Healthcare. Is this he thin edge of the wedge?

Your state pension doesn’t stop when you’re in hospital, but after 28 days you no longer get attendance allowance, disability living allowance, and I think a few other discretionary payments.
It’s a good point about collection systems for any payments, they would cause another layer of bureaucracy, there is no other way of doing it - and there would need to be systems for non payers, and those who couldn’t pay. Imagine not feeding people in hospital because they had no money. I don’t think that’s the way to go, people should be taxed at source so the NHS is free at point of delivery.

I seem to remember my Granny had to hand in her pension book to the hospital once she had been in hospital six(?) Weeks. Anybody else remember something similar? Also, if a payment was introduced for the 'wealthy' what's the betting a whole new level of admin would be introduced to manage this? That's my reckoning.......

Urmstongran

NHS chiefs discuss charging wealthy patients for care in Scotland. (Headline just now in the Telegraph).
“'Damning' leaked minutes reveal talks on adopting a 'two-tier' system to help plug 'billion-pound hole' in the budget”

Even to have the topic on the agenda seems shocking.
Is this the future do we think?

Do I think that a true 2-tier system is in future?

No, 2-tier medical care has been normalised for quite some time.

annsixty If your son is on regular monthly meds, then he should get a prescription prepayment certificate. You get three and 12 monthly ones, look at the NHS website for details.

But I don't think many landlords would be prepared to give a refund for a few days or a couple of weeks.
No, I meant that if someone was renting out a house they don’t live in. Not the best example maybe but I was thinking quickly about an example of ‘spare’ money that people might have, between real wealth and ordinary people’s ‘rainy day’ funds that so many seem to resent anyone wanting to hang onto.

Callistemon it all depends which hospital, visited a friend recently who had a two week hospital stay in England, and she said the food was lovely and wished she had more appetite.

paddyann54

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 ?

Oh yes all is fine and dandy in Scotland hey? That’s why so many Scottish people leave there to live somewhere else.
In fact you don’t have to search for anti Scottish government stuff, there is plenty out there including newspapers.
This wasn’t really anti anything anyway, it was in the paper and leaked.Think tank stuff which surely won’t happen anyway as it’s a vote loser.

annsixty

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.

Yes, we do.

I heard last week that Wales is thinking of reintroducing parking charges at hospitals.

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.

DH wasn't eating for a week, then when he could he said he couldn't eat the awful hospital food.
Certainly he'd lost a lot of weight when he came home.

Perhaps we need James Martin to start another campaign?

foxie48

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 .

MRIs are a bit of a money-making scam.
I've had three of them over the last few months.
When I was waiting for one of them, I heard the radiographer on the phone to admin.
A private patient was waiting for an MRI (presumably having jumped the queue because this was an NHS hospital). The patient couldn't have the scan because the private insurance company wouldn't pay up unless she had a cheaper ultrasound first.
The radiographer went off to tell the lady in the cubicle what was happening. Obviously, she was very upset, but had no choice except to go back to her private consultant to book an ultrasound.
I was extremely grateful I was an NHS patient because I had a number of ultrasounds and MRIs and they all went smoothly and without delay.

The NHS is becoming the pauper’s service.

Doodledog

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.

But I don't think many landlords would be prepared to give a refund for a few days or a couple of weeks.

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

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!

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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