Healthcare. Is this he thin edge of the wedge?

I wonder what their definition of ‘wealthy’ will be?

I’m probably being a cynical old bat, but the peasants will most likely be stuck with substandard care at rundown clinics.

I've long thought that those who can afford it should pay for their 'bed and board' when in hospital. Not at 5* hotel rates, of course, but it would help offset the overall cost.

As you say Blossoming, how will they define 'wealthy'?

Actually not a bad idea to charge for food whilst in hospital! Even a nominal sum of £1 a day would help the coffers as in-patients would be eating at home anyway. Probably get told now it would be too bureaucratic. Seems most ideas seem to get labelled that way these days.

It appears as if this meeting was some sort of Think Tank, whre eveery possoiible method of running a health service was onthe table. This idea was justone of themanyohters - but f course,is the one the media have picked up. It has been confirmed that it was not aserious idea.

Think there is already a trwo tier system of Hezlth Care in place with the richer jumping queues for oerations and non urgent treatment through private medicine and the plebs being pushed tothe back of queues. Of course, anythng that goes 'wrong' with those private ops, are then sorted out by the NHS.

It has long been that if you are any sort of benefit and in hospital for any length of time, your benefits are stopped,

Urmstongran

Actually not a bad idea to charge for food whilst in hospital! Even a nominal sum of £1 a day would help the coffers as in-patients would be eating at home anyway. Probably get told now it would be too bureaucratic. Seems most ideas seem to get labelled that way these days.

Not if the food is anything like I've experienced!

Last time I was in hospital my partner was sent off to the onsite M & S Simply Food to buy me something to eat. I was starving after having fasted 18 hours and there was nothing on the menu I could eat.

URM You must go searching for anti Scottish govt stuff.
I'm a member of SNP ,get all the current or preliminary discussion on actions to be taken and I haven't heard of this.On the contrary I did hear the FM saying/promising that the NHS would always be available for all here .
The Scottish NHS figures are the best in the UK .unless you read the unionist press.Staff are better paid ,eye and dental checks are Free ,catching all sorts of illness that could be serious and cost a fortune IF they went undiscovered simply because folk couldn't afford them .
Our budget has been cut by 5 BILLION but the nurses received an offer of between 5.4% and 11.1 in recent negotiations ...thats after the 3% they were awarded last year .
Please pay attention to the MESS your government is making of the WHOLE UK .Believe me from what I hear from relatives from Southport to Devon things are much much worse down there .
A wee ps,I saw my GP last week ,by the time I had left the surgery she had organised a brain scan later the same day ,she has called me every day since to check my BP figures and I'm seeing her again tomorrow .Is YOUR nhs better than that ?

I agree with you Franbern. There's already a two-tier health system in place.

I can see all sorts of problems with means-testing and charging people for hospital stays. For a start, it would involve increasing admin staff - the much maligned "pen pushers".

IMO it would be more efficient and fairer to tax (including NICs) people for healthcare, according to their means.

I'm glad it wasn't a serious suggestion, but worrying that somebody thought it was even worth floating as an idea.

I really don’t ‘go searching’ paddyanne! It popped up now as a strap line on my iPad.

I didn’t even use the Saltire in the topic line, nor put a photo of NS in my post.

I don’t want it to be an inflammatory topic. It was a genuine question.

Actually my care under my GP surgery has been exemplary. But my question isn’t about that per se. It’s about charging some patients ‘deemed wealthy’ to plug a hole in funding.

Urmstongran

Actually my care under my GP surgery has been exemplary. But my question isn’t about that per se. It’s about charging some patients ‘deemed wealthy’ to plug a hole in funding.

How would you deem who is wealthy? If somebody comes in as an emergency, would you expect them to bring their bank account details with them?

Tax the wealthier more and give the NHS more - the systems are already in place to do that - problem solved.

Paddyann54, no need to get tribal. It isn’t urmston looking to criticise the SNP. This was reported on every news station this morning. Given our government seems fixed on privatising the nhs I’m sure similar discussions are happening in England.

The huge delays are making many people seek an initial private appointment when worried. Two tier is growing as a result.

My recent, intensive experience of out and inpatient treatment for my husband showed us how impressive the nhs remains. The delay was in the 999 response, being told the ambulance would be one hour 45 mins then the 2 hour wait to be triaged at A and E.
Im so relieved that when I left 8 days later I only had to collect the death certificate. No charge for the endless cups of tea and the numerous plates of warm toast I was encouraged to eat

It’s quite alarming isn’t it? How will they define ‘wealthier’ - how much available income will they consider as being the starting point? I foresee people avoiding going to see a doctor or seek medical support for fear of being unable to pay for the necessary treatment, if this ever comes to pass. I always assumed part of the taxes we already pay go towards the NHS? Perhaps plugging the massive amounts of waste in the NHS might be a better place to start.

A proposal mooted by a phone in caller to the radio was to stop free prescriptions for all in Scotland, I didn’t hear any figures on how much that would save.

People in Wales also get free prescriptions or they did when we had a caravan there.
Everybody who can pay should.
My S’s script this week cost £37 and the surgery only now give monthly prescriptions instead of two as they did until a few months ago.

Last time I was an in-patient in a NHS hospital, (three nights, four days) the only NHS food I ate was the cereal in the morning. Everything else was inedible, including the NHS sandwiches.

DH and DD brought in sandwiches and fresh fruit every day.

The majority of prescriptions in England are free . Only about 10% pay for them. Can't see that making much money.

I have the same experience with hospital food absolutely dire, except when I had my hip replaced in a private hospital, it was good .
The only downside I was nil by mouth all the first day, lovely food the second day and home on the third.

Actually, paddy, urms didn’t need to go searching for anti Scottish govt stuff as you put it - it was in plain sight for all to see on the BBC news website.

Septimia

I've long thought that those who can afford it should pay for their 'bed and board' when in hospital. Not at 5* hotel rates, of course, but it would help offset the overall cost.

As you say Blossoming, how will they define 'wealthy'?

But how do you define the ‘those who can afford it’ that you think should pay?

If ‘afford it’ means that feed would leave you with millions in the bank, then ok. if it means using the rent on a house you don’t live in, I would consider that as maybe reasonable, but if it means that if you sell everything you will have just enough left to scrape by, then I would disagree. The devil is in the detail, as usual.

most people that can pay for treatment do so at private clinics, i know my surgeon/consultant took a day of each week for his private clinic at another place, he worked extra hours at the nhs hospital and i even saw him on weekends, the nurses did a brilliant job and even said sorry for the food they had to give us, i lived for 2 weeks on sandwiches and milk and some food my son would drop of for me. i would be very happy to give some money each day for food as the sandwiches would cost more than that.

I'm certainly not rich but would happily pay something towards any treatment that I get from the NHS if it helped to improve the service for everyone. I get free prescriptions because I'm a pensioner but again would be willing to pay the annual charge if asked. I'm aware that many of us are concerned about "privatisation" of the NHS but I feel we should be looking at all possibilities if we want to improve things. The NHS already uses and pays for private hospital provision, eg I had an MRI at a private hospital, if it helps to shorten waiting times and get people the treatment they need, then why not? I think there may be lots of elective treatments that could be done more efficiently in bespoke units ie that is all they do, but that's difficult to achieve in most NHS hospitals .

Oh Iam64! That would have been unthinkable! I wonder how they would have kept a track of how much you'd eaten and drunk. Would they have kept a tab?

Hope you're coping with it all!

It isn’t the NHS if you are paying. The principle of “free at the point of use” is broken.