. Anyway like you say, there’s nothing that can be done about that, people are living longer, it’s the other major expenses that could be driven down. The NHS is on his knees and only going one way.

So as ever, it's someone else's fault? How can it absolutely NOT be the SNPs fault for anything, but other parties fault for everything?

Oh my goodness justasking111 that’s so terribly sad. How could someone leave their elderly parent like that?

Pretty much every single condition you can think of causes more deterioration in the old than the young. Bones are more fragile and break. Common colds become pneumonia. Dementia. Stroke. Cardiac issues...

The older people get, the more likely they are to be carrying several long term conditions. Each of these will likely make their other illnesses worse.

And older people stay in hospital longer for the same procedure than younger people. An older person who's had surgery might not be discharged for weeks due to high care needs, while a 30 year old is seen as a day case and sent straight home.

I know people on MN go on about their parents being fit as a fiddle into their 80s, but in reality it's a rare person who makes it to 80 without acquiring a couple of long term conditions and requiring regular medication.

I don't live in Scotland and am therefore not an SNP supporter, but I think it's ridiculous to assume this is a political policy from the SNP when the article clearly says otherwise.

We do ok and if we were comfortable skipping the queue could fund GP appointments and maybe scans. But at the moment DH has a cancer treatment every 6 weeks which costs about 2 months of our income. Even before this he would never have got affordable health insurance due to a mental health condition.

What really worries me is one of the other comments noted, that the NHS is spending too much on treatment that is life enhancing rather than life saving. DH is waiting for surgery which might or not cure him. If it doesn't, there are treatment options that could still give him many many more good years. Is the suggestion that that shouldn't be a priority, that he'll die in his 40s because it's easier than the Scottish Government having to admit that cutting medical and nursing training places 10 years ago was a mistake?

Yes so true tom. My in laws are in their late 70s and between them they seem to be on every medication going. I cannot imagine how much it’s costing the NHS to keep them alive to be quite honest.

There's a massive misconception regarding 'the wealthy' and who exactly they are. If you're on NMW any family who takes home over £100,000 are probably 'the wealthy' but realistically a family income like that would very much struggle with paying healthcare fees. You can't just bang on about 'the wealthy': it's a very subjective phrase.

Sure our ageing population will cost more that’s the pressure we’re facing. The NHS model was pretty good imo however demographics have changed over 70 odd years.

There are facts available about the % of hospital inpatients who are over 65.

Anecdotally, I've needed hospital treatment recently and it was obvious from just looking around that the vast majority of my fellow patients were very elderly. And that was in orthopaedics!

Yes so true marsha. Our lifestyles have changed so dramatically since the NHS was created. I remember when I was little my Nan looking after her parents and then other family members in their homes because everyone lived near each other. They spent a lot of time in bed of housebound and Nan and her siblings did everything. Then when my Nan and Grandad got ill, the process was repeated and my parents and their siblings supported them at home. Everyone was a 10 minute drive at most. One Nan lived across the road. This community set up just doesn’t exist as much anymore (and that’s not blaming anyone, just fact), so I guess there are elderly people in hospital ‘bed blocking’ because they don’t have the same level of care in their own homes anymore. God knows what the answer is.

Charging for GP appointments is very common across Europe and the EU has far better cancer outcomes than the UK, more scanners more diagnostics.

The money raised would be used to improve GP services, money for hospital appointments used to improve hospital services.

BUT services must be improved first, then charge.

As for more AE visits? thats what we have now isn't it.

Back to the OP, Sturgeon has categorically denied any charging for nhs services and that she cannot stop trust chiefs talking about it but its down to the Govt, so a non story.

A lot of patients are required to eat to help manage their conditions. What if they had no food? And my friend (admitted with concussion from a head injury) had to choke down a plate of mince and tatties at 11am without throwing them back up before they would discharge her.

I think prescriptions would probably be the first step. And I don't disagree with missed appointments. You're far more likely to lift the phone to cancel if there's ££ involved.