From The Metro:
Nine out of 10 people fear NHS services will be cut as a result of the recession while some would be willing to pay more taxes, according to a poll. The survey of 1,071 people from across the UK found 89% also fear waiting times for treatment will increase. A total of 85% think there will be more charges for NHS treatments while 80% believe the health service should prioritise funding for the most important services.
The survey was released by the British Medical Association (BMA) on the eve of its annual conference in Liverpool. More than three-quarters (77%) of the public said cuts should be made in other government departments to protect NHS funding in the recession. Four out of 10 (40%) would also be willing to pay more taxes to protect the growth of NHS funding in the future...
Madness indeed. Even if we accept that the NHS should be the main provider (different topic), there is no need for a cut in its budget to translate into worse services - if you sacked all NHS staff who work in admin and paper-shuffling, you could cut the NHS budget by a quarter and no patient would notice a thing.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?
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18 comments:
I'd go further and say that if you 'sacked all NHS staff who work in admin and paper-shuffling', you would probably have a far better service.
I speak, alas, from bitter experience; see nos. 1-6 at my post of June 13th 10 ways the NHS is killing people
(Apologies for the hijack, but it's too long to put in here)
Very true. And in all honesty I can't remember the last time I received any useful treatment from the health service anyway - just questions about how much I smoke and drink. Even when I had to have a doctor make a house call I had the same thing and actually had to ask to be given treatment to last me until the local pharmacy opened the next day.
I was very underwhelmed by the whole thing, considering that it was the NHSFirst helpline that had advised me to call a doctor in the First place..
McH, good list, I put it up at National Death Service.
BTS, presumably when most patients reply to the question on how much they drink and smoke, they only 'fess up to about a third or their true consumption. I told my new GP that I smoke half an ounce of tobacco and drink six cans of lager a day and she nearly fell off her chair (she must have assumed that I smoke one-and-a-half ounces and drink eighteen cans of lager).
NHS budget, what 105Bn pa. 105bn / 60m = 1750 each PER YEAR.
Take ALL the money away from the NHS and give everyone a healthcare gold card which they can add to and to which the taxpayer puts in 1750 per annum. If you don't spend it it builds up until you need it. And as most people spend most of it in the last two years of their lives and average age at death is about 78 they'll have 133,000 plus growth, say tripling it, to 399,000.
Privatise ALL the health care infrastructure and away you go.
PLus this would stop all the vanity treatments and stomach stapling and five a day wankers dead in their tracks.
You know it makes sense.
L, sure, that's the next step, but let's do it in stages. If anything, let's do my suggestion first and then we can get the voucher down from £1,750 p.a. to £1,300 p.a..
MW - agreed. I was just doing the sums on the current madness.
MW - many thanks!
I'm sure many other families have had similar experiences of NHS incompetence and mismanagement; they go largely unreported as most victims are unable to speak out because of possible future legal action.
Which brings me neatly to another point - do we know how much is being paid out in compensation for these mistakes, to say nothing of the expensive long-term care needed when cancer has gone untreated for years?
In re 'health service' I should make clear that - mostly - I have had a very good experience. But there is nothing to say that I wouldn't have had an even better experience if it was all privatised.
Even though clinically I reckon mostly the NHS is OK-ish its concept of service is entirely lacking. Since it is operated and run on bureaucratic rationing system everytime you interact with it its staff look and sound like that they are doing you a favour. Chief among these are GP's receptionists who are universally the most surly churlish and condescending people on the planet.
I have number of health issues that I have had to manage since birth and I have had to develop considerable expertise with all sections of the NHS to get the best out of it. This comes in useful now that our parents are aging or dying.
I also buy certain private services, dentistry and race licence medicals and the attitude of the dentist and the GP are materially improved if I am paying them money.
The NHS - and education - suffer endemic producer capture and both are wildly overmannned. Liberating all of these people from the thrall of the state bureaucracy would transform their lives, increase their pay and massively improve the service culture. There would also be a massive head count reduction.
you could just cut the pay of all NHS employees by 15% and get the immediate saving. Given the current jobs market, very few would leave. It's what is happening in the private sector.
McH, it's probably not very much because it all gets brushed under the carpet.
L, yup, voucher-funding in European countries works fine, I don't see why it wouldn't work here.
MA, fair point, but let's get rid of the paper pushers and then scrap the taxpayer funded (and largely unaffordable) final salary pension promises before we worry about nominal salary levels.
The genius of the successful ideological defence of the NHS has been the remarkable achievement in portraying even the most basic standard of care provided as some sort of miracle which could not have happened if the NHS did not exist.
The argument has been succesfully defined as the NHS vs no healthcare at all.
I never use the NHS, but I know when I need it, it won't bankrupt me like in the USA.
You say we don't need admin, but when mistakes are made it is inevitably administrative mistakes - this suggests that we spend too LITTLE on admin in the NHS. Which when you compare it to private healthcare which spends TWICE what the NHS does on admin and management sort of makes sense.
A reminder of the NHS in 1987 when it was severely underfunded.
The trouble is that 99% of health care is personal so this "we spend" business is nonsense.
People must purchase their own health insurance as it's their bodies (and a citizens dividend would allow them to do so).
Remember if you're not a customer, your a cost, and costs get minimised.
Mark - I smoke about the same as you but my preferred tipple is a bottle of vodka and I refuse to lie about it - you should the reaction that I get..
Neil, may I refer you to Rob's comment?
You are implying that the only alternative to the NHS is a US-style system, which is simply not true - the European system - funded by the taxpayer but with vouchers and competing providers - has never bankrupted a patient either.
BTS, fainting fits presumably?
NH
"Which when you compare it to private healthcare which spends TWICE what the NHS does on admin and management"
Please give a reference for that factoid.
"...four out of 10 (40%) would also be willing to pay more taxes to protect the growth of NHS funding..."
Note, they are willing to pay more just to protect the funding.
Not the outcome, or anything, or to "protect the NHS", but just to protect the growth of the funding. Nothing has to change or get better, but you must protect the growth of the funding. More five-a-day co-ordinators, presumably, would be just fine. Or their secretaries, laptops, offices, and pensions? Fine, just fine. Just keep on growing the funding, never mind what you do with the money. Funding is all.
Well that's OK, then, isn't it - that is what they've been doing these last twelve years.
So now it really is the envy of the world? It must be, because we've spent all that money.
Erm...
Mark, followed by a quiet whimpering.
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