naomi - // AH, //I have - but what is your point? //
Good. Then you'll know you received the treatment you needed in clean and pleasant surroundings. There is no reason - apart from the absence of someone with the wherewithal to take the NHS by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking - that it cannot be run on a business principle with all savings being ploughed back into the system. //
I fail to see your point.
My stay in a private hospital was as an NHS patient, but I did get a view of how the 'other half' live.
If people want to run private hospitals for profit and private patients, then fine, let market forces rule and they can stand or fall accordingly.
But for the vast majority, private health care is an unavailable luxury, and I believe that a civilised society should be able to offer a decent standard of health care for its population.
I do take your point that the NHS needs to be shaken up - but I can only reiterate my point, based on experience of working from an organisation that shifted from being a government funded service to a private share-owned company -
If you make financial profit the motive, then everything becomes tunnel-visioned, with profit in mind. Managers think entirely of their own sub-empire, and how to save money - which is only ever done by reducing either provision, or staff, ideally both.
But in health care, the care bit is the motivation, not the money - you spend the money to get the care, you don't cut the care to save the money.