No, absolutely not. Having seen private healthcare though I can completely see why people think privatisation is the solution.
Would you ever use private healthcare over the NHS?
Would you ever use private healthcare over the NHS?
The Yes/No Game
- Thread starter Inkandtatts
- Start date
No. It shouldn't be allowed. It's the same NHS specialists that do the private stuff and they even use NHS resources for their private practice in some cases. That's stopping an NHS patient from receiving treatment in favour of a private paying patient and it's utterly disgusting. To be clear here, I understand why patients feel they need to opt for private and I sympathise but they'd get their appointments much faster if the specialists were told no.
Would you?
Would you?
Yes. I think telling medical professionals they can only work for the NHS would drive a lot of them away and remember that many of our medics aren’t from this country. There would be much more attractive places for them to go if we told them they could only work for the State. Using NHS resources for non NHS work is a huge no-no though.
I needed a diagnostic. My GP referred me to the local hospital but I paid £250 at a private hospital, had the diagnostic done 2 days after I was told I needed it and the doctor told me there and then what the result was. On the NHS I’d have had to wait over a month during which time my mental health would have gone massively downhill and then after attending the hospital I’d have had to book an appointment for the results which would have been two weeks later (and knowing what my local NHS is like, they’d have probably lost the results in transit)
Would you pay privately for a family member to receive medical care if it shortened the amount of time they’d be in physical pain or mental distress - or if it was likely to save their life?
I needed a diagnostic. My GP referred me to the local hospital but I paid £250 at a private hospital, had the diagnostic done 2 days after I was told I needed it and the doctor told me there and then what the result was. On the NHS I’d have had to wait over a month during which time my mental health would have gone massively downhill and then after attending the hospital I’d have had to book an appointment for the results which would have been two weeks later (and knowing what my local NHS is like, they’d have probably lost the results in transit)
Would you pay privately for a family member to receive medical care if it shortened the amount of time they’d be in physical pain or mental distress - or if it was likely to save their life?
No and I wouldn't want them to pay for me either. It's morally wrong on so many levels although as I said, I totally understand why people do it.
The Tories screwed up our access to competent medical personnel and resources when that moral coward Cameron called a referendum on EU membership. Then his Tory chums lied and cheated their way out of the EU. I should add here that Scotland was solid on the NO vote. We were dragged out of the EU and my generation denied easy access to European countries because they saw an opportunity to make money and in some cases to drag the country back into the 19th century. They've consistently underfunded the service at the point that it matters and yet somehow managed to bloat the management tiers. I want Scottish Independence as soon as we can achieve it.
Would you restructure the NHS to remove management positions and increase practitioner and support positions?
Restructure yes but there has to be some kind of leadership/management/operations structure. I’d look at what that is, strip it down as much as possible, put people in there that are capable of running a huge organisation properly, cut out the red tape, and let the practitioners do what they’re best at. I’d also want to cut down on waste and refuse to pay what some of the suppliers charge the NHS just because they can. I’d also make it independent of Government too (still state owned but not politically controlled) so that it can’t be used as a political football, similar to the way the Bank of England was made independent, preventing politicians from controlling interest rates often for political reasons.
I agree the referendum was wrong but the NHS had problems way before 2016. Medical jobs are on the shortage occupation list so there isn’t much preventing medics from coming here from the EU or anywhere
Do you like fruit pastilles?
I agree the referendum was wrong but the NHS had problems way before 2016. Medical jobs are on the shortage occupation list so there isn’t much preventing medics from coming here from the EU or anywhere
Do you like fruit pastilles?
Yes management is needed but it should be practitioner led at all levels where possible. Some things like legal and financial will obviously be specialised. Independent of government is a brilliant idea by the way 🙂
NHS Scotland was doing well up to the pandemic and Brexit. Scotland was a place of choice for good quality European practitioners and we had a well staffed organisation. We had good NHS dentist services, good physiotherapy services and good specialist clinical services. Appointment times were pretty good too. Then the blonde buffoon and his cronies messed everything up and now we're in the same situation that the English NHS were pre pandemic. We still get free prescriptions though.
Yes I like fruit pastilles 🙂
Do you like Kit Kats?
NHS Scotland was doing well up to the pandemic and Brexit. Scotland was a place of choice for good quality European practitioners and we had a well staffed organisation. We had good NHS dentist services, good physiotherapy services and good specialist clinical services. Appointment times were pretty good too. Then the blonde buffoon and his cronies messed everything up and now we're in the same situation that the English NHS were pre pandemic. We still get free prescriptions though.
Yes I like fruit pastilles 🙂
Do you like Kit Kats?
I’m breaking the game to reply to this point but I really don’t think practitioners should be leading management. I’d rather they be treating patients than having their time taken up by management or giving them the extra stress of it. I think for most people, the medical profession is a vocation and for the majority their personality type is suited to serving patients and not necessarily managing an organisation.
Kitkats. Yes! Especially a kitkat chunky
Do you like talking about political things?
For the majority, yes. But there will be practitioners that would be interested in managing the service and they'd have a much better and much more balanced view of the needs. Practitioners also give up practice for various reasons or simply retire from it.
Had you noticed that yes, I do? I've been interested in Scottish politics for a while partly driven by the fact that people my age can vote in Scottish elections and partly from a desire to be able to discuss things that matter to me politically from an informed standpoint.
Do you like discussing politics?
Yes. Partly because I love hearing other people’s views
Do you believe that all services that work for the State should be excluded from working in private practice?
Do you believe that all services that work for the State should be excluded from working in private practice?
I'm pretty sure that all state owned services aren't allowed to work in the private sector if only because that would be unfair competition. How the NHS is allowed to let its facilities be used for private practice is beyond me. Tax payers paying for greedy consultants to make money from the NHS? Needs to stop.
Do you think state owned services should be allowed to compete in the private sector?
I was thinking more along the lines of, when you said consultants that work for the NHS shouldn't be allowed to work in private practice. I saw a similarity to lawyers that get paid by the State in Legal Aid, companies that repair roads, or even aviation back in the day.
I wasn't sure when I responded yesterday but I checked and NHS can only allow its facilities to be used when NHS patients won't be impacted, and they charge for any facilities used by consultants to treat patients privately. A lot of the consultants apparently do the work either while on annual leave or outside their contracted hours and over weekends etc, so it's not like they're shirking their obligations to the NHS and the patients are being charged for the use of NHS facilities.
I'm trying to think of which State owned services we have now other than the NHS but I couldn't think of any. I g00gled and Scottish airports came up.
I'd have to say yes. Using the airport example, I can't see a compelling reason for why Prestwick couldn't be allowed to compete with Glasgow or Edinburgh.
Still morally wrong though.
Airports are privately run and owned. They're regulated but that's an entirely different thing.
I'm relying on G00gle but it says that Prestwick has been owned by the Scottish Government since 2013
Why though?
Isn't it right to allow them the freedom to work for their contracted ours in the NHS and do what they want outside of those hours (while maintaining the obligations relating to conflict of interest etc, ofc)?
It's an exception. They tried to find a buyer but failed and are committed to finding one as soon as they can.
Outside of working hours it's between them, their conscience, and the tax man. They should not be allowed to use facilities bought and paid for by taxpayer money to run their private business though. Let them go to one of the private hospitals and buy services there instead.
TableClimber
Active Member
No I'm not.
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