This is the start of an Insurance Based Healthcare System, isnāt itā¦
Thatcher was the start - itās been a long, slow rot ever sinceā¦
Nope. It started long ago, and many working class people have realised that BUPA, HSF, (for us The Transport Benevolence Fund), and many others, not only offer refunds for optical and dental care, but also for hospital or medical claims.
This has been the sharp end of the wedgeā¦āgive āem summat, and theyāll want moreā.
Itās now itās only a small increase in monthly premiums to cover Emergency, and post-op care.
Itās already here !
Shit; didnāt realise that. Would be interested to see who (in āgovernmentā) has fingers in the various pies mentioned aboveā¦
I was talking to a chap the other week whose wife needed a fairly straightforward procedure and because of the waiting list the NHS sent her to a local private hospital.
They went in to a lovely reception with carpets and flowers. The first thing they were asked was how they were going to pay. Once that got sorted out she was booked in and got ready for the Op.
Complications set in and they called an ambulance and sent her back to the NHS.
They couldnāt get rid of her fast enough.
Appreciate that the money they were being paid probably only covered the basics but it illustrated that all the private sector want is relatively easy profitable work.
They will never take on open ended complicated cases unless you have cast iron funding.
Once all the easy profit stuff has been creamed off the NHS will be hollowed out and expected to deal with the most complicated cases with the least resources.
ā¦ would be interested who isnāt.
And maybe, in anything like their present form, not even then. We looked briefly at using private healthcare for Claireās treatment to a much greater extent than we have (so far weāve had a very few private consultations with individual consultants to try to get a better grip on very specific problems). Getting lung oncologists to liase with surgeons, emergency doctors, pancreas specialists, radiologists (of just about every sub-specialty), endocrinologists, gastro-enterologists, endoscopists, several flavours of specialist nurses, ward managers and our GP has been enough of a nightmare (and still only partially successful) within the NHS, where theyāre all supposed to be part of the same organisation. Getting that to happen where most of them are freelancers would require paying a specialist co-ordinator too.
I would do anything to get out of the situation I am in. Iāve never considered going private because the NHS has been brilliant and also I donāt need the additional layer of complexity going private brings. Iām managing radiologists, oncologists and surgeons now. Iām pretty satisfied with the NHS. Anything else makes the process exponentially more complex. I do hope you can achieve a positive outcome without wallowing in loads of extra stress.
Not wishing to ātalk downā the NHS, but all doctors are freelancers. ALL surgeons and consultants, likewise.
Many work within the NHS and ALL work in the Private sector.
Thanks Ćlan.
I really have no liking for private healthcare either. Having been kept alive by it, in the face of certain death, since the age of 18 or so I appreciate it more than I can say. Since Claireās fallen ill weāve had instance after instance of care which would be the envy of pretty much the whole world. Quite a bit of it has used kit and techniques which are close to the leading edge. Iām convinced that that would have been next to impossible outside the NHS and we ditched the idea of trying it after just a few minutesā consideration.
That said, we can see the effects of the strain that financial pressures and the challenges of an ageing population (us included, letās be frank) are applying to the NHS. Given how slim her chances were to begin with, I worry that those effects are going to make the difference between the better outcome weāre hoping for and the worse one we fear.
So it seems, but the NHS hospital provides an organisational and management framework within which co-ordinated activity looks hugely more likely to happen.
Again, I HATE the prospect of Private Healthcare, but private providers have a financial incentive in providing āgood serviceā.
Iām not convince that the NHS can provide that same level given the Tory (lack of) investment over the last 13 years.
Not the NHSās fault but Tory dogma.
Not strictly true and there are some specialties where there is greater opportunity for private work and some where there is very little.
But I understand I think the broad sweep of what youāre portraying.
Both my granny and grandad had private healthcare for life based off of my grandads job at Barclays.
They had cataracts done, knees, hips, etc. really lucky and received a great level of care and post operation support compared to my grandparents on my fathers side who did not have private health care.
If I could afford it I would go for it, but itās completely wrong. If the NHS had the funding it should, private should just mean getting your own room and better food, not better care.
Their primary incentive is to make money. If providing good service in a very complex case will make less money than limiting themselves only to the simpler cases then they will limit themselves only to the simpler cases. In my very limited but very recent and very pointed experience, that is what they are currently doing.
In some medical situations there is a level of pain which is genuinely intolerable. The debate about private or NHS evaporates at this point. The only question in such a situation is who can do it first. During lockdown my mothers spine deteriorated (x3 disks) I have never seen anyone in pain like that. NHS did the scans and said,āitās wear and tear, we canāt operateā. She went private for a triple fusion and was walking in x3 weeks. The question of going bankrupt to get her out of that pain, wasnāt even a question.
To wilfully overlook your actual point in favour of the NHS guyās stance, spinal surgery - even fairly basic orthopaedic stuff like this - is high risk: of unwanted side-effects, of failure to achieve the desired outcome, and of exacerbating the very issue youāre trying to alleviate. Even in the substantially less risk-averse 1980s, vertebral fusions were fairly uncommon in both the ortho theatres I worked in. Very glad to hear it worked-out for your mum.
The NHS is fucked and has been progressively destroyed for the last 10-15 years. I donāt see how, even with buckets of money being poured in, it can be fixed or restored within the next 5 years.
Theyāve created a situation where the only avenue is private sector services to clear the backlog.
The battle or fight will now be to ensure that with the inevitable introduction of more private companies they donāt create a two tier health system for the unemployed benefit scum and the rest.
Conversely (and Iām not arguing with your point, just making a counter example) when I had some medical issues I was given an appointment with a consultant one calendar month hence. I went private to get a more immediate diagnosis, within hours, and volunteered to pay to get it put right. The private guy I saw basically said āno, it will bankrupt you, I will refer you to my very good colleague on the NHSā.
As it was, the wheels really fell off, I was in hospital for a very long time and it really would have bankrupted me. I later paid for some surgery and a week in hospital and that was quite 
enough thank you.
The difference I guess was that I was merely in discomfort (with accompanying permanent nausea because something was pulling in the wrong direction - donāt hurl over the trade-fix team! 
) rather than pain. It was a 9 month wait for surgery whereas I could have been in the for the chop within days privately.
Also depends on the GP surgery, mine refuses to spend money.
When I had a horrible distortion in my hearing I went to see my GP (waited 3 weeks for an appt) who said that he would have to refer me to a specialist and that the current waiting time is 6-9 months. I asked about paying for it myself and he couldnāt type and print the referral quick enough
Within two weeks Iād had an appt with a consultant, hearing test, MRI and then CT scan. The bill for all of that came to around Ā£1100