Will the NHS go private by 2015?

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Then you will get the system where if you haven't got the funds to pay for healthcare, you will get a system that you turn up at a hospital and get turned away - and thats happened to me twice, and then got sent back to the hospital by my GP.

I have paid into the health service all my life and therefore expect to be treated free.

Private companies are popping up all the time, wasn't it last year a hospital or GP was sending their patients abroad for treatment as it was quicker and cheaper for them.

Private healthcare is coming in by the back door.

I call utter BS on that no way have you been turned away from hospital because you cannot pay also the link you provided has sod all to do with privatising the NHS ,it is about introducing more specialist units and more highly trained paramedics

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Chris

Who cares who runs it? You get sick, you get treated, you get better and you didn't pay for it. If someone else makes a profit out of the process, so what?

I do pay for it, we all pay for it, nhs isn't free and I don't want someone making a profit out of it because it's never enough profit for them you only have to look at the utilities companies to see that.

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Free speech is about saying what you feel/believe - but it is also being challenged on it, if others disagree, or if your facts are in error.

Can't have it both ways*, Arthur....

btw, if it's not too personal/embarrassing, what were you at Ealing A&E for?

btw2, you must have been very unlucky, as the stats for Ealing (for last week) show that only 31 of the 1896 people who attended A&E waited over 4 hours...

http://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics...treps-2013-14/

October 2013 A&E Data http://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics....3-AEFoA0Z.xls Row 169

Very unlucky as it appears he had the same problems back longer than that.
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/35541281-post22.html

[Halcyon]

Something has to be done and done soon!

For the patients AND for the staff.

My partner works for the NHS and puts in more overtime than most, all unpaid, coming home shattered.
If our government continue ignoring the work NHS staff do and the pressure they are under, not only will patients health be put at risk but so will the staff.
Just look at the example that was in the news last year of a doctor falling asleep at the wheel as he had been made to work 24 hours straight.

Wake up governement. We need to sort things out!

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I do pay for it, we all pay for it, nhs isn't free and I don't want someone making a profit out of it because it's never enough profit for them you only have to look at the utilities companies to see that.

Free at point of use, obviously.

And if healthcare providers making a profit from their services is so appallingly evil, how come it works so smoothly in that well-known hotbed of right-wing, free marketeering capitalism, Germany?

Provided the State pays the same for any given procedure in any hospital, and that procedure is carried out to an agreed standard, why does it make a difference who owns the hospital?

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Chris

Free at point of use, obviously.

And if healthcare providers making a profit from their services is so appallingly evil, how come it works so smoothly in that well-known hotbed of right-wing, free marketeering capitalism, Germany?

Provided the State pays the same for any given procedure in any hospital, and that procedure is carried out to an agreed standard, why does it make a difference who owns the hospital?

Who is to say we'd go down the German route or the French one, if we did it probably wouldn't be so bad, might even be a tad better unfortunately I fear we'd emulate the US and no one wants that surely. Also if we're paying private providers the same money it makes more sense to me for the NHS to be given the resources in the first place.

[Nidge41]

Originally Posted by Chris

Who cares who runs it? You get sick, you get treated, you get better and you didn't pay for it. If someone else makes a profit out of the process, so what?

Run by hedge fund managers though? Come on you can see the wood through the trees.

[Pog66]

Originally Posted by Nidge41

Run by hedge fund managers though? Come on you can see the wood through the trees.

/OT
that will be those hedge funds that we want to grow so we get a decent pension?
/OT

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Pog66

/OT
that will be those hedge funds that we want to grow so we get a decent pension?
/OT

[tweetiepooh]

Doesn't seem to matter who runs things there is extraordinary waste and inefficiency. Maybe it's because the same lazy shirkers stay employed eating away at resource. Those who work for the NHS know who these people are as they are the ones who usually have to cover for them. These lazy ones are also those that really know the ins and outs of the employment systems so become hard to get rid of.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Pog66

/OT
that will be those hedge funds that we want to grow so we get a decent pension?
/OT

We want them to grow at the expense of the health service? Asset stripped and leveraged with debt like most of our other privatised public services, giving maximum roi for as little investment as possible?

[spreadsheet]

I have often thought that nhs and local government could save a small fortune by using open source software - openoffice etc rather than shelling out for legions of licences for clunky microsoft products

[Osem]

I often wonder why new hospitals aren't all based on the same basic design, perhaps modular, so that they're aren't all the huge extra costs associated with architects, designs, fancy bespoke steel/glass etc. etc. Given the size and potential buying power of the NHS why isn't more equipment, furniture, fixtures, fittings etc. standardised to drive down costs?

Who cares if all our hospitals etc. look similar and are more functional? I'm more worried about the quality of treatment than I am fancy designer glass clad atria and facades.

A local care centre was built with a fancy glass entrance which, to prevent it becoming too hot in summer, required a bespoke steel structure and canopy to shade it. The canopy has since started to fail and will need to be replaced at significant cost I'd imagine. Wouldn't a normal entrance have sufficed and avoided the extra cost?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Arthurgray50@blu

Private healthcare is coming in by the back door.

Bring it in by the front door, I say.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Osem

I often wonder why new hospitals aren't all based on the same basic design, perhaps modular, so that they're aren't all the huge extra costs associated with architects, designs, fancy bespoke steel/glass etc. etc. Given the size and potential buying power of the NHS why isn't more equipment, furniture, fixtures, fittings etc. standardised to drive down costs?

Who cares if all our hospitals etc. look similar and are more functional? I'm more worried about the quality of treatment than I am fancy designer glass clad atria and facades.

A local care centre was built with a fancy glass entrance which, to prevent it becoming too hot in summer, required a bespoke steel structure and canopy to shade it. The canopy has since started to fail and will need to be replaced at significant cost I'd imagine. Wouldn't a normal entrance have sufficed and avoided the extra cost?

Not to mention the space wasted, my local hospital feels and looks like a shopping centre and then you discover it was designed by an American mail architect & it floods whenever it rains heavy...