NHS

The NHS must be free to all, regardless. There has been discussions regarding excluding those with self inflicted problems caused by such things such as weight, smoking, drinking etc, but such distinctions should not be part of the NHS (even though atm, some are)

The NHS isn't free though! It all has to be paid for somehow.

I mean't free at the point of use, sorry I thought that was obvious. Of course it has to be paid for somehow, primarily from taxes.

Yes GandTea and this government is intent on reducing taxes, particularly to the better off!

That's why we pay National Insurance.

If you want to go private then that system already exists alongside the NHS. Pay to see your GP, pay for private prescriptions, pay for any tests you need, pay to see a consultant, pay to go into a private hospital and for any treatment you receive in said private hospital. In fact if you're happy/able /want to pay for your medical treatment then go for it. One less person in the queue to see the GP, one less person getting (sometimes) subsidised medication, one less person's tests taking up laboratory time, one less person taking an NHS consultant appointment and one less person taking up a hospital bed. Of course if anything goes wrong you'll find yourself in an NHS ambulance being rushed to the ICU of an NHS hospital. No private hospital would invest in the care needed there. It wouldn't make any profit.

I have no problem with anyone paying into the private system but the NHS must stay free at point of use. We should be proud of and nurture the NHS. Not let it become a private system by the back door.

Well said VQ.
Lazigirl, I am not ignoring your post, I just don't know enough about the subject to make any useful comment. I just pay my tax bill without question and probably always will.

To be honest, vq I think that is what a lot of people do using BUPA and workplace health insurance. They can get an earlier diagnosis privately even if they don't plan to go on in the private sector. Frankly private medicine could not have come close to the NHS for DH's transplant, for his bowel surgery and Lymphoma 10 years later and for open heart surgery for a graft/repair and an aortic valve replacement a couple of years after that!

"Called the Sustainability and Transformation Plans, the NHS and the country is now split into 44 regional areas - known as “footprints”.

Each footprint has been ordered to produce a plan by 30th June this year to completely change the way the NHS works. Footprint Boards have to prove they can clear their debts within a year. And how do they do that? They cut more services, close more beds, sell off land and hospitals that are public assets."

This is what is going to happen to the NHS over the next year, Simon Steven's plan.
It frightens me. I'd rather more newspapers and TV channels spent time on discussing this rather than the EU referendum. However, we don't all get what we want.

Couldn't agree more dj. I really wish that more media attention had been addressed to this than that dratted referendum!

dj, I've just looked up the plans for my area. All the above are planned plus fewer face to face consultations and fewer fully trained doctors. GPs won't exist as we know them now. I've been following the blog and Tweets of my former GP, who resigned from the NHS last year. This is exactly what she was predicting. Two of the other GPs have set up their own private GP practice.

DJ. I have just tried to read and understand about the plan you mention. My God, I though my brain was about to implode. In one report I hardly understood the meaning of a single word in one sentence.
I think you are making an assumption regarding the cuts you mention, they are one way of achieving the financial target, but hopefully other efficiency based solutions will be found.
I understand your concern, but I don't share your fears for the continuation of the NHS, we will see.
I do find the footprint stuff interesting as I had some very recent inside information from the NHS management which now makes more sense.

GandTea,

I understand the minutes and plans of my area 'footprint' well enough. It has been stated quite categorically that the plan is to have fewer beds, cuts in services, more e-consultations and fewer fully trained staff by 2020. This is all against a background of having to provide two extra days of a full service and further cuts to local authority funding for social care.

Well it was way beyond my comprehension. I obviously had mis-spent school years.

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-plans-to-dismantle-our-nhs

A petition to stop it?

If you go on the link to sign the petition, look at the you-tube video Jeremy Hunt drops a clanger. Then you'll see what is planned for the NHS.
Do you really want that?

I wonder if all the services are accessible to everyone equally in all the countries that some people suggest are much better than ours in providing health care. One of the factors that led to the UK being ranked first in the research in 2014 was equality of access to health care.

It is, I realise, an extreme example but In the US those with vast amounts of money are happy with the system because they have access to more sophisticated treatments and procedures than we are likely to have in the UK. But if anyone has seen the Michael Moore documentary "Sicko", it showed examples of how when people became unemployed and lost their employment-related health insurance they could not access anything more than very basic health care. Expensive drug treatment was withheld in the case of chronic conditions and illnesses until they became acute. One woman related how her husband was denied expensive drug treatment for an ongoing condition and became so ill and debilitated that he eventually died, leaving her with young children.

As for charging for GP appointments, this would be a very cumbersome and costly system to administer. Also, some people on low incomes would be reluctant to go to the doctor and might possibly wait until it was too late for diagnosis and treatment to make any difference. And, in my experience, any charges that are introduced at one rate, rarely stay at that rate but instead increase year on year. This has happened with the controlled parking charges that my daughter pays, which have increased from a fairly small yearly payment to a quite substantial amount now.

The chain of private walk-in doctors' surgeries near mainline London and other city stations (not the non-chain, Harley Street-type ones that are much more expensive) are charging upwards of £55 per 15-minute appointment. I had a one-off appointment with a BUPA doctor near King's Cross because my foot was painful when I walked. She asked me to walk across the room, said I had flat feet and needed specialist, custom-made insteps - recommending where I could obtain them. That was four years ago. I paid £40 for what turned out to be a 5 minute consultation. (Incidentally, I didn't get the £350 (!) insteps she recommended and (touch wood) the problem rectified itself in due course. Once we accept that certain areas of health care can, as a matter of course, be charged for, this is, I think, a very dangerous road to go down.

Britain is rich and it is a country which had the vision to recognise that a civilised and successful country must look after all of its people. The idea of some sort of two-tier system that will favour the better off and discourage the less well off from seeking the treatment they need goes against everything that the NHS was created for.

It looks like people don't mind being a 'commercial opportunity'.

Do you remember when Hunt said that parents should be able to diagnose a rash from the internet? Errrmm, sorry, no. If my baby or toddler had an unexplained and serious rash, I would want a doctor to look at it. His/her life isn't worth risking.

Thank you for the petition dj which Inhave signed and posted to everyone I know. I think it is shocking that this is going under the radar whilst we are preoccupied with the fiasco of the EU debate. We are sleep walking into a privatised American style health service.

Eloethan, on the you-tube video on the petition there are mentions of Michael Moore's Sicko.

Lazigirl, I think that's the whole point of it. Note the 44 footprints have to have their plans in by the end of June, one week after the referendum. It's only people who have links to lots of NHS sites who will notice this. For most people it will only be noticed when they are affected by closures or the running down of the services they need.

youtu.be/_mNXpTqn9sU

This is an excellent video, just over two minutes, from the BMA about the differences between NHS and private providers.
Well worth watching.

There have been articles in reputable newspapers about the fact the health trusts are in debt by large amounts and that they have to do something about it. That's hardly under the radar.

What's under the radar are the 'Sustainability and Transformation Plans', which will force CCGs to make further cuts and provide an even less personal service, and the stated intention to outsource even more social care for the elderly to private providers.

This isn't just some scare story. It's happening and is going to get worse. It's all there in black and white for anybody who cares to look. Those 'in the know' already know what's going on.

The media is portraying a service in crisis and blaming everybody and anything other than the real cause, which is lack of funding. People who don't understand what's really going on won't protest too much, if they think anything's better than what we've got. It won't be better and they were warned. Those who can afford private health care won't protest either, because they're alright and object to paying for those feckless and alcoholic unemployed anyway.

It's Simon Steven's five year forward view.
Here's a good explanation of it. (NHA calls it a brief one; it depends on your definition of brief.)

nhap.org/what-you-can-do/facts-fingertips/the-five-year-forward-view/

I'm not going to precis it. It all needs to be read, but I do not need to be told by anyone that you are not going to read it.

Thatbags, I cannot believe that you still think it's a question of finance rather than ideology. You surely are not as gullible as that.

Please, Bags, look at the video link from the BMA.