Nurses: The NHS is at breaking point

[jjlynn27]

TLandCruiser said:

Maybe they should introduce things like every gp appointment costs £10 and A&E costs £50 or something along those lines with some fine tuning. Obviously if you turn up to a&e they won't expect payment but maybe 30 days to pay after discharge etc just a little something to help towards the cost.

Unemployed, disabled and oap are exempt etc

Charging £10 at the time of booking, which would be fully refunded if you actually turn up for an appointment, would be a start.

[Sheepshanks]

TLandCruiser said:

Maybe they should introduce things like every gp appointment costs £10 and A&E costs £50 or something along those lines with some fine tuning. Obviously if you turn up to a&e they won't expect payment but maybe 30 days to pay after discharge etc just a little something to help towards the cost.

Unemployed, disabled and oap are exempt etc

90% of prescriptions are free, so it would presumably be a similar ratio of the people turning up at A&E.

And the cost of the NHS chasing people for a tenner doesn't bear thinking about.

[sidicks]

jjlynn27 said:

Charging £10 at the time of booking, which would be fully refunded if you actually turn up for an appointment, would be a start.

It sounds great in principle, but I suspect that the ones that typically don't turn up to appointments (or who make excessive use of the NHS) are those that the state is already subsidising and can't (or won't) pay...

[markcoznottz]

jjlynn27 said:

TLandCruiser said:

Maybe they should introduce things like every gp appointment costs £10 and A&E costs £50 or something along those lines with some fine tuning. Obviously if you turn up to a&e they won't expect payment but maybe 30 days to pay after discharge etc just a little something to help towards the cost.

Unemployed, disabled and oap are exempt etc

Charging £10 at the time of booking, which would be fully refunded if you actually turn up for an appointment, would be a start.

The unemployed and the oap should pay, too much subsidised stuff in this country

[markcoznottz]

sidicks said:

jjlynn27 said:

Charging £10 at the time of booking, which would be fully refunded if you actually turn up for an appointment, would be a start.

It sounds great in principle, but I suspect that the ones that typically don't turn up to appointments (or who make excessive use of the NHS) are those that the state is already subsidising and can't (or won't) pay...

The normal bleeding heart libtards who clog up the comment section of the guardian would have a fit, rinse and repeat.

[fatandwheezing]

Greg66 said:

Seriously, when is the NHS not at breaking point/in crisis/at defcon 1?

We spend almost £32 million on it every day.

How much would it cost to take it out of crisis mode?

That means every employee costs on average about £23 per day, plus this also covers all the facilities drugs and stuff. Sounds like a bargain to me.

[Derek Smith]

markcoznottz said:

The unemployed and the oap should pay, too much subsidised stuff in this country

Is that all the unemployed? What about the person who has lost their job and are struggling to get another? Should they have to wait for treatment until they are working again? What about those who are refused employment because they are ill? Should they pay? Or do you only mean those whom the likes of the DM suggest are defrauding the system, these millions of workers?

As for OAPs, what about those who, like me, paid for old people to be treated during the 51 years I was working, healthy and paying taxes? That's apart from the one week after a firm collapsed and I got another job. I'm an OAP but working and paying taxes now. Should I pay?

[grumbledoak]

Derek Smith said:

As for OAPs, what about those who, like me, paid for old people to be treated during the 51 years I was working, healthy and paying taxes? That's apart from the one week after a firm collapsed and I got another job. I'm an OAP but working and paying taxes now. Should I pay?

And what proportion of the population was octogenarians occupying hospital beds full time while you were paying in? And how much did they pay in compared to their costs now? And how were their payments saved?

Quite. Exponential population growth or a big bang in the future. Guess what? This is that future.

[Sylvaforever]

The NHS has loads of money.

The problem is Managers who cannot or will not manage.

£800 for an agency nurse for christmas evening/night as the NHS staff were all on holiday.

WHY?

THAT is the problem.

[Derek Smith]

grumbledoak said:

And what proportion of the population was octogenarians occupying hospital beds full time while you were paying in? And how much did they pay in compared to their costs now? And how were their payments saved?

Quite. Exponential population growth or a big bang in the future. Guess what? This is that future.

I'm not sure what your point it, nor the quite.

You ask the number of octogenarians. All that shows is that there are more old people around, most of whom are much healthier overall than they were in my day.

The point I thought I was making was that I was happy enough to pay for the care of those who needed it when I was working. If people aren't nowadays then that's very sad.

[grumbledoak]

Derek Smith said:

The point I thought I was making was that I was happy enough to pay for the care of those who needed it when I was working. If people aren't nowadays then that's very sad.

My point is that more people are living to claim now than when you were working. Same with NI. The tax goes ever upwards. It's not sad, it's realising that the setup is unsustainable.

And that's before the NHS is used as a political football / voting bloc and managed for the greater glory of socialism as if money was no object.

Edited by grumbledoak on Thursday 12th January 21:09

[eccles]

Sylvaforever said:

£800 for an agency nurse for christmas evening/night as the NHS staff were all on holiday.

WHY?

THAT is the problem.

Really?

[PSRG]

Well, my partner has haemodialysis three times a week at a hospital in Portsmouth. That's around 25 miles west of us, and he drives there. This week, completely unasked for, patient transport has turned up at our house to take him to hospital. The transport has come from Eastbourne, 50 miles east of us. Even if transport was needed, driving from Eastbourne to take a patient from near Chichester to Portsmouth is insane. But it wasn't needed at all. And it's not the first time it's happened...in fact, talk to the driver and they'll say many of their journeys are wasted. The hospital will have been charged for each 150mile round trip. I reckon that's almost £1,000 wasted. Multiply that by 10 wards / 3 shifts and that's £1.5m a year down the drain. Multiply that by 137 acute trusts and that's around £200m wasted, just in transport. It's not the level of resource, it's the way it's used!!

[markcoznottz]

Derek Smith said:

grumbledoak said:

And what proportion of the population was octogenarians occupying hospital beds full time while you were paying in? And how much did they pay in compared to their costs now? And how were their payments saved?

Quite. Exponential population growth or a big bang in the future. Guess what? This is that future.

I'm not sure what your point it, nor the quite.

You ask the number of octogenarians. All that shows is that there are more old people around, most of whom are much healthier overall than they were in my day.

The point I thought I was making was that I was happy enough to pay for the care of those who needed it when I was working. If people aren't nowadays then that's very sad.

Oh right so people are living longer so just keep paying for them, suck it up basically. NHS spend was peanuts in your day, even inflation adjusted. Maybe you could donate some of your ridiculous coppers bribe, sorry I mean pension to the NHS.

[Rovinghawk]

Derek Smith said:

I'm an OAP but working and paying taxes now. Should I pay?

The system is quite generous in what it pays you; using some of that money to pay your way doesn't seem unreasonable.

[DoubleSix]

s1962a said:

amgmcqueen said:

That's what two decades of mass uncontrolled immigration does for you....

Barring health tourism, aren't immigrants generally younger, and of working age? Probably aren't as much of a burden on the NHS as our own population.

Whilst it's tempting to dismiss the above as a bit Daily Mail I think we may have to ask some difficult questions of ourselves.

I had a very serious illness a short while back and the particular part of the hospital I attended was exclusively, and I do mean exclusively occupied by Somalians. To the point where the doctors where plainly quite surprised to see me there (I contracted the illness abroad).

Specially trained language staff had to be present as the patients didn't speak English in the main. Leaflets and other documents printed in multiple languages etc etc

It was obvious a lot of time and resources where being utilised - perhaps disproportionately so?

Inner city GP surgeries are much the same ime.

[dvs_dave]

I don't know why they don't introduce flat visit fees. For example:
Doctors Office visit: £20
Specialist visit: £30
A&E visit: £75
OAP's, under 18's and registered disabled: No charge
Up to an annual maximum of £250, or 0.5% of your annual income. Whichever is higher.

The poor/idle can claim any charges back as a credit on whatever benefits they're already receiving.

Would take a massive load off the system overnight and free it up for people genuinely in need.

[Sheepshanks]

dvs_dave said:

I don't know why they don't introduce flat visit fees. For example:
Doctors Office visit: £20
Specialist visit: £30
A&E visit: £75
OAP's, under 18's and registered disabled: No charge
Up to an annual maximum of £250, or 0.5% of your annual income. Whichever is higher.

The poor/idle can claim any charges back as a credit on whatever benefits they're already receiving.

Would take a massive load off the system overnight and free it up for people genuinely in need.

It'd be a "tax on the sick".

As I noted above, likelihood is that very few people would be eligible to pay.

[GroundEffect]

As a percentage of GDP on public spending, we are right in amongst the average for Europe.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-h...

And if you combine with private, we're considerably lower than other Western European countries. So the idea that 'It's hugely inefficient, we're spending far too much!'...well, the data doesn't show that.

[Joey Ramone]

fatandwheezing said:

That means every employee costs on average about £23 per day, plus this also covers all the facilities drugs and stuff. Sounds like a bargain to me.

Nope

NHS costs £106 billion per year, which is just under £300 million per day.

I don't know what that does to your employee costs exactly but I'm guessing you're looking at... a lot.