The Covid19 thread

[DJ123]

Originally Posted by Bibio

either way something will have to happen but no matter what is decided you can bet that the public will blame the gov....

Yes, why shouldn't the people in charge of those decisions get the blame for not investing in public services with public tax money. . . . . .
i'm pretty sure there's no public vote about where they spend our tax money, otherwise things would be a lot different,.

[Seeker]

Conservative philosophy is that government should be kept to a minimum so the concept of a nationalised health system is an anathema to them. We have got so used to our welfare safety net that personal health responsibility has slipped. We eat too much junk food making us obese but is that it because it tastes good or it's just cheaper than eating healthily and many people can no longer afford healthy food? Whatever the cause it's making us less healthy and costing us all.

[svenrico]

Well they have been talking about preventative medicine for a while now to encourage us to lead a healthier lifestyle but doctors can't force people in these things. The problem with private companies/contracts/services being involved in the NHS is they have to make a profit. Things in the NHS need to be non profit making as much as possible.

[ethariel]

Over 1,000,000 people work in the NHS and what, 35-40% actually are involved in patient care?

The rest are office staff, FM and management.

Cutting FM is a really bad move, to be honest most FM departments are run right on the line between keeping everything working just hitting statutory maintenance and falling down a deep deep hole.

Cut all the back end admin/management staff, consolidate departments country wide doing the same job into 'Super Department's' - Not a hope, the Unions will kill people for months making that one go to bed with endless strikes etc.

Moving to a 'Privatised' NHS to me is abhorrent BUT in all reality it's the only way forward, for too many years the way politicians have looked after the NHS is simply to keep tossing money at it, but hell it's not even a dead horse any more it's a bottomless pit.

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by ethariel

Moving to a 'Privatised' NHS to me is abhorrent BUT in all reality it's the only way forward.

Originally Posted by svenrico

The problem with private companies/contracts/services being involved in the NHS is they have to make a profit.

cause and effect. Sick people are a drain on profits.

What happens in privatised health care is that the for-profit hospitals realise that they can charge what they like and the insurance companies will pay. The insurance companies start to realise this and increase premiums, those people with insurance provided through their work find that they have to pay much more for their part of the coverage. Many opt to forego health insurance altogether and pray they don't get sick.

Then there is prescription drugs - depending which insurance carrier you have will determine which drugs will be paid for.

Get sick, go bankrupt:

https://nypost.com/2017/01/12/majori...inancial-ruin/

On the other hand, in California there was a scandal because a hospital was putting sick people into taxis and dumping in them in another city to avoid affecting their bottom line.

Here; This needs to stop: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59924352 The story is about Wales but it afflicts the whole of the UK.

25% of 999 calls are frivolous.

There are between 350 and 450 million GP visits per year, if each visit cost £10 it would raise £3.5-£4.5 billion.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/reports...0-to-see-a-gp/

[Bibio]

privatised NHS = dead people in the streets. out parents/grandparents fought a war then voted in a government to bring free healthcare to the masses. for this pleasure we paid a small premium out our wages. simple solution to keep the NHS running is up the NI contributions and ring fence it and ban private health care so everyone is forced to use the NHS including the rich.

[svenrico]

Originally Posted by ethariel

Moving to a 'Privatised' NHS to me is abhorrent BUT in all reality it's the only way forward, for too many years the way politicians have looked after the NHS is simply to keep tossing money at it, but hell it's not even a dead horse any more it's a bottomless pit.

Privatisation isn't the only way forward, the way forward is to make sure the NHS is managed properly like any organisation should be.

[Ruffy]

I don't think full privatisation is the way forward. The problem with that is many health services are reactive/emergency and so there isn't time to 'shop around'. E.g. if one of us is badly hurt as a result of a bike accident, how do we know we're getting the service we want (the preferred blend of cost/quality from the ambuance pickup and subsequent hospital care, for example)? A distressed buyer is always ripe for being taken advantage of, it's not a true/fair market.

However, I'm not against people being able to pay more by way of insurance to get enhancements in care or extra financial compensation. Nor do I mind the NHS buying-in private resources from time to time to 'peak lop' - that's prudent business sense to control the possible wasted overhead that comes from having to gear up against uncertain, variable demand.

I agree that just throwing more money at it is not the right answer either (although we do need to include some consideration of injecting new funding for new/better treatments that might be necessary as health science improves, as well as just dealing with general population growth and demographic effects).

From my experiences dealing with the NHS, there does seem to be a lot of organisational/management inefficiency in the system. I'm be very surprised if there isn't 'middle management' that can be simplified, or duplication across Trusts/regions that couldn't be rationalised.

Perhaps instead of charging people for appointments (which would in some cases discourage those who do need help from seeking it), there should be a nominal penalty charge levied if you book something and simply don't show up (which I'm told happens quite a lot). I.e. turn up and it's free, mess the system about and it's not. I'm told parts of the Australian Medicare system use this approach. It could reduce waste and bring in some revenue.

[redtrummy]

I seem to remember reading that per capita our costs were some of the lowest in the civilised world. Americas equivalent was astronomically higher. (That did not take into account those who could not afford treatment anyway) Private medical care if full flow.

[embee]

Originally Posted by ethariel

Over 1,000,000 people work in the NHS and what, 35-40% actually are involved in patient care?

According to https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-info...s/january-2021
it's (copied and pasted) 1,327,892 Headcount in January 2021 and Professionally qualified clinical staff make up over half (53.0%) of the HCHS workforce (624,572 FTE) in January 2021.
(This group includes all HCHS doctors, qualified nurses and health visitors, midwives, qualified scientific, therapeutic and technical staff and qualified ambulance staff.)

I don't know whether that's good, bad or indifferent, presumably the remainder includes management, maintenance, service departments, porters etc.