doctors on strike

How far are the Doctors going to make this stand?

Hopefully until they win.

Right now the junior doctors and the BMA are the only people standing up to a Tory government which is committed to dismantling NHS England.

What I say is health service provision needs a radical overhaul. It just cannot work in today’s world with today’s expectations and it was never intended to, it was setup to provide universal basic health care. Modern medicine and longer life expectancy it simply cannot cope with

Essentially it needs more money. That is not radical overhaul its just appropriate funding.NO health system copes as well as ours, with such outcomes for so little money

Never in the field of human healthcare have so many owed so much to so few

I accept the electorate are a bit daft in both wanting tax cuts and better services. A grown up debate about how we only get what we pay for , with the clear acceptance private is more expensive, is indeed worth while.

There is no chance this “grown up debate” will win over the UK public to a private NHS.

It was not set up for basic health care – some more oil[facts] for your water[opinion]

In February 1941 the Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Health recorded privately areas of agreement on post-war health policy which included “a complete health service to be available to every member of the community” and on 9 October 1941, the Minister of Health Ernest Brown announced that the Government proposed to ensure that there was a comprehensive hospital service available to everyone in need of it, and that local authorities would be responsible for providing it.[6] The Medical Planning Commission set up by the professional bodies went one stage further in May 1942 recommending (in an interim report) a National Health Service with General Practitioners working through health centres and hospitals run by regional administrations.[7] The Beveridge Report of December 1942 included this same idea.

The only basic thing here is your understanding which, clearly, needs to see a doctor.

For now they are but there’s rumblings a foot with other health care professionals facing the same issue that similar action may be needed.

Lives are now being played with by both sides.

I’ve no sympathy for either side.
I like Ben Goldacre’s view;
“The battle today. Senior doctors are saving lives. And somewhere on Whitehall, spin doctors are eagerly searching for a death to exploit.”
Sums up the two sides for me.

Junkyard – lazarus

Essentially it needs more money.

There appears to be plenty of money.

The problem is that it isn’t necessarily going into patient care.

Example :

The scandalous Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is saddling hospitals with enormous debts. The original capital cost of more than 100 PFI hospitals was around £11.5 billion; the repayments on those hospitals will end up costing up to £80 billion. This differential of tens of billions will be siphoned off to banks, financial companies, construction and facilities management firms, instead of being spent on patient care.

.

Funding is a fundamental issue, but it can only be tackled once privatisation has been halted for good – otherwise the health budget is merely diverted as profits for private companies masquerading under the NHS logo.

.

The crisis in the NHS is real, but it is a manufactured crisis due to deliberate policies that have stripped the NHS of funding. We spend significantly less than France, Germany or Holland on our health service, less than the EU average and well below the US.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-hunt-heres-how-to-call-off-the-junior-doctor-strike-and-save-the-nhs-in-five-easy-steps-a6862901.html

Fair point ernie
Fair point.

@ernie the British people already welcome private healthcare, plenty of STWers have had private ops and Steve Peat openly said he could not have gotten the level of care and rehab for his ACL without private medical. However what we have is a dogs breakfast as the two systems have grown up separately, as such neither really complements the other. Sooner or later people will figure this out themselves. It’s not party political thing as after 13 years of Labour government the NHS was in worst shape and it will continue to deteriorate as the amounts of money required are simply beyond reach not least as spiralling medical costs, raging and expanding populations will outstrip any additional spending which is forthcoming.

You yourself have posted the reason above, we don’t spend enough and haven’t done so under any government. The fact is the electorate are not being told the truth about how much the health service we want actually costs and as it stands they certainly don’t want to pay for it. All my French friends with half decent middle class jobs pay for private medical insurance on top of their already high taxes.

The fact is the electorate are not being told the truth about how much the health service we want actually costs and as it stands they certainly don’t want to pay for it.

Interesting theory.

Why do you think the government isn’t telling the electorate the truth jambalaya ?

Mefty, you are naughty. Two sensible posts in a row are too much for a subject that can only be dealt with in the context of hyperbole and misinformation. Please stop it.

Hope everyone was ok today and no grizzly headlines. Not having to wait for the senior physician in A&E must have been a novelty.

the British people already welcome private healthcare

Who said they did not ?

The issue is whether they will accept a fully privatised NHS – or your totally erroneous claim it was only ever basic

That post does not address either issue.

Just for clarity, is this the person in whose hands the NHS has landed?

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/fury-sports-secretary-jeremy-hunt-3405374

He said: “I was incredibly encouraged by the example set by the England fans, I mean, not a single arrest for a football related offensive and the terrible problems that we had in Heysel and Hillsborough in the 1980s seem now to be behind us.”

Why does no one propose a fee for going to the Doctors similar to what the French do? 15quid for a GP visit, 50quid for A&E, 250quid if you negligent (drunk etc).

I can’t see why anyone would disagree with this and the amount of unnecessary trips would be significantly reduced.

LHS – Member

Why does no one propose a fee for going to the Doctors similar to what the French do? 15quid for a GP visit, 50quid for A&E, 250quid if you negligent (drunk etc).

I can’t see why anyone would disagree with this and the amount of unnecessary trips would be significantly reduced.

Because plenty of people don’t have £50 in their pocket to pay for essential healthcare? Because treating things quickly is cheaper than dealing with the consequences of having people not seek help?

SRSLY.

Ok, so 20quid /10quid pick your point. A nominal fee that will make people think twice about going to the doctors because they have a sore throat. It won’t stop people seeking help if they need it, yet will stop the serial offenders who abuse what the service is there for. If you want a non-privatized service, it needs to be adapted to reduce waste.

Where do you stop then? Pay up front for attendance of Police, Fire, Ambulance?

Lets go back to the good old days of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_insurance_mark

Pay by Paypal? gift only obviously cant have you lodging a dispute later on once better.

I would say that is a knee jerk reaction, you don’t get people phoning the fire service or visiting the police station for a chat. The NHS is without question not-sustainable in its current form, why not make some small adjustments that will cut waste.

LHS – Member

Ok, so 20quid /10quid pick your point. A nominal fee that will make people think twice about going to the doctors because they have a sore throat. It won’t stop people seeking help if they need it

Any amount that’s enough to act as a deterrant, will act as a deterrant.

That isn’t the case in other EU countries who have this system.

Ha ha ha you’d be surprised what the public do and expect from their public servants. I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve had the phrase #Ipayyourwagesdontchaknow screamed in my face. 🙄

I must have missed that report.

Ok I am out, carry on. But without compromise and willingness to address the issues, the NHS is doomed to failure, and no one wants that.

….stop the serial offenders who abuse what the service is there for

Ah yes that’s the crises affecting the NHS in England, not PFI or UnitedHealth Inc. siphoning money from the NHS budget, the billions being wasted on that is inconsequential, what’s really screwing the system is wasting money on people who aren’t ill.

LHS – Member

That isn’t the case in other EU countries who have this system.

It’s exactly what happened in Germany when they introduced co-payments, and exactly why they abolished them, less than 9 years later. You don’t get many unanimous votes in politics.

They also failed to yield the incomes expected, to the surprise of nobody.

In Sweden, when copayments were abandoned for children’s medical care, it the increase in outpatient visits was small but overwhelmingly from lower income families, and clear evidence of underuse of care was found in those low income brackets.

Now where’s your evidence that no genuinely ill people are deterred or delay seeking medical help in other countries?

France and Ireland are using them.

50million wasted GP visits a year at last estimate. At probably 100quid a visit. I would say that was considerable cost.

Anyway, as per my previous, I am out. Carry on.

LHS – Member
Why does no one propose a fee for going to the Doctors similar to what the French do? 15quid for a GP visit, 50quid for A&E, 250quid if you negligent (drunk etc).
I can’t see why anyone would disagree with this and the amount of unnecessary trips would be significantly reduced.

As someone who works as a nurse in Emergency Medicine I’d love to see the amount of people brought in drunk reduced but, if someone can’t consent to being brought to hospital (too drunk/unconscious), how could a hospital charge them £250 for attending?

Also, how drunk are we talking? Tipsy or steaming? What would be the legal definition, after all there would be legal challenges to such a charge (“I pay my taxes dontchaknow!”)

LHS » Why does no one propose a fee for going to the Doctors similar to what the French do? 15quid for a GP visit, 50quid for A&E, 250quid if you negligent (drunk etc).
I can’t see why anyone would disagree with this and the amount of unnecessary trips would be significantly reduced.

You’re not trying to solve the right problem there. You want people to stop *not* attending, not stop people attending altogether.

Probably best to fine those who don’t attend, rather than charge those who do.

you don’t get people phoning the fire service or visiting the police station for a chat.

You’ve not worked with emergency services, or are a regular news reader, are you?

“999: Someone stole my Snowman…”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-11908583

“999: Cold Kebabs, and rip-off prostitutes…”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35162700

A woman called to say she had bought a cold kebab and the shop would not replace it

Callers who missed their alarm and were going to be late for a flight wanted officers to take them to the airport

A woman who had seen a clown in London selling balloons for £5 each, which was much more than other clowns were charging

Callers in distress because their low fuel indicator light had come on
A man called to say his 50p coin was stuck in a washing machine at his local launderette and wanted police to retrieve it

A man who did not have change for a parking machine claimed staff at a car park had kidnapped him because they were refusing to let him out for free

A caller dialled 999 at 04:00 on a Saturday morning and asked: “Where is the best place to get a bacon sandwich right now?”

A man called 999 as he was advised to call 111 but did not know the number

A woman wanted police to deal with a couple of noisy foxes outside her home as they were preventing her from sleeping

A woman dialled 999 to say there were men in her house trying to take her away. The men in question were police officers who had come to arrest her

Let’s not forget the total waste of organs that call the fire brigade, just to try to either beat them up, set them on fire, or just generally abuse them.

What you are doing there is distracting from one issue with a another. I don’t think there were 51million unnecessary fire brigade call outs last year? If there are then yes we should apply the same methodology to that too.

Agree on the fines for not attending appointments.

EDIT: 45GBP for a 11minute GP visit so 2.2bn GBP on wasted trips
Missed appointments estimated at 200million GBP a year. so 2.4bn GBP in waste. (2% of annual NHS budget / an extra 12,000 doctors)

I’d love for an ambulance to cost the same or maybe £5 more than the cost of a taxi to ED. You’d see our workload halved almost overnight, with the remaining patients most likely being the sort that actually require ambulance assistance. Honestly, if the public knew just what the am I that they have just pulled over to let through a busy road was actually going to, they’d probably think twice about giving way!

But the ambulance service is NOT representative of the whole NHS. The complete waste of time users are deflected from costing the NHS a major fortune by a small army of paramedics, ED nurses and docs, and obviously GPs. The ones that get through to actual ongoing treatment, by and large need to be there.

What you are doing there is distracting from one issue with a another.

Nope. Just responding to your deflection.

A nominal fee that will make people think twice about going to the doctors because they have a sore throat. I

The problem with putting off people with a shoe throat is that you also put people off who’ve got rectal bleeding, which, believe it or not, your GP would really like to hear about. The problem with putting off people with a bit of a cough is that every so often the person with a cough has TB, or lung cancer, or something else you don’t really want to see 6 months too late.

As the NHS does pretty much next to nothing in terms of preventative medicine I think that is a pretty weak argument. The French and Ireland systems have not seen any correlation between people not going to the doctors with genuine concerns. Also the effective use of the phone system (111 is it) would not change.

Rectal bleeding believe it not has different symptoms than a sore throat. It is not that common to get rectal bleeding. A cough usually disappears in a week, if it is persistent for a few weeks you would go to the doctors.

Side note – a mate of mine was working in a GP practice in a deprived area of Doncaster and was really shocked by the late presentations he saw there. Rarely a week went by without someone coming in to tell him about their severe central crushing chest pain that they’d had constantly for a week or two now, or the fact that they’ve been weeing blood for the last six months and had just decided that it was probably not entirely normal.

As the NHS does pretty much next to nothing in terms of preventative medicine.

Well that ain’t right. All those statins and smoking cessation services don’t prescribe themselves you know.

The problem with putting people off…

Is an off quoted justification for ‘free at point of delivery’ healthcare, and has huge merit. BUT in today’s consumer society it does mean that in the eyes of a significant proportion of the population there seems to be no inherent ‘value’ ascribed to seeking medical attention*. People will literally not engage brain before seeing their GP, ringing 111 (and getting an ambulance because THAT service is mind bogglingly shite, in most areas) or just ringing an ambulance of attending ED.

Surely instead of saying that ‘free at point of delivery’ is completely sacrasanct (which it evidently isn’t, see; dentistry) maybe we could have a list of ‘core conditions’ that are free to see the appropriate service for, like chest pain, stroke, RTC etc, no charge from Ambo, but call us out to change your bedsheets (like last night) then no probs, the bill is in the post. Free to see your GP for almost anything, but decline to see the NP first when triaged as appropriate, well no probs, how about a contribution towards the cost of providing ten years of medical training at your beck and call.

I don’t know. I desperately BELIEVE in the NHS as an organisation and as a concept, but I despair as to the lack of value placed on it by large segments of society.

*All in my entirely anecdotal experience, of course. But a valid observation nonetheless, I can’t help but feel.

It is not that common to get rectal bleeding.

Agreed, but it is relatively common to delay going to see a doctor about it because of fear or embarrassment. Your 15 quid probably wouldn’t help neither.

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/clinical/prescribing/government-accused-of-letting-pharmaceutical-industry-dictate-drug-prices-and-nice-approvals/20009850.fullarticle

The French and Ireland systems have not seen any correlation between people not going to the doctors with genuine concerns

yes they did- I 100% guarantee their is correlational value there.

As the NHS does pretty much next to nothing in terms of preventative medicine

?
Statins
Breast screening
Smear test
Poo test
Sexual health clinics (seen a huge reduction in funding, lots of closures)
Etc

No doubt much more needs to be done but with the present funding and staffing crisis don’t see that changing much, and can’t see this cluster **** of a contract change doing anything good

Besides which the government transferred the responsibility for public health to local councils 2 years ago, ya know the local councils that have seen their biggest ever reductions in funding……

Meanwhile the government could’ve done what doctors have been asking for instead they caved to industry pressure on minimum alcohol pricing, traffic light labelling etc etc

But without compromise and willingness to address the issues, the NHS is doomed to failure, and no one wants that.

Agreed LHS and I’ve tried to out those sorts of points too but people here don’t want to listen. They are not open to seeing how health services are delivered elsewhere. It would be easy to refund GP fees to make visits for say OAPs, kids, financially or medically needy etc free.

In many respects you are right, trying to make these points is a waste of time and best not to bother

trying to make these points is a waste of time and best not to bother

Why not take your own advice instead of giving it to others?