NHS winter crisis looms

Ahem! I'm glad the UK makes it tough for A level students to study Medicine. It's one of the reasons UK trained doctors are in demand globally. Personally, I wouldn't be too happy to be treated by somebody with an NVQ Level 2 in Applied Science.

By the way, A level students wanting to study Medicine are interviewed. Yes, they usually achieve very high A level results (3 x A*), but not always. Interviewers are looking for personal qualities.

It costs over £250,000 for a doctor's basic training - and more for post-university basic training. Fees only cover a fraction. How do you think this should be funded? I think it should be, but I can already hear the whingers.

How many medical students do you know personally, Mair?

" good high school results, is quite enough to get into more of medical schools in Romania and Bulgaria even if some of them may organize an entrance exam in Biology, chemistry and or English, while in countries like UK, even student with triple A of A-levels are rejected."

Site advising students looking to study abroad

Beyond the EU

Examples:
Applying to Caribbean medical University, student has more chance of being admitted that applying to USA, Canadian, British medical universities.

Russian medical study requirements
High school diploma: the prospective student must have got his high school diploma (certificate). Better if he has pass with Minimum 50% of marks in Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

Hmm do you see how tough our Governments make it for our students?

Unfortunately, many of our trained medical staff decide to emigrate or not to continue into a specialism

Not really. While quite a number go abroad for a year or two most return. Britain still remains one of the best countries in the world to live in. The days of the 'brain drain' when many doctors were fleeing to the USA are long gone.

Its quite hilarious on the BMA website where they are deliberately scaremongering about doctors "thinking of" emigrating. Many doctors who have worked abroad have replied, all slagging off pay and conditions in BRitain and yet despite this they are all back here and almost all want to stay (various justifications for their return! LOL)

Yet there is an answer to these doctors trying to hold the country to ransom, train a surplus. There is ^no shortag^e of people wanting to become doctors its the most sought after university course in the country, and its much more competitive to win a place at a British university to study medicine than in most EU countries, never mind poorer non EU countries. Spain Slovakia Portugal even poor Ukraine all provide more doctors per head of population than the UK! Its shocking really. Increasing numbers of disappointed UK medical students are going to the EU to study, not out of choice but desperation.

Most EU immigrants come to the UK to work and pay taxes and NI. It's hard not to pay tax in the UK, unless you never buy a chocolate bar, travel on any form of transport or wear clothes.

A percentage of immigrants' tax should be used for healthcare, just as anybody else's tax is.

Did anybody watch 'Hospital' this evening?

The Hospital Programme will be showing someone who has to go and ask people to pay. That will be interesting; we should find out from that what the problems are and how much it costs.

Unfortunately, many of our trained medical staff decide to emigrate or not to continue into a specialism.

The cost of health tourism is like throwing a few stones down a hill after an avalance. They don't help, but they don't make a significant difference.

Don't forget that many health tourists hold British passports while living abroad. It's not nationality but residence which determines eligibility for NHS treatment.

"The point is the NHS was designed for an era before large scale international migration, and its economics are sadly 'not fit for purpose' when borders are poorly controlled."

This says migration, mair, suggesting immigration as you are talking about the NHS.

Who says we have no concern for other countries? I know of quite a few doctors and nurses who have trained here, and then gone back home, quite often to train others in their own countries.
We don't steal; we train them. In some countries it's difficult to train because of hygiene problems.
Look at all the people on here who say they give to medicin sans frontiers.
Some of the charities I give to help to train nurses and doctors.
Why do you always assume you know exactly what left wing Globalists think?

"Are you saying that stopping immigration will give more money to the NHS, mair?"

Overseas health tourists ar not immigrants DJ.

I dont think NHS staffing is the subject of this thread, but as an aside you should be aware that Care Homes do not fall under the NHS umbrella, so are a seperate issue.

I certainly believe we should be training enough medical staff of our own so that we do not need to import labour from abroad, which incidentally usually involves 'stealing' staff from countries that desperately need them. It never fails to shock me that left wing Globalists have no concern whatsoever that countries in Africa and Asia with serious shortages of trained staff are the victims of Western medical theft.

www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/brexit-and-nhs

Most of these issues impact on immigration, staffing and accessing treatment in particular.
Stop immigrant nurses and doctors and we will be the losers.
Many care workers come from abroad. We don't like doing it ourselves, working in care homes.

Are you saying that stopping immigration will give more money to the NHS, mair?

You think March 2016 so long ago that its not relevant WW??
Yet that is the end of the last full year for which there are figures.

Lets look at the Government report itself then (Oct 2016) upon which the misleading information in so called "Full Facts" that DJ got her figure from is based

Difficulties in collecting payment mean that significantly less is recovered from patients who are personally liable for the cost of treatment than is charged
Three-quarters of trusts (37 out of 50) responding to our consultation exercise said that overseas visitor debts were a very important or a fairly important problem for their trust.

Most of the increase in money collected is due too the NHS having raised its charges, NOT to an improvement in tracking and securing repayments.

And the outlook isnt great. The NHS isnt even expecting to reach its own target of recovrign 500 million in 2016/17. See Fig 5

www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Recovering-the-cost-of-NHS-treatment-for-overseas-visitors.pdf

Page 35 of the document gives an explanation of why it is so difficult a system for the NHS to operate.

I am not suggesting that health tourism is the major part of the problem, but it is a particularly unjust part of the problem, because it is an abuse of the system.

The point is the NHS was designed for an era before large scale international migration, and its economics are sadly 'not fit for purpose' when borders are poorly controlled.

Agreed, Jess, the same as they knew they were going to have lots of elderly people. Baby boomers didn't stop at a certain age. Lots of us just got older.
It's a bit much when even Simon Stevens is saying they've gone too far. He's the one responsible for saying the NHS could take £22 billion in efficiency savings.
I watched part of the debate today and was so annoyed that some Tory MPs are still saying that the NHS has been given an extra £10 billion that I was shouting at the television.
My grandson was sitting next to me, and looked most surprised.

In 2010 I said (on GN amongst other places) that the NHS was at that moment better than it had ever been and better than it was ever likely to be again.
Obsessing about foreigners and payments is a complete red herring and a tiny drop in the ocean of the NHS budget.
The problem is caused by 6 years of Jeremy Hunt (and Tory austerity). They knew perfectly well that demand was going to rise steadily. They would appear to have created this crisis deliberately and not by mere incompetence.

What do you say about the King's Fund article, mair?

Unfortunately most of the information we get about the NHS has to be dragged out through FOI requests. Anything the government doesn't want us to know is covered by commercial confidentiality.
I know. I've tried for years as have lots of people in many of the groups I belong to.
At least if it's 2015 figures, it's quite often the most up-to-date you can get, and the government cannot blame the Labour party for this mess, as they changed the system in 2013.
Lots of times not only have they changed the system, they've also changed the system of collecting statistics, so they are not directly comparable.

We all know your agenda mair

"We all"?
Who has authorised you to speak for them WW?

What 'agenda' are you implying I have?
My comments are purely to challenge and expose nonsense.
To suggest that foreigner usage of the NHS and Britains failure to collect payments is not a problem is a nonsense.

"but it doesn't help it's cause by such tenuous arguments"

DJs figure is misleading and gives a very incomplete picture.
March 2016 is less than a year ago. The situation has not changed substantially since then.

That was dated March 2016.

We are addressing the problem today. Anyone would think that it is the EU and the EU alone is responsible for the problems faced by the NHS . Even roses realises it's a drop in the ocean.

We all know your agenda mair but it doesn't help it's cause by such tenuous arguments

"From what we are hearing though, there are a lot not charged at all..."

Indeed. A S.Afican of English descent told me her SA/English migrant friends who all came back here to have their babies because healthcare in SA is not what it was, were fully expecting to be billed (and quite willing to pay), but this simply never happened.

The situation within the EU is dire too:

New figures (march 2016) show the NHS is paying out millions more for EU healthcare than it is claiming back from EU countries.

news.sky.com/story/nhs-scandal-as-uk-pays-millions-to-eu-10189381

In what one MP described as a "scandalous failure", it has emerged that the UK pays more than £670m to EU countries for Brits' healthcare abroad, while claiming back less than £50m from the EU, even though there are significantly more EU citizens in the UK than UK citizens in the EU

The new figures reveal that nearly every country claims more from the UK than the UK claims back from the rest of the EU

Even in countries such as Poland where net migration is massively towards the UK, the discrepancy is four-fold in Poland's favour.

MP John Mann, who obtained the figures in a parliamentary question, told Sky News that "logically the UK should be receiving more than it pays out

I realise it's a drop in the ocean that is needed to keep the NHS afloat, but it still all needs to be collected.

Radio 4 discussion the other week.

I suppose that depends on where you're hearing it, roses

From what we are hearing though, there are a lot not charged at all......
But if this new charge is getting some money from visitors in the last year, then that's good.

You're a bit behind the times, roses

£289m
charged for treating
overseas visitors in
2015-16, including a
new immigration health
surcharge for students
and temporary migrants

www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Recovering-the-cost-of-NHS-treatment-for-overseas-visitors.pdf

We can but hope! Every little helps.