The NHS is gone ...

I think your "How do you boil a frog" quote exactly sums up what is going on with this government and the NHS Urmstongran.

However, I would not see the Kings Fund as an unbiased source. As far back as 2014 they were listing charges that could be made to fund the NHS.

Simply, I would say the answer to the question "can the NHS still be funded" is, quite obviously,"yes". The question under discussion, here and in the country is "how?"

Should it remain free at the point of need and funded by taxes. Should it be privatised and funded by the individual. Or should there be some compromise solution?

My worry is that the second of those choices - privatisation - is being imposed on us with no one ever having voted one way or the other. A privatised health service is, in no way, a National Health Service.

Recently I had a severe allergic reaction around my eyes where my skin blistered and got infected. I tried twice by phone to get an appointment with my GP and then went to surgery to try and get a GP to see me. All I was told was to wait a week for an appointment or go to A&E, apart from the A&E not being the place for this sort of thing our local hospital was having 8-10 hour waits.
On advise of someone who had done it I saw a Doctor privately within 30 minutes of a telephone call. The Doctor was excellent but not only having to pay to see the Doctor I had to pay £50 for my prescription.
I am horrified about the situation and so was my local pharmacist who advised me to speak to my MP who was a pharmacist and now volunteers at the hospital supporting the cancer treatment pharmacists. I think she is campaigning to give pharmacists greater powers in prescribing.

I don't think using private hospitals is a new thing.

My Dad had a prostate operation, in a private hospital, paid for by the NHS, in 2009. They had some sort of pledge that if you hadn't been admitted to an NHS hospital within x weeks, you were sent to a private one.

That was when Labour were in power, so it must have been going on a while.

A neighbour had a new hip put in this way last year, in a local private hospital, via the NHS - she thought it was great. She had a private en suite room and was really well looked after.🙂

Calendargirl You can buy quarterly and annual 'season tickets'

£30.25 for 3 months, £108.10 for 1 year

having checkedon all those who are entitled to free prescriptions. A list to long to include in this post, but it can found if you look at this link commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-casework-nhs-prescription-charges-in-england/ I would conclude that there are very few people who could not afford to pay this money up front, especially as, for some, it will be less that they are already paying for their monthly scrip.

Thank you for the link Casdon very informative. I agree with maddyone also the NHS I believe will remain free at the point of care.
As for prescription charges my husband has a few on regular repeat he used to have a yearly payment to cover this he was amazed when he reached 60 he no longer had to pay. He was still 6 years from pension age and his financial position had not changed.

As Calendergirl writes, in the late seventies prescription items were 20p per item. I was working in a chemist, earning just under £20 for a 40hour week.
But as someone who had huge difficulty getting antibiotics in the last week, encountering very rude pharmacists and unhelpful attitudes, all I can say is, as prices have risen, standards and willingness to help have dropped.

Casdon Thank you for your link, which is an antidote to much of the hysteria about us having an American style health service in the UK.

My conclusion from reading it, is that the GP service should be full incorporated into the NHS and GP's should be salaried, but little change from that.

Most people's contact with the NHS is through their GP, and the current system of private GP practices organisng their practice, is the reason for the very variable GP service we have at present. I am fortunate to belong to a well run practice where access to a GP, or at least someone, is relatively easy, but I have friends with serious health problems, who find access to their GP almost impossible.

Using the private hospitals for peak-shaving seems to be eminintly sensible. I had carpal tunnel surgery done that way. I was sent a list of every NHS facility in the county that could treat me with the waiting time, all well over 1 year, at the bottom of the list was an out of area private hospital, 20 miles away, with a 1 month wait. I opted for that and was treated within three months. It was NHS treatment and many of the NHS facilities within county were far further from home and more difficult to reach.

Back to prescription charges.

I know they are expensive, but a high proportion of people get them dispensed free- pensioners, those on certain benefits, children, expectant mothers…..(think I’m correct on those examples).

Just know that a friend who was a dispenser said that a high proportion of prescriptions were ‘free’. And I think if you have multiple prescriptions, you can get an annual discount, assuming of course you can afford to pay upfront,

My DD, who lives in Australia, has always had to pay for all her prescriptions, even for the children.

Good point Calendargirl. 😊
However it illustrates how once a ‘small charge’ is introduced it never goes away.

Thank you Casdon for the link which I’ve just read. The last paragraph was reassuring:

Verdict
There is no evidence of widespread privatisation of NHS services. The proportion of the NHS budget spent on services delivered by the private sector has remained broadly stable over the past decade.

Urmstongran

I remember working for a GP surgery when a prescription charge was first introduced. It was 20 pence. Now? Over £9 per item. The way to boil a frog is to put it on a very low heat at first ...

But this was over 50 years ago, if I’m not mistaken.

What were wages back then?

The problems of the NHS are entirely due to Tory underfunding for the past 12 years as explained by Fiona Bruce's graph on Question Time: that and their general incompetence. What happened to the Brexit bus money? How much longer do we have to put up with them?

Where did you get your information from DaisyAnne?
Are you talking about England or the whole of the UK?
The Kings Fund did some fact finding, and their conclusions are enclosed, which are different.
www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/health-and-social-care-england-myths

I am as entitled to say what I think as you are DaisyAnne. Please do not write to me in a patronising and rude manner. My opinion is valid, as is yours, because that’s what they are, opinions!

I remember working for a GP surgery when a prescription charge was first introduced. It was 20 pence. Now? Over £9 per item. The way to boil a frog is to put it on a very low heat at first ...

maddyone

I don’t think that we’ll be asked to make a contribution towards NHS care at any hospital. The NHS will remain free at the point of need, but there will be long queues for non urgent treatment.

Your opinion would be sufficient if this were a chat thread maddyone. It isn't. It is a News and Politics thread. Perhaps you could expand on why you don't think we will be asked to make a contribution.

Sajid Javid, a former Health and Social Care Secretary of State in the Conservative government, has called for patients to pay for visits to the GP and A & E. That means care will not be free at the point of need.

We then have Nadhim Zahawi. A man who only appears to want to pay his tax when his position of power is at risk. This group of the hugely rich but reluctant to pay tax are running the country. Why would they help to fund a health service that will underpin those who otherwise would not be able to afford the standard of health care we currently expect? It is simply not their nature.

Then there is Hunt. The man who wanted the NHS on the table when discussing a trade agreement with the United States. I am sure others can highlight more pointers to the direction of travel this government has taken and is taking.

Shut your eyes and whistle if that makes you feel better maddyone but do not tell me what you think when there is a huge amount of evidence to the contrary. Do tell me what supports your thinking and make me feel better about the future too.

Luckygirl, as a retired GP didn't your father have a home to sell to fund his care? A pension? I assume not as you had to sell your home to do it. I would like to pass on my life's work to my family but know in reality if I live a long time and have complex health issues, my home will be sold to fund it. The thought of leaving some one I love or indeed anyone in the rooms you saw is disgusting. What about those with no family or don't see them or just live week to week on a basic pension they have no choice, that's what the NHS is about, the way things are going it will the workhouse making a comeback..
The pictures on the news showing elderly people huddled by an unlit fire place, in these sub zero temperatures that's not a civilised society. Those without family backup to help with forms or know what they are entitled to just fall through the net. We shouldn't be giving free health care to those not resident here. It's a lovely idea but totally unworkable . Who is in that windowless dark room now ,cut off from everyone, that's a cause of shame on us all. So yes, the NHS is not now health care for all when people towards the the last stage of life are treated so badly. Everyone I know who has had operations, were funded on NHS but were done in a private hospital. It beggars belief.

I don’t think that we’ll be asked to make a contribution towards NHS care at any hospital. The NHS will remain free at the point of need, but there will be long queues for non urgent treatment.

What happens here is that you pay for private health and then when you go to hospital there is still a stonking great bill to pay. What they call, 'the gap'. You just can't win. I would fight tooth and nail to keep the NHS if I were you! Admittedly you jump queues and you get slightly better accommodation and meals but not much else.

Boing

Lots of private companies operate within the nhs - services are put out to tender and the private companies bid for them, they employ their own staff as part of the service level agreement, they pay their own staff costs - saves the nhs a fortune. You may work for the nhs but you're paid by someone else. Lots of nhs staff have left through various mergers, some made redundant, others forced out by bullying managers whose job it is to make people's lives a misery until they can't take anymore. Then these managers get their pension and walk away laughing. That's why they've no staff left.

I'm not sure you are right that it "saves the NHS a fortune", but I am not arguing against some use of private companies if it is done efficiently. I'm not sure it is efficient when you look at the cost of outside nurses and doctors. Also, we saw the waste during Covid which doesn't give me confidence either. Perhaps you could give examples of the savings made?

My question is, are you prepared for the NHS to become a health service that is not "free at the point of need" but is run on the American style? As long ago as David Cameron, the Conservatives were looking into this. They have been working on making us receptive to it ever since.

Kate1949

My husband had his radiotherapy for his cancer done at a private hospital paid for by the NHS. His consultant said it was because the NHS hospitals were overrun with patients.

Same question as I put to MarathonRunner How happy would you be to accept if it meant you had to contribute?

They are saying they are doing this to move the backlog from Covid. By the time the backlog is removed, how many more doctors, nurses and ambulance paramedics will have left. Then you will be told we cannot afford the "free at the point of need" treatment your husband has just received.

Can you pay insurance to cover all possibilities? It will be very high when companies - who need to make a profit - take account of our ages and previous illnesses.

Lots of private companies operate within the nhs - services are put out to tender and the private companies bid for them, they employ their own staff as part of the service level agreement, they pay their own staff costs - saves the nhs a fortune. You may work for the nhs but you're paid by someone else. Lots of nhs staff have left through various mergers, some made redundant, others forced out by bullying managers whose job it is to make people's lives a misery until they can't take anymore. Then these managers get their pension and walk away laughing. That's why they've no staff left.

MarathonRunner

I had a minor procedure done , day surgery
GP referred me to a consultant at a Private Hospital and I had the surgery a few weeks later , paid for by NHS . I'm not too sure why but I was more than happy to accept

How happy would you be to accept if it meant you had to contribute?

My husband had his radiotherapy for his cancer done at a private hospital paid for by the NHS. His consultant said it was because the NHS hospitals were overrun with patients.

I had a minor procedure done , day surgery
GP referred me to a consultant at a Private Hospital and I had the surgery a few weeks later , paid for by NHS . I'm not too sure why but I was more than happy to accept