The NHS is gone ...

All private insurance in the UK and USA are based on age, and pre-existing conditions. Either by excluding them totally, or by making the premiums massively expensive.

The above is irrelevant. People with a need for continuing care, prescriptions etc are still using the NHS for this kind of mdical care - an also for acute, emergency and very serious illness, but using the private health facilities for other care.

Most people use the private system selectively. For consultations, and for routine operations where there are long waiting lists, or when they have suffered poor treatment in the NHS and are now distrustful of it.

A significant number of private patients are self-funding. Private health insurance is expensive and you stand little or no chance of getting your money's worth. Many years ago we set up a savings account into which we put a small sum of money every month. Over the years it has mounted up, and this is how we have funded a number of consultations with specialists for both us and our children. We have since discovered just how many, older people in particular, have done the same thing.

Older people are also using life time savings and even equity release to fund private health care.

I have asked several times for the evidence that the government agenda is an American style health system and answer comes there none. Only tales of NHS contracting work out, which it has been doing since it was founded. Contracting out has nothing to do with privatising the health system.

Just not as simple as that Ethel. No it does not work like that at all.

When you have a huge shortage of doctors and nurses, and other staff - those going private do NOT take the pressure off. They add to it, in many many ways.

Other system in Europe for instance, are not allowed to exclude those with pre-exisiting conditions. All private insurance in the UK and USA are based on age, and pre-existing conditions. Either by excluding them totally, or by making the premiums massively expensive.

I must query the expression used by someone posting on this thread, they referred to queue jumping by going private. How can this be queue jumping because everyone who pays and leaves the waiting list the that list becomes shorter so the next person moves up. The nhs cannot continue as it is, the hospitals are run down, my mother lay in a corridor for them was in a and e for 10 hours, she is now on a ward in a local hospital where there’s a man running around swearing and acting violent they can’t control him, one lady didn’t go to bed she was so scared, discharged herself today. Something needs to be done but I really think those who can should pay

I no longer understand how the NHS functions. Is there any reliable source that anyone could recommend? Very happy to receive a private message.

A few years ago the NHS did commission private providers who went round local areas with a big van like a mamography van to go and park outside GP surgeries and in minor accident units and do a day of cataract operations.

We had one in our local town.

I was sent to a private hospital on the NHS 42 years ago because they didn’t have the scanner I needed at my local … it’s not a new thing! But I’ve just been offered a Choi d to have my cataract done by local hospital or private ( NHS. funded)…. so it’s a more prevalent now..and I think it is ‘the thin edge of the wedge’ before we’re asked to ‘pay a little’ for an op. then of course it becomes a two tier system …those who can pay will jump the Q those who can’t or won’t will suffer! But with an ongoing private sector that’s always been the case…hadn’t it. My sister and her husband are alive and kicking because of private and extremely quick ( 5 days in his case) of stating cancer treatment . He’s convinced he wouldn’t be here if he was like me and othered in our family …poor!

This isn't just about the Covid backlog. Long queues have been forming for years. Without seeing the accounts, I don't know whether it would be good value to employ a whole new team and buy expensive equipment or whether it's better to buy in on an "ad hoc" basis.

I know that in my case, MRI scanners cost thousands of pounds and need specialist staff. If they only reach capacity and need an extra couple of scans at short notice every week, it's probably cost-effective to buy in an extra few scans. Otherwise, the scanner would be under-used and the staff would be underemployed. If I hadn't have had that particular scan when I did, the whole pathway (on which I'd already been booked) would have been disrupted.

PS. I'm not disputing that the NHS needs more money.

Well said DaisyAnne. Many thanks for your work in drawing attention to the creeping privatisation of the NHS and showing that a significant number of people, if Gransnetters are representative of the population, who (amazingly) seem ok with it. It reminds me of 'Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak up for me.'

Agree with everything you say. Deeply depressing

I agree with your last sentence growstuff. However, at the same time they need to be bringing the NHS funding up to scratch so that they can transfer away from private hospitals as the queue gets shorter.

It will never get back to normal unless there is more funding - and that seems to be (and I believe it is) the intention of this government.

DaisyAnne

cc

tickingbird

My friend is going in to have his hip done tomorrow and he’s got in quickly. It’s being done in a private hospital but on the NHS. The NHS is paying for private health care!

My cataracts were done by a private hospital on behalf of the NHS. The care and the hospital services were great, but all the consultants/surgeons were from the main local NHS hospital and I have to wonder why they were not at work doing their main job?
I had a choice of two private hospitals or the main NHS one (with a longer waiting list). This means that a significant number of surgical staff were away from work staffing these private hospitals.

... and funding is being manipulated to ensure the NHS hospital has a longer waiting list. Why do we accept that?

It would be interesting to see the accounts for procedures such as cataracts.

I don't know whether it would be cost effective for the NHS to employ a whole new team of people and open a new operating theatre for the number of cataract ops it does.

If the new staff and theatre aren't used to full capacity, it might very well be better value to contract a private hospital.

I honestly don't know, but it makes sense to me to use private hospitals to try and clear backlogs as a temporary measure - for the wellbeing of patients.

I realised that. I think it's a non starter. Should the NHS pay back the training overseas-trained doctors have received?

was

growstuff

DaisyAnne

Jannipans

How about, as a start, all NHS staff who leave the NHS to go into private practice, having to repay the cost of their training. If the private practice wants them that badly they will need to cough up, if they themselves want it so badly they can pay by installments from their new increased salary!

Do you mean a Private Practice should repay the doctor/nurse what their training has cost them?

What's happening in my area is that a number of the GPs in NHS practices are cutting down their hours and have set up a wholly private practice, where they work for one or two days a week. They continue to work for both. How could they be charged for their training? They are still working for the NHS, but for fewer hours.

I was trying to politely point out that Jannipans suggestion was that ^staff who leave the NHS", etc., have already paid for their training.

Casdon

Where did you get your information from DaisyAnne?
Are you talking about England or the whole of the UK?
The Kings Fund did some fact finding, and their conclusions are enclosed, which are different.
www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/health-and-social-care-england-myths

Thank you Casdon, an excellent and very readable article, debunking several myths including that the NHS is overloaded with management.
It does however confirm that fewer GPS are choosing to work full-time, though I have often heard it said that a GP's paperwork makes a part-time job the equivalent of most people's full-time hours.

cc

tickingbird

My friend is going in to have his hip done tomorrow and he’s got in quickly. It’s being done in a private hospital but on the NHS. The NHS is paying for private health care!

My cataracts were done by a private hospital on behalf of the NHS. The care and the hospital services were great, but all the consultants/surgeons were from the main local NHS hospital and I have to wonder why they were not at work doing their main job?
I had a choice of two private hospitals or the main NHS one (with a longer waiting list). This means that a significant number of surgical staff were away from work staffing these private hospitals.

... and funding is being manipulated to ensure the NHS hospital has a longer waiting list. Why do we accept that?

M0nica

Contracting out is not the same as privitisation, it does not require any payment by patients.

Vast quantities of the NHS have been corntracted out since the NHS started. It is the way many organisations carry out their businesses. I was very glad that the NHS used private contractors to meet peak demand when I needed a minor operation. It made no difference to me whether the doctor doing the op was in the NHS or in a private hospital, it was all free to me at the point of need.

Contracting out is leading to areas of the NHS becoming privatised. These companies need to make a profit. If profits cannot be met under a free-at-the-point-of-need system, governments of the current extreme will privatise; that is their nature. Full charges plus profit will come directly from us - if you can afford it. My friend, who has had three kidney transplants, would be dead. Why do you close your eyes an whistle where this is concerned? Why not insist we retain free-at-the-point-of-need? Why are you gaining, personally, by allowing the underfunding of our services?

The French system appears to be well organised. You pay a fee (not huge) to see a doctor and can claim it back if your visit was necessary - though how they judge that I do not know.
I understand from friends who work in GP practices that there are many people who visit doctors regularly with little or no need to do do.

growstuff

I don't think they would either Casdon, but what we're seeing is an increasing number of partner-run practices closing when doctors retire and nobody willing to take on the partnership. We're also seeing housebuilding and no new GP practices, so the existing practices are totally overwhelmed. The NHS could set up up wholly NHS-run practices in these circumstances. They would be better protected than existing practices from a takeover by corporations such as Centene.

That’s exactly what’s happened here, so it’s entirely possible. It’s going to be difficult, and long winded but not ultimately impossible to take currently private company run NHS practices back under the control of the NHS in England - buying out contracts with part of the term left will probably be unaffordable though so it could take a number of years - as it has done in Wales when PFI contracts have been brought back under the NHS.

Newdawn

I keep hearing about people getting private cataract surgery paid for by NHS. I hope they have negotiated a good, universal rate for the treatment

I hope they have too. I don't have a problem with the NHS using private services for one-off treatments, as long as the arrangement is temporary.

I've had three MRI scans over the last six months. I was told that one of them might take place at a private hospital (it didn't in the end). The reason was that the hospital was working at full capacity and it was important I had the scan before other procedures and my op could take place. The other procedures and the op had been booked, but the problem was fitting in the MRI scan. Without it, everything else would have had to be postponed, which would have meant more cost in changing the schedules and/or staff and equipment not being used.

tickingbird

My friend is going in to have his hip done tomorrow and he’s got in quickly. It’s being done in a private hospital but on the NHS. The NHS is paying for private health care!

My cataracts were done by a private hospital on behalf of the NHS. The care and the hospital services were great, but all the consultants/surgeons were from the main local NHS hospital and I have to wonder why they were not at work doing their main job?
I had a choice of two private hospitals or the main NHS one (with a longer waiting list). This means that a significant number of surgical staff were away from work staffing these private hospitals.

lizzypopbottle

Thank you to everyone who has posted actual, bona fide links to factual information. I think we should be very wary of the media. TV and newspapers want viewers and readers so the more dramatic and inflammatory their outpourings, the more hysteria they create. The saying, 'there's lies, damn lies and statistics' (attributed to various sources) is worth remembering.

I agree that TV and newspapers tend to be over-dramatic. We also have anecdotes, which by their very nature aren't representative. That's why it's always worth following through and looking for the sources of information and analysing them. Unfortunately, very few people do that.

At what stage do we stop shrugging our shoulders and saying it's just media hysterics or personal anecdote?

growstuff

Meanwhile ... this article from the Times is worth reading and remembering. (It's not behind a paywall.)

archive.ph/9Now6

The government is insisting on maintaining a cap on the number of medical school places which universities can offer. Almost everybody is saying there is a shortage of doctors and we can't/shouldn't rely on overseas-trained doctors, so this makes no sense at all.

Thank you for the link growstuff. Sadly, I am not surprised.

growstuff

MaizieD

No-one has read my link, then?

I have.

Some of us do have other things in our lives Maizie. I have read it and replied as quickly as I could fit it into my life.

I keep hearing about people getting private cataract surgery paid for by NHS. I hope they have negotiated a good, universal rate for the treatment