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RIP the NHS


NormanH
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I watched a program on this last week. It was made in Liverpool where this scheme has been running for some time as the pilot and included the privatising of the ‘hearing’ department. It works very well apparently and the doctors seemed quite happy. However at the end of the day what does this mean for the ‘users’ of the NHS, what changes will it make to them and the answer in nothing and none. Apart from prescription fees it will still not cost the end user any money. It will be free healthcare just as it was intended to be and that is the bottom line.  That magical word 'free' is the key and let us not forget that when the NHS came in to being a lot of the smaller hospitals were still in private hands yet they provided free healthcare even back then.

In general until the NHS fails completely or more to the point people have to put their hand in their pocket and pay cash they won’t give a toss.

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I agree with Q, as long as the NHS remains free at the point of delivery nobody can or should care.

Shame on the Independent for scare mongering.

If anybody is guilty of putting the NHS at risk it was Labour with their PFI scam, all so they could claim to have built new facilities but conveniently not mentioning that they were mortgaging the country for decades to come.

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I think I saw the author of this article on This Morning today, talking about Mick Philpott and how the whole thing has been hi jacked for political advantage. Frankly neither his arguements nor his debating style were impressive.

There was a good programme about the NHS this week and yesterday I read how at last the NHS will make more positive efforts to prevent health tourism.

Only a fool would say the NHS was perfect, but Mr Jones view is not one shared by many of the people I know.

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[quote user="Russethouse"]

I think I saw the author of this article on This Morning today, talking about Mick Philpott and how the whole thing has been hi jacked for political advantage. Frankly neither his arguements nor his debating style were impressive.

[/quote]

What a very diplomatically accurate description of Mr Jones [:D]

 

 

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[quote user="AnOther"]I agree with Q, as long as the NHS remains free at the point of delivery nobody can or should care.

Shame on the Independent for scare mongering.

If anybody is guilty of putting the NHS at risk it was Labour with their PFI scam, all so they could claim to have built new facilities but conveniently not mentioning that they were mortgaging the country for decades to come.

[/quote]

Oh do lets start on PFI, £230 to change a lamp bulb because the hospital did not use a contractor approved by the PFI owners so was fined for breach of contract. Regional Health Authorites going bust because of the PFI built hospitals forced upon them, by Labour, for which they are paying way over the odds in rent. I wonder how many of those MP's etc involved in this have companies set up in the BVI. Somebody somewhere has made an absolute killing on PFI, wish I had thought of it.

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The only way I can see of stopping 'health tourism' is to have health cards like they do in France. Yes we all know they can be forged, as does the French government but I read somewhere that even more fraud was detected once photo's were added. Still not 100% without fraud but it has saved millions of Euros. There are also loads of benefits that make life easier just for patients with this system.

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There's nothing good about the whole mess, but it is nonetheless mildly amusing that the view of the NHS so often expressed on expat forums such as this is that people can't wait to get away from it, yet here we have people within the NHS saying that there are several times as many who can't wait to get to the UK and use it. It's a funny old world.
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Remember Betty two major attractions of the NHS are that it is FREE and that you only have to live in UK to qualify for it and regardless of anything else those of themselves are sufficient reason for some to want to get back to it !

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And in quite a number of cases, the NHS will put humanitarian considerations above money. In some ways, there are parallels with the whole benefits business. Sure, there are always people who will play the system. For example, as the article mentions, people who have retired abroad but phone (or visit) their old GP and don't mention that they are now fully resident abroad (well, they've paid their National Insurance contributions, ringfenced for their personal use, why not??) But then, there's the young Afghan girl, shot in the face for wanting girls to be educated. I bet there'd have been a pubic outcry if they'd asked her for the cash before operating.

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If someone is going to investigate these abuses they should look at dental services too. For some time now people who have clearly never cleaned their teeth in their lives have access to free dentistry by producing a card which shows them to be in receipt of social security. Dentist's receptionists have no way of knowing if these are genuine. They are usually accompanied by a translator who appears to be acting as some kind of agent.

Hoddy
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I'm sure you're right, Pouyade. My bad. However, with the choice of so many countries with specialist care facilities, she was transferred to an NHS hospital for NHS treatment, deemed the best available. The best available.....

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It seems to me looking around the web that no country has a state healthcare system that breaks even or comes anywhere near. The problem is how near can you get to break even and some countries do better than others. All the ones that are the nearest have systems that are part funded by the state with the patient paying part like France, Belgium and Germany but in the case of those at or below the basic wage or are unemployed geting 100% paid by the state. That leave the individual to decide if they want extra insurance for the 'topup'. Younger people who are fit seem not to bother whilst those that are older take out mutuals.

As much as people are passionate about the NHS I think most will agree that it is not run efficiently and that there is a great divide between the money going in and the money going out and I can't honestly see that it will ever break even but the divide should be small than it currently is.

So much has happened since it's conception, the biggest two things being the population size and life expectancy and I don't think anyone saw this coming to such a massive degree. Yes they knew the population would obviously get bigger but not to the size it is today. Medical science has also moved on, treatments are available today that were never dreamed of before like organ transplant, joint replacement etc but they come at cost, they are not cheap 'fixes'.

What we see from politicians is tampering with the health service to appease voters when in reality all they are doing is moving the funding from pillar to post yet in essence it stays the same in value because they know that to improve it they need to put more money in and the only way to do that is increase the tax burden on everyone. I remember years and years ago the LibDems said (actually I think it was when it was just the Liberal Party) that they could fix it simply by putting an extra 2% on the tax rate, problem is that it was not exactly a vote winner because nobody wants to pay more tax.

Talking of tax it really is about time we either did away with NI contributions or changed it so that all healthcare funding, social payments and state pensions are funded from it. Personally I think the easiest way is to scrap it and increase the standard tax rate. To my mind it's a bit like car tax, it was originally in it conception to pay for the upkeep of current roads and build new ones but that went out the window years ago so it is another thing we could scrape and move the tax elsewhere but that's another subject.

Then there is privatising the health service, something those that are passionate about the NHS are totally against but I am not convinced that the original concept of the NHS excluded private hospitals, doctors etc but what it did mean was that it would be free. The Beveridge report in 1942 which the 1945 Labour government adopted said that the government or state should create a system gave "comprehensive health and rehabilitation services for prevention and cure of disease" and that it should be free to use (although prescription charges would apply). To my mind this is still true regardless of if the actual service (doctor, hospital etc) is either publicly or privately owned as long as it is free at the point of use. The biggest and only problem with privatising parts of the NHS is quality control and profit. Of course companies that run run these parts of the NHS, just like any other business, want to make a profit but just like business these days it can be limited under contract with cost plus a fixed percentage. Quality control is a big issue but then we don't actually have a current quality control anyway in the NHS as such, well not on a global scale anyway, so it is something that would have to setup but thenthere are loads of 'managers' that can be taken from hospitals etc to form a new organisation to perform these tasks. Profit checking should not be a problem because under existing law companies and PLC's have to produce end of year accounts anyway.

Well that's my thoughts on the subject although I would like to Finnish by saying the NHS does need to be sorted out one way or the other and you can't pussy foot around with it like it has been since the mid 1970's although it will take a brave government and/or person to do it and like Beaching with the trains they will be vilified for years afterwards.

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[quote user="Quillan"]

It seems to me looking around the web that no country has a state healthcare system that breaks even or comes anywhere near. The problem is how near can you get to break even and some countries do better than others. All the ones that are the nearest have systems that are part funded by the state with the patient paying part like France, Belgium and Germany[/quote]

If France's healthcare budget is one of the nearest to break-even then I am James Bond and you are a daffodil. I think your preference for all things French when it comes to  healthcare is clouding your judgment a bit there, Quillan.

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[quote user="You can call me Betty"][quote user="Quillan"]

It seems to me looking around the web that no country has a state healthcare system that breaks even or comes anywhere near. The problem is how near can you get to break even and some countries do better than others. All the ones that are the nearest have systems that are part funded by the state with the patient paying part like France, Belgium and Germany[/quote]

If France's healthcare budget is one of the nearest to break-even then I am James Bond and you are a daffodil. I think your preference for all things French when it comes to  healthcare is clouding your judgment a bit there, Quillan.
[/quote]

What I was trying to say is that ever country, when it comes to deficit, is very much in the same boat in that they all have one but some have more than others. The reason why I mentioned those countries in particular was of the information I had read of which below is just a small part. France just happens to be amongst them. I forgot to mention Sweden by the way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/healthcare-network/2011/may/11/european-healthcare-services-belgium-france-germany-sweden

 

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This week  I have had 4 patients  who have not been at home  after driving  over 20 miles to pick them up and transport to hospital for appointments .

The tax payer has to cover the claim  for my costs   Plus the wasted time for consultants nurses  and other staff who have to re book out patient appointments .

Its a free service  they get from me and lots just take it for granted . I have even had  a patient refuse to travel to hospital because I had to pick up another patient  on the way and she told me I was   " her driver not other peoples .. I do not share " 

I have the patients telephone numbers  with their details on the print out I log in to get    So know they are on the phone but is seems too much to ask to expect them to phone in  and stop me leaving home if they decide they are not going to go in...... I would like to see each patient given a bill  for £100  every time they fail to cancel an appointment ......and if they ask for hospital transport then are not home to use it another £50 added   ... That would be an attitude changer  and somewhere to start !

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[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Then you might like to read this one instead.....
[url]http://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/arbeitspapiere/HealthDebt_EU_USA_formatiert_neu_KS.pdf[/url]

[/quote]

Very good, it's going basically where I was saying it needs to go but do you really think any government or political party has the balls to go the route(s) they suggest or that people understand that immigration is required to help sustain the NHS for example and that the current policies on immigration are actually wrong. Try telling Hollande he needs to raise the retirement age to 65 let alone 67 or even higher. Try telling anyone in any country that their spending on healthcare needs to be cut by between 12 and 19%. So all in all the paper is quite useless, not because it says anything untrue but because no politician would be willing to carry out even one of the suggestions it makes which would, in reality, be far less painful than seeing healthcare in any of the EU countries going bankrupt. Shame really but there you go. One thing though based on their figures I shall be dead before it all goes totally tits up. [;-)]

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