The end of the NHS - Privatisation

[the_neurotic_cat]

Originally Posted by Chris

If a state-controlled system can treat 6 out of 10 terminal cancer patients for a given amount of money, and a private system can treat 9 out of 10, with the same money, but then also financially reward the people who made that efficiency possible, under which system are more people going without treatment?

State controlled of course.

I'm not sure how this applies to the real world. I've never heard of a health service that only treats terminal cancer patients. The NHS has fantastic efficacy compared to private healthcare providers. The USA spends about $2tn on health insurance per year whereas the uk spends about £120bn on the NHS. Calculating exchange rate and adjusting for population the Americans spend over twice the amount per person and don't get nearly as much coverage as we do here in the UK.

£4£ you can have profit, or treatment, not both. Sorry.

---------- Post added at 13:24 ---------- Previous post was at 13:19 ----------

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I'd rather have spending accountable to those who are paying, and an independent non-political body such as, hmm, an Office of Budgetary Responsibility say, to ensure that unrealistic amounts aren't being spend as bribes at the ballot box to the detriment of both public finances and efficiency of healthcare provision.

Not that this ever happens of course

I disagree that profit and healthcare are completely incompatible. At the front line I would agree that it's a precarious relationship and healthcare will never be super profitable however profit and quality are not always on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Certainly there is profit to be made from support services. Doing things well reduces their cost to provide, splitting the difference on that saving between the health service and the provider of support means government saves and profit is made.

The ideal is, of course, that the NHS can handle everything itself as well or better than if it were reduced in size via segmentation or private companies involved. This is also not the case, the bigger the NHS gets in terms of staff and spending the less and less value it provides for that money.

If the NHS can find a way to have everyone treated for anything they need without there being a waiting time AND the need for investment in new equipment becomes redundant, I'll think it's time for profit to be made from healthcare. But then, surely it would just be better to either reduce taxation or lower spending.

---------- Post added at 13:34 ---------- Previous post was at 13:24 ----------

Originally Posted by martyh

Actually i think the opposite is true.Healthcare is a money spinner ,from the drug companies ,insurance companies,suppliers of machinery,everything a hospital needs to operate is a cashcow for those involved .A private hospital will always make a healthy profit ,it's the NHS hospitals that lose out because they operate within a tight budget whilst having to cope with price rises from their suppliers

A private hospital makes a profit because it doesn't have to provide for those who can't pay to anywhere near the extent that NHS hospitals do.

Just a point re BUPA and WPA, two of the biggest of the UK's Private Health Providers

Bupa is a privately owned company that is limited solely to its guarantee that it renders to its consumers. Since Bupa does not have any shareholders that they need to pay off of their revenue, all of the profits that are generated after the business taxes have been paid are invested back into the business, in an attempt to make it even better than it presently is

Western Provident Association (WPA) is a health insurer with a heritage going back over 100 years.

As a not for profit association our business is to add customer value - not shareholder value.

[Chrysalis]

Looking at current private halthcare is not a meaningful comparison, as they only have a small amount of patients who can afford to pay whatever market prices they want to charge.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Looking at current private halthcare is not a meaningful comparison, as they only have a small amount of patients who can afford to pay whatever market prices they want to charge.

What about all the corporates who provide health insurance to their employees?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupa

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Looking at current private halthcare is not a meaningful comparison, as they only have a small amount of patients who can afford to pay whatever market prices they want to charge.

My reply was in the context of the profit motive re private hospitals.

Originally Posted by the_neurotic_cat

A private hospital makes a profit because it doesn't have to provide for those who can't pay to anywhere near the extent that NHS hospitals do.

so healthcare can be profitable ,if your original statement about "healthcare cannot be profitable" was directed at the NHS ,then i'm sure your aware that it's not meant to make a profit ,just operate within a budget .Hospitals in the USA are mostly paid through medical insurance but even their they have a version of our NHS for those who have no insurance or cannot afford it ,that is way i think we will go .I think we will end up with a means tested NHS ,those who can afford insurance will have to take it to cover some illnesses ,possibly things like cancer, heart disease could still be covered by the NHS but lesser illness ,broken limbs or non life threatening illness could be covered by insurance .Thats just a thought not sure if it is workable or not

[Arthurgray50@blu]

Traduk, you have been speaking from the heart, and its what l have been trying to say.

The NHS, was form to care for the sick in this country and free of charge to everyone, but over the years it has been the biggest question for every government thats been in power.

The service is in great need of a change, but it needs much of the red tape taken out of it, with all the pen pushers given the elbow, we are in great need of doctors and nurses, BUT under Tory government this is the first service that gets hit, with hospitals being shut, and patients suffering more and more.

When my poor mother was dying, she was placed in a side corridor to end her days, on a trolley as there was no beds, this is digraceful.

ALL governments that have been in power since my life began are as much to blame as each other, BUT the Tories are ripping it to bits, with its cuts.

Privatisation, will make money for only one group, The tory party, as the people who were destined to do this were Tory financial supporters, and this was actual fact in the media.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Privatisation, will make money for only one group, The tory party, as the people who were destined to do this were Tory financial supporters, and this was actual fact in the media.

Where is this fact in the media Mr Gray?

It would be a pretty explosive revelation indeed, especially given that the changes so far mooted do not include wholesale privatisation of the NHS.

[Welshchris]

While funding has increased Some hospitals and even Heath Authorities in some areas have had to close specific areas of health.

I was chatting to a guy at the hospital who was saying that the Hospital there no longer has a Dermatology Department and he suffers like me from Psoriasis and now he has to Travel once every 3 Months to Swansea which thats where they shipped a lot of patients to see a Dermatologist thats just unacceptable.

[Arthurgray50@blu]

When this debate was brought up, it was stated in The Mirror (it wouldn't be in The Sun as that is a Tory paper).

That there are FOUR millionaires that financially support the party, one of these millionaire happens to run a health care company - who plans to bid.

Check it out, it was there in balck and white.

"balck and white" - about as accurate as your normal rantings.

OK, Arthur, does that mean that Labour were going to privatise everything when they accepted donations from
Richard Caring, a restaurant and night club tycoon
Roy Aldridge, former chairman of Capita
JK Rowling, the author
Lord Sainsbury (of the eponymous supermarket chain)

Sir Ronald Cohen
Chai Patel
Gulam Noon (aka "the Curry King" - oh noes, they are going to privatise curries!!!! ZOMG!!!!!)
David Abrahams (property developer)
Barry Townsley, Sir David Garrard and Andrew Rosen et al.

And of course, the Mirror has no axe to grind....

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

When this debate was brought up, it was stated in The Mirror (it wouldn't be in The Sun as that is a Tory paper).

That there are FOUR millionaires that financially support the party, one of these millionaire happens to run a health care company - who plans to bid.

Check it out, it was there in balck and white.

First Arthur if what a Labour supporting paper prints is true i am sure it would have been all over the press

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Check it out, it was there in balck and white.

NO

You should do what every other poster on this forum does.

find your evidence

Post a LINK to the evidence

This Arthur is called producing the EVIDENCE to backup your claim. If you are not willing to do that then how are people to know if your are spouting bull excreta or not.

And to show you how it works look at this.

I say "Japan nuclear crisis 'over in nine months"

I then LINK to the EVIDENCE

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13107846

Arthur posting links to evidence is so simple a child could do it. Go on give it a try

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

When this debate was brought up, it was stated in The Mirror (it wouldn't be in The Sun as that is a Tory paper).

That there are FOUR millionaires that financially support the party, one of these millionaire happens to run a health care company - who plans to bid.

Check it out, it was there in balck and white.

There are going to be way more than four millionaires who financially support the party, just as there were way more than that that supported Labour before they deserted the sinking ship.

Where's the evidence? What do you think this health care company is bidding on? If it's NHS contracts why is this such a surprise, they are after all a health care company? Do you realise that these internal markets within the NHS were brought in by Labour? Who really gives two hoots how it's done so long as services improve and those who can't afford to pay continue to receive them for free at point of delivery?

[Traduk]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

There are going to be way more than four millionaires who financially support the party, just as there were way more than that that supported Labour before they deserted the sinking ship.

Where's the evidence? What do you think this health care company is bidding on? If it's NHS contracts why is this such a surprise, they are after all a health care company? Do you realise that these internal markets within the NHS were brought in by Labour? Who really gives two hoots how it's done so long as services improve and those who can't afford to pay continue to receive them for free at point of delivery?

If your last sentence where to become reality it opens the spectre of means testing which as far as I am aware is the way of determining ability to pay. Affordability against income\resources can easily become moving goalposts where the old "asset rich, cash poor argument is raised" .


A factor that concerns me deeply is GP's are already showing a strong tendency towards part time working and the supposed idea of job sharing females with children is obviously not the reason. Private healthcare is where many spend a lot of their time earning supplementary income that dwarfs NHS pay on a pro rata basis.

As a doctor friend told me some time ago, GP practices are turning into businesses as opposed to services with the old relationships denigrated to 10 minutes of responsibility as opposed to a lifelong commitments.

A question that needs thinking through after discounting political spin is why switch funding control from bureaucrats to GP's. Strong links already exist between the NHS and private health with many within the NHS working in both sectors. For government there could be no better place to initiate change and as the objective is save money someone pays and the GP is best placed to offer options which could involve co-pay.

In theory hospitals will have to compete for services which has the possibility of cost efficiency and improved outcomes for patients. In practice it may well be that GP's select what is in their best interests and hospitals that do not conform to the almighty budget holders go to the wall.

Hospitals are grossly inefficient simply because they are so large and have a deeply ingrained culture which defies efficiency. Many will not see their hundreds of millions of needed income materialise from GP's. The net result is likely to be the end of the NHS as we know it with what were hospitals converted into housing estates.

The era of the old Victorian mega hospitals has gone and I believe we are at the threshold of changes which herald the end of everything the Welfare state was created for. Whether it will happen depends on how long it takes the public to wake up to reality but to take a mandate to save money and morph it into the destruction of what is held as a given within society is miles from the initial brief.

As an aside... A conservative door knocking councillor told me that the Liberals are not fielding many candidates in the May elections. If true they are hiding to avoid a hiding. Indeed a clever ploy to avoid decimation but I wonder how many were happy to fall on their own sword.

Arthur,

I do passionately believe in the NHS but have seen the folly in supporting it in the manner that is rapidly becoming the past. I am involved in the administration of a trust fund where the eventual recipient will be a hospital. Having seen the bull dozing of so many hospitals with wards, equipment etc donated in memory of XXX, I intend to, given the opportunity to invoke a clause in the trust which alters the destiny of the funds. If the well intentioned relative was still alive, he would be appalled and wouldn't want his legacy ending up in a skip along with the NHS he knew.

I really wish Arthur would join a debate instead of just popping up with unsubstantiated claims that amount to nothing more than the rantings of lunatic.

@Arthur ,if you are going to make claims on a subject then at least have the decency to back them up and argue your point .The whole point of a debate is to hear different viewpoints ,for people to defend theirs and rebut others ,not to insert a unsubstantiated claim and then bugger off leaving people wondering what the hell you are talking about