Privatisation through the backdoor?

Perhaps instead of making such selfish suggestions we should start charging the time wasters for the ambulance call outs and doctor time they waste. Several members of my family are doctors, and believe you me, there are a lot of time wasters and unreasonable people out there.

How dare anyone suggest that millionaires should not be treated for free on the NHS. What an utterly selfish attitude, considering how much the higher paid pay in tax, as Lilyflower correctly pointed out. So some people think that the people who actually pay for our NHS shouldn't qualify for free treatment from the institution that they in the main pay for is unbelievable! The selfishness of some people is truly disgusting.

"We treat millionaires for free !"

A small cost considering the tax they pay. Full Fact, the fact checking charity states:-

The highest earning 1% in the UK pay an estimated 28% of all income tax ."

In contrast:-

"The percentage of income tax paid by the bottom 50% of earners has fallen from almost 12.6% to just fewer than 10%."

Furthermore:-

"The top 50% of earners make up roughly 90% of income tax receipts, slightly more than back in 2000."

We can afford to treat the odd millionaire without resentment - but we could hardly afford not to.

GPs have always been independent contractors.

When I would have had a lengthy wait on the NHS, and in view of my pain. I had an op carried out privately.
A few years on when needing similar I was advised it could be carried out, much sooner than expected, so went NHS.
The nursing care on both counts was second to none .I could not say the same applied to the second op where a bit of reassurance following the op, and only a surgeon could give, was involved .

You should be lucky that Grayling isn't running the NHS !!

GreenGran78 Surely even if people do phone for an ambulance for these idiotic problems, an ambulance is not sent out to them.

Diva12 Spot on about running the service into the ground to sell off. Andrew Lansley's Health and Social care bill, brought in under the coalition Government was preparing the way for privatisation.

GillT57 Trivial 999 calls are, unfortunately, not an urban myth. You only have to Google it to find numerous accounts of people phoning with all manner of idiotic problems from "I've got a hedgehog in the garden, and it's scaring me" to "I dropped a glass on my foot, 10 hours ago" Some of these idiots actually end up in A & E, taking up the staff's precious time.

Charleygirl5 and the Police are in the same situation. I think that they spend more time dealing with mental health, drink and domestic problems. Large portions of their shifts are spent being social workers, instead of being able to deal with crime.

Just in touch with a friend who is critically ill in local nhs hospital . He’s had a bad night , with treatments going awry. But he says there are only 2 nurses on duty to cope with 20 ill patients - and one of them is working out her notice as she can’t cope anymore. It’s going to get worse, when treatment in EU comes to a halt. It’s a classic tactic - run the service into the ground, sell it off cheap and reap the profits. Shameful - but many of you voted this government in. Time for proportional representation.

He also had some sort of music festival at the Venezuelan border in support of the leader that the US wants to impose. He is a megalomaniac. He wants to run the world and saw nothing wrong with taking so much money out of our health service. I can't understand why so many people try to lionise him.

EllanVannin

We do pay towards the NHS (including millionaires). The service is "free at the point of delivery" which is not the same as being free.

When I lived in Queensland during the 1970s there was a three tier health system. The public health tier was free to the uninsured and funded by a lottery, each month a luxury home was built in a nice area and fully furnished, tickets were sold and raised huge amounts, also some lucky family owned a beautiful new home. The second tier was intermediate level which was funded by private insurance and entitled one to a twin room and private consultancy to a certain level. The top level meant a higher monthly insurance payment and allowed a private room and a higher level of consultancy.
I don't know if the system has since changed but I felt it worked really well.
I would like to see funding of the NHS topped up by a national lottery and imagine that this would raise millions.
I don't want to see privatisation but I do feel the NHS needs a good shake up on the finance and admin side.
The overworked and underpaid, dedicated medical staff deserve better.

EllanV, what happens to the people who can't afford even a small amount of payment? There are many pensioners on the breadline and we also have food banks, energy banks etc for those with nothing. Please don't anyone use the excuse that everyone can afford it because the can't, low wages, zero hours and this blasted Universal Credit system.

This is a great grassroots non political voluntary group of people who are holding NHS England to account.

Feel free to take a read through,join in the campaigns and circulate to interested friends and family.

999callfornhs.org.uk/

I am against anything being privatised - look at the evidence- Public transport, schools, prisons, probationary service, NHS, etc You can't make a profit out of these things and should not be allowed to try instead we need to ensure rigorous managing/monitoring of these types of services.

All our public services (NHS, police, amublance, fire, schools, probation, prisons, etc, etc) must be accountable and be seen to be using their finances appropriately; however, privatised companies must make a profit for their various stakeholders and, in my experience, will put that above the service they provide - cutting provision and finding ways to ensure targets appear in keeping with what is desired.

For cervical, that is.

Cancer screening is carried out at surgeries.

Why not a nominal annual insurance payment towards the NHS with an option to pay more such as they do in France ?

Do we pensioners still pay into the NHS via nat. insurance ? No, not any longer, so the loss of millions will have impacted and will continue to do so and this is exactly the time of life when treatment etc is most needed and usually more expensive. Treatment/services at the NHS doesn't stop when the nat.ins does-------it doesn't make sense to me.

Unfortunately the Government doesnt want to run anything. Just hand over contracts to private companies. Makes their life easier and makes more shares for them to invest in. These companies then employ cheap labour which we have to top up financially to live. Therefore the companies make more profit and so it goes on. I get so grrrrr about how things are going in this country.

GillT57 well said. Of course people are happy to highlight "the drunks in A&E", the unnecessary ambulance call outs but are unwilling to share the success stories.
The fact is RB and others are taking funds away from the NHS, to make profit. If the money paid to these companies were put into the NHS we would have a successful service.
Companies who make profit from people do not give a shit about anything but profit ££££.
Underfunding and slyly selling off the service is the cause if the NHS being in a mess, not a minority of fools who abuse it.
I don't care what works in Australia, I care what happens to our NHS. Not for it to profit the elite of the country.

Education and health should be priorities for government spending. They are not about making money, but about making a healthier, better informed society,which benefits everyone. My close family includes 3 GPs, and a surgeon, all of whom think as I do.

All the effort should be going into making the NHS a truly public service, with the sole aim of providing health care. It should aim to be efficient, but not through simplistic managerialism such as arbitrary targets. It is a fantasy to suppose that businesses have a magic ingredient that makes them more efficient. I don’t believe in means testing or charging. They are discriminatory and inefficient. Wealthier people pay more tax, as they should. (To the extent that they don’t, that should be fixed). Removing free treatment would have side effects such as creating pools of untreated illness that are liable to harm everyone. Not to mention being inhumane.

Medicare in Australia. My daughter lived there for 15 years. You have to pay upfront at the doctors and for prescriptions and get some of the costs back. All vaccinations cost. The only thing that is not paid for is emergency treatment. Dental charges are huge and even children have to be paid for. She couldn’t believe that dental treatment here for children was without up front cost.
Do I want further incursions by private medicine? No! I’d rather pay more tax and free at point of delivery.
I agree that private hospitals ship emergencies off the the NHS. I would hope they are charged the market rate for this service and also the costs associated with calling an ambulance, although I doubt that very much. Private hospitals should have to provide their own emergency care or pay the market rate. I loathe being ripped off by private, profit making organisations -the railways are a good example.
Education, social services and health care should have the financial input to provide proper services via public bodies.