Nhs bill and forthcoming privatisation of nhs

[cloud1240]

I was wondering how everyone is feeling about the nhs bill and the con-libs with the startings of nhs privatisation of nhs. Both me and my wife have long term medical conditions including type 1 and by 2016 we could all be paying for treatment/ medication.

How's everyone feel about this? We've got friends in US who have type 1 and they have to decide which meds to get and which they can go without that month because they can't afford all of them. We could be heading to this situation in next 5/10 yrs if bill passes

What does everyone else think?

 

[Glados]

I am absolutely disgusted with this Govt and their actions. I've always hated the Tories but I have a special new level of contempt for the Lib Dems. I hope the NHS survives.

 

[lucylocket61]

I dont think I am allowed to type the words I want to use on this subject.

 

[Riri]

Language - me neither!! Let's hope it will be the start of the end for this bunch. In the meantime we have also to to hope that people (and more specifically doctor and nurse power) will stop this ludicrous Nhs bill from going through. I genuinely haven't met anyone one who supports it and doesn't think it's the start of the end of the NHS.
Let's hope everyone in his country wakes up and smells the coffee very soon before it's too late - very worrying.

 

[xyzzy]

I loathe all politicians they are the lowest form of life not like the old days when no matter what party they were in they seemed to have some integrity. I especially despise the fact that they still claim they can do anything of note when in reality nothing much really changes whoever is in power because we live in a global economy. Its all a lie.

What is important to me is that the NHS is free and just as important that it functions efficiently. I really can't see that it does either at the moment. Since it killed (and admitted it did) my father back in the 1990's on every critical situation it has screwed my family over. It physically abused my dying mother last year, it failed to prescribe my daughter a simple drug that could have stopped her miscarrying my grandchild, it killed my mother-in-law by failing to give radio therapy to BOTH her tumours - oops, it's made my sons Type 1 diabetes a nightmare, it drove my aunt to stop eating and kill herself within 6 weeks of her being put in its care and finally it gave me T2D because it couldn't be ***** to send me a letter.

Oh and its not free is it cos I have to buy my own test strips and its forcing me to find alternative drugs because it wont prescribe me "real" ones until I try and kill myself.

So lets not get too luvy duvy with the current set up shall we.

 

[Riri]

Certainly not too luvy duvy but genuinely concerned that all treatment will be scrutinised on the basis of cost not on the basis of the patients needs (This happens now as well I know) but a lot lot worse than that even if a drug is passed by NICE you will only get if t you can afford to pay for it - scandalous and wrong. The administration and beaurocracy currently at work in the NHS may be totally screwed but by god the ethos and ideas behind it are just as brilliant as they were all those years ago when it was created. Free treatment for all regardless of class and status.

 

[xyzzy]

Certainly not too luvy duvy but genuinely concerned that all treatment will be scrutinised on the basis of cost not on the basis of the patients needs (This happens now as well I know) but a lot lot worse than that even if a drug is passed by NICE you will only get if t you can afford to pay for it - scandalous and wrong. The administration and beaurocracy currently at work in the NHS may be totally screwed but by god the ethos and ideas behind it are just as brilliant as they were all those years ago when it was created. Free treatment for all regardless of class and status.

Like I said Riri I agree 100% with the principles of "Free treatment for all regardless of class and status" but I don't see why I can't have those AND have a system that is both accountable for its actions, uses our money efficiently and isn't horrendously administration and bureaucratically top heavy. I have great mistrust of all sections of our society (be they in the public or private sector) who just claim the status quo should remain as it is because of political dogma or other similar reasons.

I am no where near experienced enough to judge if the new proposals are a good or bad thing but I have yet to hear in any of the reports I've heard that there is any proposal to the effect that " if a drug is passed by NICE you will only get if you can afford to pay for it " Where is the proposed legislation does it say that? If it does I will be as appalled as you. At the moment with say test strips that's exactly what's happening under the current system as NICE says I should get them, I don't get them and therefore can only get them because I can afford to pay for them so in that regard the current system is the culprit and needs to be changed.

 

[cloud1240]

You get an idea of where we going by the fact that providers will be judged suitable by there financial status and have very little to do with clinical outcomes. There finiacial status will be judged by the same credit agencies that failed so spectacularily with the banks. You think the nhs is bad now. The US healthcare companies are circling around the Nhs and Europe because they are not making much money in the States. Remember their only interested in profits not outcomes. Big pharma is doing the same. They hate NICE as it stops them screwing either healthcare providers or patients. Although they still muscle in with funding campaigns for restricted drugs often which are just the same as cheaper alternatives just tweaked slightly so they can charge what they want.

The NHS is patchy and needs reform but not top down which is what is happening with this bill.

 

[Jolo]

#~***%$£?/@x :thumbdown: :evil: :cry: :think: :crazy: :thumbdown: :evil:
How DARE they. I wish I could download some sense into their over-policianized brains. But dont get me started or this Post wont be fit to read!!

 

[xyzzy]

I wish I could download some sense into their over-policianized brains.

You are kind of making my point Jolo. Perhaps if the NHS were free of political dogma from ALL sides it might just run itself a lot better. All that happens at the moment is every time we have a new set of politicians the NHS gets changed because of dogma and not what's actually required.

If the NHS were independent of politics it could just concentrate on just becoming an effective and efficient service. At the moment it doesn't do that because its always in conflict with its political masters regardless of what government is in power and wastes its resources fighting political battles rather than doing what it should which is to care for those in need.

Hence my outright contempt of all politicians and people within the NHS who won't consider real change but only change based on political dogmatic based approaches whatever "wing" of politics it comes from. Those dogmatic approaches have had lethal consequences to people in my family.

I do not see why having a health service that provides "Free treatment for all regardless of class and status" and having it independent of the state need to be mutually exclusive things. If being independent of the state and more especially politicians and those with dogmatic political views within the NHS is such a bad thing why do people who can afford to go private do so? They do it because they think rightly or wrongly that the care they will receive will be far better. My sister-in-law who works for the NHS tells me "go private if you can afford to" which btw I can't. That's really confidence inspiring isn't it. It's like someone who works for a company saying "buy from our competitor because we're ****".

The same logic applies to people who send their children to private schools if they can afford to which again I couldn't. They think its better than what the state provides.

 

[Jolo]

Is there actually anything at all we can do to stop it from happening (other than group together and bash their heads) :lolno:
Because there's plenty of us here with the same opinion - cant we group together and save ourselves for the future (there's no way i could ever afford to go private and why should we, we pay our tax, dont we!)???

 

[Dillinger]

The problem with this is that it's very difficult to get a clear idea of what is being done.

One of the core things about the Bill is that it "intends to make general practitioners the direct overseers of NHS funds, rather than having those funds channelled through neighbourhood- and region-based Primary Care Trusts, as is currently done". Isn't that a good thing? Might that mean rather than all the Type 2's being told you can't have prescribed blood testing meters then because the PCT says no the GP could give them to you based on your own circumstances?

The link on wikipedia seems to be the clearest I can find after a bit of digging around; it certainly doesn't sound like a privatisation of the NHS to me. It seems that the result will be complex in terms of the various bodies involved and who oversees them (and that is never a good thing) but looks like the intent is to move 'purchasing power' closer to the GPs.

Why are the GPs so opposed to it? Could it be a negotiating strategy for them in terms of their remuneration; as they will in effect be doing more work? I don't know. Are the other bodies opposed to it because it moves power/influence away from them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_and ... _Bill_2011

Does anyone have a clear list of the Bills proposals? I suppose we could read the bloody thing, but I don't have the time at the moment... :crazy:

Dillinger

 

[al_leister]

Even Labour introduced measures to include the private sector in schools and hospitals when they were in “power”
It’s all about mates on yachts and mixing with the great and greedy.
The aim of neglecting schools, hospitals, waiting lists etc is a deliberate conscious decision to nudge the population towards the private sector.
Can’t wait for the hip replacement? Go get a loan!!! And where do you get the loan?
FROM THE *ANKERS.

The lie of course is that private is more efficient and much better at the job.

Private railways handed back to the people/government…….wrecked and in debt

Private nursing homes handed back to the people/government…wrecked and in debt

Banks handed to the people/government….wrecked and in debt

Banks not handed to the people/government but because of recklessness and debt we the people/government handed them trillions.

To pay for the bloody mess the people/government must cut libraries, nursery places, police officers, teachers, nurses, social security, christ I could go on and on.

USA style living & dying coming to a town near you!

 

[catherinecherub]

There was a precis in the Daily Fail. This article wasn't too bad considering their usual standards and seems to explain the main points in layman's terms. The actual reforms are pages and pages of recommendations, some need an interpreter to assist with the explanation.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... -know.html

 

[noblehead]

Might that mean rather than all the Type 2's being told you can't have prescribed blood testing meters then because the PCT says no the GP could give them to you based on your own circumstances?

They Might do but I can't see it somehow. Last year a doctor in my gp practise tried to restrict the amount of bg strips he would prescribe, said that I only needed to test 4 times a day and not 6-8 times as I would normally do, after explaining that I needed to test pre-meal as per DAFNE, post-meal if exercising, before and during driving and last thing at night before sleeping.... this all fell on deaf ears. Rather than sit there arguing I later spoke with my hospital consultant who agreed with my need to test and wrote a letter to my practise to say as much.

So obviously the hospital consultants presently have the authority to over-ride decisions made by gp's, had this not been the case then I would be restricted to how many times I could test each day which would impact on my employment and everyday life.

 

[Dillinger]

There was a precis in the Daily Fail.

Thanks Catherine - that's actually about the clearest description I've seen, even if it did leave me feeling a bit queezy at being on the Daily Mail web site... :shock:

Nigel - I guess that there is a risk that that sort of thing would continue in any system where people are being told to be accountable for the costs of prescribing, even though that decision is so obviously wrong. I would hope that the consultants would continue to out rank the GPs though? I wonder what will happen to the 'payments' GPs receive for having (target hitting) diabetics on their books?

Best

Dillinger

 

[al_leister]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... s-kitemark



OECD figures show that healthcare in the US costs $7,500 per person per year. The OECD average is $4,500. In the UK it costs $3,500. Yet while the US system is plagued with fraud and lawyers, while it overtreats the rich and dumps the poor in the street, the NHS came out top of the countries surveyed in the journal Health Affairs on most measures of public confidence and public access. (The US came bottom.) As Major did with the railways, Cameron wants to take a functioning system and smash it into chaotic fragments.

Why have successive governments insisted on policies that are likely to raise costs and reduce standards? In February Will Hutton wrote an interesting column in the Observer, in which he argued that the postwar economic boom was propelled by the inventions of the first half of the 20th century. Over the past 20 years, however, productivity growth has been driven less by innovation than by laying people off, outsourcing, reducing terms and conditions, paying less tax. A parasitic corporate sector has been developing, sucking wealth from the common treasury.

There was one element he left out. The richest opportunities for capital exist within that part of the economy controlled by the state. Here, because the government cannot allow services to fail, the risks are low and the gains, for early movers, can be astronomical. An army of lobbyists, assisted by the corporate media, has been demanding ever greater access. Blair discovered that as long as you conceal your plans, you can give the CBI, Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere what they want and get away with it. If you show your hand, as Cameron has done, you blow it.

:***:

 

[Helenababe]

Well, I've believed for a long time now that the NHS will be privatized, and of course it will be the Thatcherite tories who will do it.
I can easily see us all having to take out medical insurance, which of course will be high, infact I can see the Government making it compulsary! :evil:

Worried at the thought of the doctors holding the purse strings.
Helena

 

[noblehead]

Nigel - I guess that there is a risk that that sort of thing would continue in any system where people are being told to be accountable for the costs of prescribing, even though that decision is so obviously wrong. I would hope that the consultants would continue to out rank the GPs though? I wonder what will happen to the 'payments' GPs receive for having (target hitting) diabetics on their books?

I really don't think the target payments for diabetics will be an issue when they take control of the NHS budget, from what I was reading their salaries will increase substantially from the current £100k.

My fear is that when they do take control of the NHS budget..... will the best interests of the patients be put first? After all they will be paying for the drugs, diagnostic testing, treatment and admission to and during hospital stays, will we see more people being turned away when asking for blood tests for suspected illnesses/conditions and deficiencies?

Time will tell I suppose as the reforms do look set to go-ahead despite opposition from everyone concerned with the nhs and the general public.

 

[xyzzy]

OECD figures show that healthcare in the US costs $7,500 per person per year. The OECD average is $4,500. In the UK it costs...

Yeah, yeah. If the private sector is so bad (that's also people like me who work **** hard and run small business') why don't you just stop using it and put your words into actions. Close your bank account, don't buy that new whatever product, grow your own food rather than use the supermarket, walk everywhere or go live in some commune or communist paradise.

It's exactly this kind of irrational political dogma that causes so much grief in the world whether its you and your anti capitalist clap trap or the right with their xenophobia and other bulls**t views. What the average person wants is just a health service that works and while its pulled pillar to post between opposing political **** it's never going to happen.