Wake Up And Smell The Coffee.

[Sqad]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2661935/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Our-Health-Service-needs-major-surgery.html

But how much longer can we stick to the monolithic Socialist blueprint on which the NHS was founded, when life expectancy was 10 years shorter?
The time has surely come to stop treating the 1940s model as a sacred cow, and to launch a mature debate on radical reform of the way the NHS is structured and financed.

I believe the debate should include an examination of successful healthcare systems overseas, which mix private insurance with public funding.

As Margaret Thatcher put it so succinctly: ‘The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.’

But will this happen?.........not a chance.

[ToraToraTora]

Well I'm the last to push back on the principles of the great lady herself but I fear that in health care most of the world is uncivilised. If we can get universal health care without all the concatenated wranglings of finance, insurance and the whole sorry quigmire that is, for example, the US system, then I'm all ears. The NHS is far from perferct but to me the overriding principles of its foundation should remain. What do you suggest squad?

[Sqad]

TTT

\\\\\The NHS is far from perferct but to me the overriding principles of its foundation should remain.\\\

I agree, but from birth to grave, free healthcare is unaffordable for the reasons that i have given.

\\\What do you suggest squad?\\\

it would be revolutionary, would take time and the most important factor would be that any political party advocating my suggestions would be ineluctable.

Socialist medicine is "set in stone" in the UK and that is one of it's weakest points.

[ToraToraTora]

It just concerns me that in most of the world the overriding motivation is for payment rather than treatment. if an alien from the planet zog gets wiped out by a car in Britain they are taken to hospital and treated, no questions asked. That is the mark of civilised health care, in my experience there are very few countries where that is true. So are you actually advocating that health care for those that can a) Pay privately, b) Get insurance, c) afford the insurance, d) somehow evade the insurance "welch on paying" industry. ?

[ToraToraTora]

OK I have kidney failure, I need dialysis at £3k a week, I can't pay, the insurance paid a bit but now that's an exclusion. Do they let me die?

Watch the film "Sicko" by Michael Moore, real eye openner.

We should stick to the principles of the NHS and work to make it more efficient by using private sector ideas and practices.

[Sqad]

TTT

\\\\That is the mark of civilised health care, in my experience there are very few countries where that is true.\\\

That is the usual anti private medicine rhetoric........which is not true.
Healthcare has to be financed whatever the system.

\\\\ So are you actually advocating that health care for those that can a) Pay privately, b) Get insurance, c) afford the insurance, d) somehow evade the insurance "welch on paying" industry. ?\\\\

Nearly correct TTT

[jackthehat]

I can't help but think the getting the required fundamental changes in the NHS enacted will always fail....unless the Turkeys truly can be persuaded to vote for Christmas.

It needs root and branch, head to toe, top to bottom reform......areas of bloat need puncturing and areas of want need addressing properly.

The NHS needs to embrace the notion of operating 24 hours 7 days a week and make the most of new technologies - purchased at a sensible price and operated at maximum efficiency timewise.

[Sqad]

TTT.......the post of JTH above says it all with which I agree entirely.

[ToraToraTora]

I have visited many countries and fortunately medical care has never been necessary for me but when it has effectect those around me I have always been disgusted. Spain for example my sister, about to give birth, call an ambulance?? PMSL first prove you have insurance, then at the hospital, take her in and get on with it? Nope, first check insurance!

Portugal, bloke cuts toe badly on broken tile in pool, did they take him in and fix him up, Nope you gguessed it, he had to sit and bleed until his Mrs proivided the evidence it would be paid.

One word, Barbarians.

[ToraToraTora]

yes JTH is correct but we do not need to move away from the basic principle just make it efficient.

[Sqad]

TTT......please remind me........what IS the basic principle?

Healthcare funded from taxes?

[Quizmonster]

‘The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.’
Precisely what "other people's money" was the woman talking about? The only money any government - wherever and of whatever political hue - ever has is the money they accumulate via taxation. Accordingly, the money is OURS, the taxpayers' money, nobody else's!
As so often was the case, her words were little more than a meaningless soundbite.
In another thread yesterday, Sqad, I pointed out to you (again!) how the Tories "ran out of money" in 1964. Whose money was that, then? Did they have income-sources other than taxpayers or had they really been practising socialism all along?

[ToraToraTora]

The basic principle is that health care is given as it is needed, paid for by taxes along with everything else, we don;t seem to mind paying for the benfits bill do we? That is not to say that we cannot reform the process along the lines of JTHs comments above. I just don't want the model that most of the rest of the world has. Where cost is formost in their minds, where insurance companies exclude people based on some sort of no claims bonus in reverse system. Where some can't even get insurance and some can't afford it even if they could. What happens with long term conditions like dialysis etc, when the insurer won't pay?

[Sqad]

Quizmonster/TTT

That is exactly the system of Healthcare that you have and funded the way that you prefer it.

So, what is the problem?.....Perhaps there isn't one.

[jackthehat]

Working on the theory that " an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" (with a commensurate monetary saving), diagnostic 'clinics' should be put at the forefront of the NHS.
If MRI/CAT-scanners are available at night (for imaging Egyptian mummies, etc) why aren't they being used for real live people?

I'd be prepared to have an out-patient scan at 2am rather than wait 6/8 weeks for a day-time appointment.

[Quizmonster]

I didn't say there was a problem...you did!
In my view, the answer is in the decisions as to what precisely any government CHOOSES to spend their income ON. For example, what difference might it make to the "socialist" NHS if they were to discard Trident...and that's just one example.

[ToraToraTora]

sqad it's your post, how would you reform it? You haven't offered an alternative, you haven't addressed any of the points above. I agree it needs reform and it needs to be much more efficient but the founding principles should remain, I cannot be any clearer. So will you tell us what you are proposing????

[jackthehat]

Junking Trident and redirecting any savings won't solve the problem at the heart of the NHS......it's a juggernaut that is out of control.

Pouring additional £billions into it's ravening maw won't solve the problem; it'll simply create more opportunities for the money to disappear into inefficient departments and management strata.

[douglas9401]

If we can finance thieving spivs, sometimes known as bankers, from 'other people's money', surely we can look after the sick, frail and injured too.
There's something not very nice about having lived through the good years then denying those who come after the same opportunities.

[Sqad]

TTT....yes I will, but i will try and make a complicated system simple and to the point and forgive me if i miss out any points that you feel relevant.

1) The powers and importance of GP's must be reduced, their main function being, to provide 24 hour cover to their patients. 2006 a Labour government gave them an unexpected deal with the BMA which gave them more money for less work....madness.

2) Gp's should not be paid extra for extra work e'g maternity, blood tests and minor surgery.

3 )Gp's should not visit patients.......patients should visit GP.s Home visits do not represent value for money.

4) The 6 billion£s given to Gp.s by the Coalition government should have been given to the hospital services.

5) Gp's should all work in Polyclinics giving a 24 hour service.

and so on and so on.

[McMouse]

I remember back in the 50's hospital administration and management was carried out by a sort of 'civil servant' much like local government officials. The most senior of them drove modest family cars. When hospital trusts were created and became businesses these same people started driving bMW's etc. Reform of the NHS could start with a review of the six figure basic salaries and the huge pension entitlements of these people.