You have to understand what private medicine actually offers.
Which is a nice one to one with a consultant in a long(er) appointment than the NHS can manage and better hospital food.
That’s it basically.
No private hospital has an ITU, surgery is low risk stuff and if it does go pear shaped you’ll probably find there is no, or minimal, medical cover in the hospital overnight so you will be in an ambulance heading for an NHS emergency department quicker than you can say “post operative complication”.
Yes, they are - which is OK(ish) if you have the money when it’s a “one off” - but chronic conditions aren’t treated privately and if they were they would be massively expensive on an ongoing basis - just look at how much it costs to be diabetic in the 'States, for example.
Private capacity in the UK is, at best, 20% of NHS capacity - what do you think will happen when everyone who needs a knee or a hip tries to get it done privately?
The alternative is just to suffer - when the NHS was set up it turned out that faced with paying for a doctor those who could not afford it just put up with stuff, and not just arthritic knees. Masses of very significant, chronic, untreated pathology just came out of the woodwork as it were and nearly swamped the nascent NHS (and arguably we’ve been playing catch up since).
Similarly, someone I know in Herefordshire have had to wait more than 2 weeks between assessment / confirmation of diagnosis and treatment options for lymphoma metastasis. Certainly in some cases, at least, people are falling through the cracks.
I think we will always have people falling through the cracks but it shouldnt be in the majority which is the direction it seems to be going. I feel blessed that I have been seen recently within a short time frame and see how that goes on Friday as I will probably need an MRI scan.
Indeed - a good analogy I think is with building motorways - after they built the M25 round London, guess what lots of people decided to use it as it was a better way of getting around than wiggling through towns - in particular lots of local traffic went on to it for one or two junctions and then off again, which the planners didn’t anticipate as they assumed most motorway users would be long-distance travellers.
The NHS has in a sense been a victim of its own success - we are all living longer thanks to free access to medical care as well as improvements in drugs and surgical techniques - so we now have a growing number of older people who have survived to develop diseases of old age which in earlier generations didn’t appear because people had already popped off before they got old enough.
Of course the current set of Governmental clowns have made things worse by not allocating sufficient funds to meet the demand, rearranging the deckchairs with constant administrative reorganisations, and the well-known Brexit Thing which played havoc with the supply of staff.
Private medicine is not the answer - just look at America where huge numbers of people cannot afford medical insurance and those that can struggle to pay for it. As a result the average outcomes for patients are worse in the US than here, despite our current NHS troubles (with the one exception of cancer treatment).
I think that’s a well known phenomenon amongst road planners - at least it is these days.
The M25 wasn’t supposed to be one motorway by the way - the original plan was for four ring roads, but they ran out of money and enthusiasm and just joined up the bits they had already built to produce a single orbital.
Because their motive is to shift people on to selective health care schemes run by their friends. They are winning by frigtening people onto those ideas.
Entirely agree with you! Sis paid for private op for her back as NHS list was too long and her pain was too great. Swanky central London hospital, etc etc with nice decor and good nurses - except that charming consultant was only on call and no registrars or the wide range of medical staff you get in NHS hospital.
Unfortunately it all went pear shaped and she was transferred back to NHS.
I remember my parents being very worried indeed at the time, that they would lose their house and not get adequate compensation after seeing the plans for Ringway 2.
Back on topic, the friends we were with at the weekend were considering going private for a hip replacement because things were taking too long.
Likewise a friend of ours and he is retired with only a small pot of savings, hopefully he can hang on until the general election is over and hopefully change will occur.
I know what private hospitals offer.
We used them when we had our own company.
If I am feeling unwell I do not want to share my room with anyone else.
Privacy is extremely important to me.
A choice of menu is also important.
Prostate cancer did for my dad even with regular doctor’s exams. It finally spread into his skeleton and brain and killed him less than 18months later and he had no symptoms at first and the doctor never said anything or if knew; perhaps being elderly he decided to let nature take it’s course. I feel that is what the NHS does now with older people rather than spend money on getting them seen to. As you can see, I am very bitter at this and the disgusting inhumane treatment by the hospital when he finally went in only to be sent home with pneumonia and then re-admitted.
I like the French system where you are in a fully resourced main hospital/clinique so if things do go pear shaped, as it did with OH, there is an immediate transfer to intensive care in the same building, but at the same time it is possible to pay extra to have a private room, which he needed when he came out of IC.
I think all “health” services anywhere in the world are in trouble until the world recognises how important prevention is rather than cure. But the world makes its money from “cures” - there is little money to be made from persuading people to adopt a healthful lifestyle. There are enormous sums of money to be made and millions of jobs to be had from letting people get sick.
In the UK now you can see your pharmacist for medication, that should cut out any preventative measures should you find a GP who believes in such things. I have to say some of our younger GP’s at our local practice do seem more open to non medicinal interventions and although they must follow protocols they do try to help.
The preventive healthcare side of things is difficult for the way budgets are managed. For example, if you sell a test to the biochem dept for £10 then they have to find the extra £10 in their budget to pay for it now. It might well save £100,000 per patient in 2 years because of the requirement for intervention then, but the problem is £10 now.