[Closed] Privatizing the NHS; would it be a good thing?

Privatizing the NHS; running it into the ground is just the first step.

I'd wager very expensive and unappealing to private services so probably not supported.

I assume your 'dodgy ear' is not life threatening so rather down the list of priorities? Unfortunately/ fortunately part of diagnosis will be excluding potential problems so not always a one visit, hook you up to diagnostic software and sort/ figure out in 1 go.

[img] [/img]

This is the salary for some of the private insurance providers in the USA from 2014.. The hospital CEOs make good money too...

SO when you have this amount of money going out of the system be it Healthcare, Schooling or anything else then either the money going in needs to be much more or the service needs to be much less.

There is a reason why a fair few of the guys from the USA have the retirement healthcare plan of handgun at the bottom of the garden...

Remember this: 'if you want to destroy something, first drive it mad'
We're well into the madness stage now.

As to your question - are you having a laugh?
Look at the record of eg SERCO, who have taken some big NHS contracts, and you'll see what I mean.

OP - Are you wanting a discussion about Private Health Care or winging about your referral to ENT?

My Mother was referred to ENT by her GP, and got in the next day. That was however the GP thought she had cancer (which she did).

The NHS is prioritised so if your GP thinks you have an issue that requires ENT, that is why he has sent you there, obviously it is not that serious or you would have been bumped up the list.

The reality is that you could ask your GP to refer your privately to the ENT consultant of your choice and therefore get seen very quickly. At least that will get you an answer.

Should the NHS be privatised? Yes if you are prepared to pay for it.

The government has already tried private healthcare in the NHS, and the service providers pulled out as they could not make enough money.

On reflection; I've always had really good service from the NHS.

But this time, my usual doctor was on maternity leave and the guy who's standing in for her pissed me off right away with old stories about his University days. I don't wanna hear this shite, just fix my ear!

Any tips and tricks to fix an ear that isn't working properly?

Are you wanting a discussion about Private Health Care or winging about your referral to ENT?

Both, but actually neither.

Just needed a vent 😉

Any tips and tricks to fix an ear that isn't working properly?

You'll probably need to see an ENT specialist for that.

Feels like I'm going round in circles.

Probably due to my lack of balance....

There's an interesting discussion (and by discussion, I mean dispassionate conversation, listening to all points of view, no use of the usual angry language on forums as soon as people have differing thoughts) to be had around creating a multiple choice system.

I'd be more than happy to take a pre-tax/pre-NI salary sacrifice programme to fund private healthcare for me and my family. That would then free up NHS resource for those not in a position to do that. It would also doubly benefit me by being a commercial arrangement, meaning I could nominate service providers to meet timescale/level of cover requirements most suited to our needs.

Feels like I'm going round in circles.

Probably due to my lack of balance....

You could pay privately for a trollectomy and have your aggro gland removed.

This really isn't up to your usual standard DT. We'll blame it on the dizziness.

dtf,

Do you realise that the GP practice you went to is already privatised (and always has been)?
But if you are not (directly) the payer so will not determine the service level! That is not really any different with private insurance based models.

If you want a GP service where you can pay to get your ears syringed - you can pop to edinburgh with your credit card:
http://your-gp.com/services/gp-services/ear-syringing/

You'll have brake bleeding kit won't you? Team that up with a kettle. Crack on.

IMO you should wait longer if you have an ailment that's 'a bit annoying', or 'slightly troublesome'.

Given how successful privatisation has always been, and the superlative, great value for money service offered by our telecoms, railway and utilities industries, that are truly the envy of the world, I can't see how any reasonable person could object

Oh... hang on a minute......

Railway and utilities are working better now than before, so your point is?

Telecoms technology wise are now are so far removed from when BT was publicly owned that I'm not sure an accurate comparison can be done.

There is a lot of the NHS that is already privatised, and some which has always been private (GP's for one). Plus it has always spent a considerable part of its budget in the private sector.

This quite a telling statement:

[I]When the NHS was launched in 1948, it had a budget of £437 million (roughly £15 billion at today’s value). For 2015/16, the overall NHS budget was around £116.4 billion.[/I]

So it now costs a factor of 5 times greater than when first setup, taking population growth into account.

You'll have brake bleeding kit won't you? Team that up with a kettle. Crack on.

Best not, I don't want to become a "Mail's most Hated" after getting plastic surgery on the NHS.

I don't wanna hear this shite, just fix my ear!

Irony intended?

No - end of. All civilized countries have them (yes - until Obama the 'merkins weren't civilised 😈 & with Trump it seems they're headed backwards)

However, if you are wealthy enough you can already purchase healthcare.

So we already have a 2 tier system and given the trend of NHS services being outsourced, by the back door, to private companies it is questionable whether as to how long it will last.

I will provide some simple questions for you...

If you/your partner gets pregnant and the pregnancy / baby has expensive complications do you expect to have to sell everything you own because the insurance doesn't/refuses to cover it?

If you (or your family) experience an accident with long term health implications do you expect to have to sell everything you own because the insurance doesn't/refuses to cover it?

Once you've sold everything you own do you expect your lifestyle to be severely impacted do to the affordability of healthcare?

Hot bath and the use the loop of a paper clip to scoop that Sh*t right out.

Re privatisation though.

All contracts now have to be offered by Tender to the private sector, so the battle (skirmish,debate) is pretty much lost & the NHS will be privatised piece by piece as the present contracts come up for renewal.

All ready gone
Cleaning, Training, I.T., Finance, Procurement, Radiology, Renal Units, Security, Car Parking, Catering, Sexual Health, Pathology, Physiotherapy, Estates & Maintenance.
Next for the chop is the Agency which controls Agency Staffing "NHS Professionals

Enjoy

Ooohh and most CSSD's are now sending theater instruments off-site to be cleaned as well

Private delivery seems to work for other EU countries, the US isn't the only other comparator. It can be publicly funded but privately delivered.

Don't forget the GP who is doing your referral is a private practice (funded by the NHS but usually operating as private partnerships).

Perhaps the biggest issue is that demand for the NHS is effectively unlimited but funding is quite constrained.

Trolling level - Jedi.

Is it that time again already.

Any tips and tricks to fix an ear that isn't working properly?

IANAD, but I think they work pretty much the same as freehubs. Have you tried urinating on it or getting a friend to? Only a temporary fix but might keep it going til your appointment.

My son was recently in hospital for a little while, for what turned out to be a significant but manageable condition he's probably had since birth (nearly 2 now). It took a while to get referred for various reasons, but tbh I'm massively glad it was through the NHS, it was cost effective, and I was only worrying about his health not the bill whilst he was in hospital.

All the staff were very caring and professional, and luckily didn't have to send half their time looking at my insurance cover or sending invoices/tracking costs.

I'd be more than happy to take a pre-tax/pre-NI salary sacrifice programme to fund private healthcare for me and my family.

Have you looked into how much that would actually cost?

This is probably more of a rant than anything else......

Three weeks with a dodgy ear; two appointments with my doctor; the last, which was a week ago, he said he'd refer me to the ENT department. I did ask him if he could just syringe the thing and be done with it, but no; ENT or nothing.

Phoned up the ENT department today to make an appointment and they haven't received my referral.

Once they receive a referral, it'll be a six to eight week wait for an appointment.

What'd be the cost and timescale to get this done privately?

And...

I assume your 'dodgy ear' is not life threatening

Compare and contrast that to my experience on Monday night when i self presented at A&E with some pretty vague (to me) neuro symptoms...the triage nurse saw me immediately and i was moved to the corridor (sounds crap doesnt it it?) but the nurses and paramedics monitoring patients in the corridor while we waited for a cubicle was exemplary, i was continually neuro assessed, regular BP, pulse, temp etc....eventually a cubicle became free and in i went, the nurse was Michelle and lovely, she actually cared, it wasn't just the clinical stuff it was whether i was warm enough, would i like a drink, are the light too bright in here etc...i had to provide a urine sample and when i came back they were ready for my ECG which was carried out professionally yet with good humour...after that i was sent for a chest Xray, the porters who took me and brought me back are great lads, full of amusing useless chit-chat to take your mind of what might be happening, the CXR was fine and then it was time for the biggie...time for a CT scan of my head.
I was nervous but the staff were wonderful, a few mins later it was done and i was pushed back to A&E on my trolley rather embarrasingly.
A more senior Dr then appeared and said the CXR was fine, my bloods showed my markers and the the CT scan was as expected for a 38 yr old man...he then stood me up and put me through what can only be described as a bloody hard workout!....apparantly these are used to detect any neuro abnormalites and it didnt take just 2 mins, he was thorough and worked me through for about 10 mins in total...he couldnt find anything wrong either and as the differential diagnosis when i'd first arrived of things like stroke/tia, seizures, brain tumour were all ruled out and i have and appointment with the Consultant Neurologist as an outpatient in 6 days time.

The system works, and it works brilliantly when they think something is seriously work.

I'm sorry to here about your ear but in the grand scheme of thing when they're screening 38yr blokes for possible brain injuries you can (hopefully) understand being placed to the back of the metaphorically speaking,

My infuriated mood has subsided.

Hope you get yourself fixed Deviant.

[i]Have you looked into how much that would actually cost? [/i]

I'm guessing not.

I worked in the US and have been gobsmacked by the monies American colleagues (and the company) paid.

[I]What'd be the cost and timescale to get this done privately? [/I]

Talk with your GP, they'll be able to sort you out - and probably less than you imagine for an initial consultation.

Have you looked into how much that would actually cost?

Starting to look into private healthcare (full package) at the moment, and even with critical/cancer etc cover, seems pretty reasonable. If there was a mechanism to allow NHS "opt out" and so do this pre-tax, might be viable. I'm not claiming to have all the answers or know 100% at this stage, but seems like a good idea worth investigating further. We shouldn't just hold onto something because that's how it has been for quite a while.

That's not any form of ideological statement BTW, purely a recognition that it's good to explore all potential options.

The private health care system in the US sucks royally as far as I can tell from admittedly very anecdotal evidence.

My line manager was in the US a few years ago, slipped, and he ended up in casualty with severe concussion. They did a battery of tests to figure out what was wrong - including a [i]pregnancy[/i] test. Needless to say he was not pregnant, but it showed up on his bill nonetheless.

A colleague here has a relative in the US who very recently went into hospital for a routine hernia operation. They gave him a sex change instead.

Private health care is simply not a panacea for the ills of the health service. The only thing it seems to be really good for is making lots of money for healthcare companies and their bosses.

making lots of money for healthcare companies and their bosses

Provided service levels are good, I've got absolutely no problem with this aspect of it. Certainly, the prospect of someone getting very rich for delivering high quality products and services shouldn't serve as some kind of ideological blocker to exploring things. I know many people would probably hate that thought, but provided there's a value delivery, then all good.

Provided service levels are good, I've got absolutely no problem with this aspect of it.

Personally, I don't think having a sex change instead of a hernia operation is a good level of service. But that's just me.

Personally, I don't think having a sex change instead of a hernia operation is a good level of service. But that's just me.

Agreed. But was just making the important separation from revenue and service delivery, as all too often (especially on STW as it seems a very vocal left leaning demographic - again, I have no ideological standpoint on this good or bad, purely an observation) the idea of making money/profit seems to be held up as a bad thing.

Hopefully there would be enough marketplace competition that poor service levels would be punished by consumers placing business elsewhere, creating natural marketplace discipline.

Are you kidding? A hernia is just a few thousand bucks a sex change would be tens of thousands, all that extra service for free and your friend's complaining. Can't please some folks.

Need a balance between free and private coz both sides can't have it all.

the idea of making money/profit seems to be held up as a bad thing.

When it comes to their post gov't directorships and speaking fees it does.

A colleague here has a relative in the US who very recently went into hospital for a routine hernia operation. They gave him a sex change instead.

I hope he complained and got them to fix it.

If he didn't he needs to grow a pair.

He'll be first on the list for the reversal, they'll want to deal with all the low hanging fruit.

Starting to look into private healthcare (full package) at the moment, and even with critical/cancer etc cover, seems pretty reasonable. If there was a mechanism to allow NHS "opt out" and so do this pre-tax, might be viable. I'm not claiming to have all the answers or know 100% at this stage, but seems like a good idea worth investigating further. We shouldn't just hold onto something because that's how it has been for quite a while.

I'll take a wild guess here and I bet your full package doesn't cover as much as the NHS does.

'Opt out'

You do know the idea behind tax is that EVERYBODY benefits from all the collective services that are paid for by the tax EVERYBODY pays. i.e. your taxes are not there just for YOU? Amazing concept innit. Bit like when you put a pound in the poppy tin, they've not opened a benevolent fund in your name just in case you join the army and are shipped to a foreign land and are mortally injured by a irked native brandishing a sharpened guava half? You do know that, don't you?

I'll take a wild guess here and I bet your full package doesn't cover as much as the NHS does.

Not sure yet - still looking. Like I say, I have no ideological standpoint for or against, so it's a genuinely dispassionate investigation into service levels, timelines, personal & family cover vs cost, relative to current provisions under tax/NI/NHS.

To be fair he did say he didn't know 100% of the answers.

Not sure yet - still looking

Let me save you the trouble. It doesn't.

Let me save you the trouble. It doesn't.

Or rather it might but will only cover you up to a certain amount - once you've gone over that amount then you're on your own.

Emergency care? Plus you're right of course.

You do know the idea behind tax is that EVERYBODY benefits from all the collective services that are paid for by the tax EVERYBODY pays

You are thinking of insurance. Taxes are different, some pay more some pay less and some pay none and the recipients could be any or all.

[quote=CaptainFlashheart said]Trolling level - Jedi.

Waaaay too amateur to get anything approaching Jedi.

He's slacking.

Amount spent on healthcare as expressed as a percentage of GDP (2013):

U.S.: 17.1%
UK: 9.1%

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS

Just needed a vent

A colleague here has a relative in the US who very recently went into hospital for a routine hernia operation. They gave him a sex change instead.

Worst. Excuse. Ever!

If he didn't he needs to grow a pair.

You, sir, owe me one new keyboard!

Starting to look into private healthcare (full package) at the moment, and even with critical/cancer etc cover, seems pretty reasonable. If there was a mechanism to allow NHS "opt out" and so do this pre-tax, might be viable. I'm not claiming to have all the answers or know 100% at this stage, but seems like a good idea worth investigating further. We shouldn't just hold onto something because that's how it has been for quite a while.

That's not any form of ideological statement BTW, purely a recognition that it's good to explore all potential options.

You cant buy a package that covers the same as the NHS. If you need emergency care then the private sector cannot provide. You cant call a private 999 if needed. Also critical care is provided by the NHS, not private providers.

The reason this is the case is because its too expensive for the private sector to set up and make a profit on. To give you an example it costs £1500 per night to keep someone in intensive care when done at scale because you need expensive equipement and about 7 or 8 nurses to staff each bed

In the US if you have good healthcare you will be covered for most ailments but your insurance provider will have preferred treatments and hospitals who will have preferred medication providers...
If you want to step outside of these options you are on your own... For example my boss can take the blood pressure medication on the preferred list for his doctor and then keep falling over as it makes his legs numb or he can opt to pay for consultations at a different hospital in order to get a different medication which is also covered by the insurance but is not on the original hospitals preferred (sponsored/bribed) list...

If you do not have good healthcare you could end up out of pocket $5-700 per month with a $5000 deductible and only the most basic options covered.

The NHS does not discriminate based on the money in your pocket or the insurance you posses. The doctors are not taken on holiday by Pharmaceutical companies and the hospitals do not push for the most treatment/medications that the insurance will cover. There is no need for teams of bailiffs and debt collection agencies to be employed. There is however a limitation to the money available which is why we have things like NICE and is why sometimes there is not excess capacity waiting for sick people.

Who is privatising the NHS?

Hope you feel better soon. I went for a check recently and go recommended further treatment. Gave me a choice of immediate private consultation of slight wait for NHS service. Given his diagnosis there seemed no urgency and done and dusted very well in local hospital and on a Saturday. Had a fun chat with radiographer about local MP (Hunt) !!!

have a look at virgin care, not the sexual site but the one run by a cahp who also has a trainset and some planes hotels and a island.

and see all the stuff theyve privatised on the quiet.

have a look at virgin care, not the sexual site but the one run by a cahp who also has a trainset and some planes hotels and a island.
and see all the stuff theyve privatised on the quiet.

He has been very quietly acquiring walk-in centres, minor injuries units etc an astonishing rate.
The care is actually pretty good because most staff have been Tuped across from when thhey were NHS run facilities.....the problem being from a staff point of view is that there is no NHS pension scheme meaning loyally is lost as staff turnover is huge, staff are on the constant lookout for better pay. In the old days you'd join the NHS and spend your career there knowing that your pay wasn't great but a decent pension awaited you at the end of 30-40yrs....now people job hop, companies like Reliance, Virgin, Tascor, CRG, Capita etc merge, change names annually etc and take the easy part of NHS care, ie the minor stuff, they're not interested in trauma care, geriatric wards etc as they are loss makers.

I do agree something has to change, the size and age the population was never envisaged to be this big.....it's time to strip back the NHS to what it was intended for, emergency care and repairing life changing chronic conditions....nose jobs, tit jobs etc can do one and the people who want these precedures can raid their own piggy bank instead.

The NHS is unique. Is that a good thing or not ?

The NHs was created in a very different age and with a very different set of objectives to those it has to face today

The brutal truth is that the nhs is very good at certain thungs (life saving critical care) but third rate at many others.

Reform of the nhs gets many peoples hackles up and generates much abuse but the fact is other nations don't manage their health systems this way, we should oirselves why is that ?

To add to the OPs post my mother hurt her back gardening, for 8 months the nhs did nothing. She would not allow me to pay for private treatment as she believed the nhs would see hee right. Eventually being faced with not being able to attend my wedding she relented, treatment was less than £500. For 8 months my mother could barely walk for the sake of £500. The NHS is broken, it is not working. It cannot cope in todays world.

1) you can already get private treatment on NHS. At point of referral from GP you should be offered a choice of any provider including private. When I got my hernia done Nuffield and others were an option locally. I went NHS for various reasons. It was same consultant for private and NHS but that is another discussion

2) you can opt to have private insurance now. What always amazes me about the opt out of tax because I'll pay myself argument is the short sightedness of it. As if you get no benefit from healthcare, education etc provided to the wider society - a healthy and educated workforce must be basis of strong economy. Secondly, opt out fine when younger healthier and earning. Then opt back in if become chronically ill or when retire? Even US pays for healthcare for retirees through tax - which people still pay if opted out. So you would either have to opt out for ever and be in deep trouble or still end up paying virtually the same tax

3) Private healthcare is very inefficient. The incentives in the system are wrong and individuals have little agency in keeping costs down as there is a massive assymetry of knowledge, power between patient insurance company and provider. So would end up paying a lot more for narrower coverage but nicer hotel services

well done Jamby you managed to contradict yourself in your own post again. The NHS is apparently both "very good" and "broken" and "not working"

😆

Old dog - Private healthcare can be no more / no less efficient than the NHS but the views are often distorted by the fact when most people think of "private" they only make comparisons to healthcare in the USA.

The Dutch and German systems (where there are co payments and an insured element) manage to deliver better care at a cost equivalent to the NHS when massive unfunded pension liabilities in the latter are taken into account. The clinical outcomes are often better on many conditions as well - the systems are better at diagnosing early, treating quickly and getting the treatment right first time and this reflects higher patient satisfaction scores.

Having worked with Dutch and German colleagues in the UK, where they have made use of the NHS they are amazed at how slow it is and wonder at why the processes don't seem to be oriented around the patient. There's detailed comparison of different healthcare systems in the report linked to below.

http://www.healthpowerhouse.com/index.php?option=com_content&archive=news&view=article&id=410:&itemid=50&menu=yes

My experience is as a occasional customer of the
NHS only.

I am lucky enough to have some private insurance so whenever diagnosed as requiring medical attention I'm given the option to see the same person, sometimes in the same place or maybe in another place with nicer wallpaper in either a) six to twelve weeks on the nhs or b) next week privately.

Whichever option I choose, many of the staff will be from an agency or company other than the NHS.

This seems like a properly British kind of solution to unpalitable question of privatising the NHS, do it without admitting it without actually facing up to the problem and applying a proper logical solution that everyone understands.

Just to add-

Given theres likely more than an average number of medical types reading this thread, I'll just also say you'll have my thanks regardless of whever you get paid from my taxes or my wallet.

The Dutch and German systems (where there are co payments and an insured element) manage to deliver better care at a cost equivalent to the NHS when massive unfunded pension liabilities in the latter are taken into account.

quick back of beermat calculation based on relative %age of GDP spent on health between UK (massively less than USA) and Germany/Holland (a bit closer to USA): are these [i]unfunded[/i]* pension liabilities really worth 13% of the total uk spend on health? 😯

* i stress unfunded because recent hikes in pension contributions and retirement age changes (aka changes/cuts in pay, terms and conditions if you apply the logic of some folk on here) means that if the government actually saved my contributions (rather than just pouring them back in the pot and letting later governments pay for it) its theoretically less underfunded than it was

Having worked with Dutch and German colleagues in the UK, where they have made use of the NHS they are amazed at how slow it is and wonder at why the processes don't seem to be oriented around the patient.

I have actual first hand knowledge of the Dutch health system, having lived in Holland for some years. Of course this is anecdotal, but I know it to be true.

1. I had a condition (which I decline to describe further for delicacy's sake!!). I went to a doctor and was diagnosed and he prescribed something. The thing he prescribed was so radical that on one occasion I fainted with pain in the toilets at work. I later described the condition and symptoms to a friend who is a NHS consultant. The friend told me that the treatment prescribed was totally inappropriate to a condition that had not been confirmed with a biopsy. I later received a different treatment and the condition went away.

2. My wife collapsed at home and had to be taken to hospital, the ambualnce team having called the fire dept to smash down the door. Over the course of the next few days she was lying alone in a bed with nurses coming round on a very infrequent basis. They had to be reminded to hydrate her, and to perform basic duties. When she got home she got a big bill, despite having insurance.

So - yes, just anecdotes, but personal experience that suggests to me that the last thing we need to do is to look to Holland for answers.

I think the govt plan is to let the NHS get worse until people want it to be privatised.

^^
I can picture this happening 🙁

The Europen social insurance system is closer to tax based than full private. It's massively regulated and operates within tight constraints. It's a judgement about whether it is more efficient - higher proportion of GDP spent for similar volumes of care but so difficult to measure output as quality is difficult to measure and subjective

My experiences of the NHS have been excellent, however, I think some of that has to do with my GF being in charge of ICU, and the consultants knowing her and me, also when I was first diagnosed in A&E, it was a mate of a mate who was the consultant on that night who took charge of my case, I cant imagine regular care being on a par with my experiences, for example when I have had to go to other hospitals, its been very lets say routine, with little interest being shown by all staff concerned, but I do think what the NHS needs is more support from the public, we need educating on how to use the NHS, and this needs reinfocrcing, the abuse of A&E for a start. and sticking to appointments, just some education of the public could help alleviate some of the pressure

Just for information, my parents live in Germany and pay 370 euros each into the Krankenkasse (health insurance scheme). They are 75. The service is ok, some things are better some are worse and there are similar preferred treatments you can be restricted to. There does seem to be quite a bit of admin involved if you go to the doctor too.

I had a quick look at my payslip - I pay less in central government taxation (including NI) than they do in health insurance. If I was 75 I'd be paying less.

I like Germany - it is mainly much better run than the UK but I don't think I'd want to swap the NHS.

andyrm - Member

Not sure yet - still looking

Phone 999 and wait for a private ambulance. The price of private healthcare in the UK is massively influenced by the fact that they don't have to bother doing lots of essential stuff.

I've lived in a country with privatised health.

All I can say is that the NHS is effing brilliant.

The only people who would benefit from privatisation are Cameron's cronies. (Check the list of parliamentarians with investments in companies involved in private health care.)

I moved to the US in 2013. Healthcare here is truly mindboggling. Those who can afford to pay do so, and pay handsomely. They get a certain level of convenience, lots of tests and a highly disjointed service. Those who can sort-of afford to pay or can't get stressed out on whether they can afford to be ill or not.

People should not fear illness on the basis of them not being able to afford treatment. Not in a 'highly developed Western civilization'.

The NHS is unique