Save the NHS!
- Thread starter scorza
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I would agree. Please don't misunderstand me as someone screaming for a fully privitised NHS (it keeps standards at a certain level so the private healthcare I use has to aspire even higher
) but to keep it in such a wasteful state when introducing other companies into the tender process is in no way a bad thing. Except to the NHS and those with British healthcare provision monopolies who can overcharge for a sub standard or, at the most, acceptable level of service rather than competing to provide the best.
Soldato
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Not that i agree with your definition of 'the obvious', but can you blame him? Surely you can tell that more than half of this forum is right wing nutters that do your head in by stating the same old rhetoric and seem to have a god complex. Often the best thing to do is to ignore them.
The NHS isn't perfect, no. But it's a decent healthcare system that unlike so many others in the world is actually fair. If there's something you don't like about it then you should fix it (whatever happened to Convalescent Homes?), you should't scrap the whole *******' system in favour of something that would undoubtedly be worse or at the very best equally as bad - just like the rail service, or Lloyds bank, or BT.
I don't care about customer choice. I don't want choice, i want treatment. I'm not a customer of the NHS, when i need it i'm a patient.
But just because you don't care about it, why should the rest of us be prevented from having it?
Introducing patient level choice doesn't mean you can't just take the first option offered, it just means you aren't only offered one option...
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Is it not often choice for choice sake? How many people are actually able to make an educated choice about healthcare?
Soldato
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There is choice in the NHS. I trust my doctor to make the right one.
So keeping with the analogy make car ownership a human right.
That means the government will buy you a base spec kia picanto, ford ka, peugot 107, nissan micra etc.
You can choose the style and nature of the basic car you like and if you actually want air con, leather, sun roof - you pay a bit more on top.
The current system is more like you can be given a Trabant or buy another car entirely by yourself.
If you can't afford a car by yourself you get the Trabant, no negotiation, like it or lump it.
[TW]Fox;19956242 said:
About the procedures themselves? Not that many. About where they have the procedure and how that location chooses to treat and prioritise their non-medical needs, absolutely.
I suspect our experiences of the NHS differ in that regard...
That works in London but doesn't translate well to the rest of the country. Would you want to travel to Exeter for your healthcare if it required an Acute Hospital?
Soldato
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So you're saying you would rather have a system in which rich people are able to drive around in a Bugatti Type 57SC, and everybody else has to drive in a rusty old lancia death trap with no safety gear and a ticking bomb in the boot than a system where everybody gets an Astra Diesel but the rich can still pay the extra if they so wish?
The analogy really doesn't carry through to healthcare, but you know...
No I'm saying that's what we have now.
You are not guaranteed to get a good doctor just because you pay for it though.
[TW]Fox;19956306 said:
Well, such situations occur now, but ignoring that point, there are other factors apart from travelling distance to consider...
The problem is that the current setup does not encourage diversity of provision, so it's hard to know what Royal Devon & Exeter could offer that Derriford didn't that could mean it was a better location...
Of course not, but you can at least get meaningful change much more easily...
Not really - we pay a comparatively average/mediocre amount per person for the NHS, and we get an average health system in return.
All in all the NHS is very good value - if you want something better, then you (we) will need to pay more.
Except, of course, that we tripled NHS spending for no real improvement in clinical results, suggesting that just perhaps, money isn't the problem
No other country uses the same setup we do, for very good reasons.
I think the point is, we have a rather average health system, and spend an average amount on it. There's no real desire for change because it does the job.
Based on who is in charge and who has been in charge, we could just as easily have massive reforms and end up with something fundamentally worse in terms of end product.
What do you mean?
We could, the big problem is that the NHS (like most of the public sector) gets used as a political football. We should be focusing on what is best for patients, not what suits politically, which ironically means that we need to seperate the provision of care from the state in order to achieve that level of non-interference.
Soldato
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Average based on what? I believe the quoted figure earlier in the thread was 18th in the world? That's a world with over 180 countries. I'd say that's very definitely 'above average'.