Viewing 30 posts - 1 through 30 (of 30 total)
  • Hospitals to make profit abroad
  • anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    What are we to make of this, my first reaction is wtf is the government doing trying to improve services abroad and not focussing on this country.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19328105

    binners
    Full Member

    Globalisation innit?

    The idea is that they can charge top dollar/Euro/Dinar/Drogma/chicken/hamster/looted Nazi Gold to Johnny foreigner for the NHS’s legendary world class service, which we’ll export

    Meanwhile we’ll be paying top taxpayer funded dollar/pound to American Healthcare Corporations that Andrew Landsley and all his chums will be Non-Exec Directors for within 3 years. The ones that are now running the NHS

    glupton1976
    Free Member

    And they seem to forget that “world class” medical staf dont grow on trees. If everyone was “world class” they’d just be normal.

    Typical politicians trying to do healthcare baws.

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    ohnohesback
    Free Member

    That the govt would like hospitals to practice trading as a profit-making entity abroad before bringing that model back to the UK. Wot? No health funding? Why go private, you hospital! Don’t blame us if you don’t have the vision or the busninss acumen to make money from sick people!…

    fuzzhead
    Free Member

    “source close to Cameron” been smoking crack again? 😉

    Next policy idea to be floated will be to prove the Earth is flat

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    The best bit will be to see how far cliched sides will move away from the reality when debating this topic (a general observation not a STW specific one BTW! )

    Surprised to see that Moorfileds only makes 500k from Dubai. As the comments in the BBC report suggest, a mere drop in the ocean compared with the annual costs of running the NHS. I doubt that will prevent the story beig exaggerated well beyond the reality though.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    At least this knocks on the head, the arguments that the Olympic opening ceremony had a left-wing bias. Just some not-so-subliminal pre-launch advertising for this initiative!!

    Amazing how things are so often not what they seem at first 😉

    MSP
    Full Member

    Good work by THM jumping straight in and occupying the moral high ground, anyone else now having a view on this that differs from his is obviously biased and clichéd.

    alfabus
    Free Member

    my main problem with this, and all things ‘privatisation’y is this.

    WHY ARE HOSPITALS INTERESTED IN MAKING A PROFIT?

    see also trains, buses, councils etc.

    These are services, we pay for them through general taxation and receive services as and when we require. I don’t want them to make a profit, I want them to be good!

    Dave

    thekingisdead
    Free Member

    I’d like to know he who cannot be named opinion on this

    grum
    Free Member

    These are services, we pay for them through general taxation and receive services as and when we require. I don’t want them to make a profit, I want them to be good!

    Only things that make a profit are good, everyone knows that.

    alfabus
    Free Member

    Only things that make a profit are good, everyone knows that.

    like countries… which is another bugbear of mine. Why does everything have to be measured by economic growth? Why can’t we judge our success by how happy everyone is?

    Dave

    CaptJon
    Free Member

    But isn’t the NHS full of inefficient workers, managers obsessed with bureaucracy, and with under-equipped facilities?

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    If you are a specialty which does not have enough trade for want of a better word then to get extra income and practice seems like a good thing does it not. Not leaping onto the rent a doc plan just thnking outloud

    MrWoppit
    Free Member

    The population is ageing. And increasing. Resources are harder and more expensive to come by.

    The NHS needs to be rationalised and made more efficient. It also needs increased funding. All this needs to be done to maintain it’s founding ethos.

    People SERIOUSLY think it can all be done by taxation?

    Cloudland. Where the cuckoos live.

    toxicsoks
    Free Member

    TJ TO THE FOR……oh……

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Well MSP, sorry you feel that but that is not actually what I am doing. Just suggesting that this is a topic that is very likely to be hijacked by people who have strong pre-conceptions. Hence my choice of the future tense in my opening sentence.

    Not sure what to make of it, franklly MSP so can hardly be accused of being biased against others’ opinions. But it would be nice to see all the detail. There could well be merit in using private income (apparently) to invest in projects that fund public sector investment if that is indeed what could happen. This happens successfully in many areas of the economy now, in the past and in the future (possibly).

    So I hope that I am wrong and that a sensible debate can be had. But to biased for a moment, yes, I doubt that this will happen (from all sides) and also doubt that the level of perspective will be equal to the actual impact of the proposal.

    (and for the sake of clarity, the second post was a joke, albeit a weak one obviously)

    grum
    Free Member

    Oh look, THM accuses everyone else of being biased while supporting a government proposal. What a massive surprise.

    deviant
    Free Member

    Mr Woppit has it.

    The NHS is under greater strain as the years pass, an ageing population, rising obesity etc etc….money to run the services has to come from somewhere, central taxation is where the bulk comes from but there needs to be more and the general consensus among the electorate is that more tax is bad….an election loser in fact.

    If the NHS can raise funds abroad and bring the money back into the NHS in this country then i think thats a good idea actually.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    This thread is tantamount to cruelty, as toxicsoks observed.

    😉

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    Grum, I thought STW had recently reminded people to debate in a pleasant and non-personal way?That is obviously not what I am saying but in the interests of respecting STW’s very sensible guidelines, will leave it there.

    (quite deviant, but you have to be careful how you admit that)

    Farmer_John
    Free Member

    First off, it’s not a proposal from “cameron” but a proposal from UKTI and the DH – so it’s come from Civil Servants.

    The think tank Reform has made quite an interesting response in The Times arguing that the NHS must be open to healthcare ideas around the world:

    “England offers excellent healthcare in our best NHS university and specialist institutions, such as University Hospitals Birmingham and Great Ormond Street. The Department of Health and UKTI are to be commended for trying to get them to think big and sell their services in emerging global markets. Healthcare organisations around the world have a head start on doing this and we should certainly seek to catch up.

    “However, a little extra cash is not going to make a fundamental difference to the NHS and the more urgent need is not to export but to import. Around the world a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs is transforming healthcare for patients and defining global standards of what the best care looks like. On international comparisons of quality and efficiency the NHS does not fare very well. Only by being open to the best can the NHS hope to become to best.

    “We can learn from best practice in management. At the world-leading Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, data is published in real time, in every major disease area, on how patients are faring. The numbers are used to rank the staff on performance and to show them where they could improve. This creates the peer pressure which makes better doctors — if they’re not up to the job, they leave.

    “In the Spanish region of Valencia private companies run a quarter of the hospitals and primary care services. They cost 20 per cent less per patient than their state-run competitors, yet have maintained clinical quality. One IT system links the whole system, so even in their own homes patients can check the length of the queue for their GP.

    “Across the globe, patients are being given the tools to take charge of their own healthcare. Mexico boasts a sort of turbo-charged NHS Direct: $5 (£3.20) a month added to the phone bill allows patients to access Medicall Home’s doctors 24/7. Calls are answered within three seconds and nearly two thirds of callers have their health queries resolved over the phone. This is the kind of game-changing idea that could reduce pressure on our GPs.

    “The IMF says that rising government spending on healthcare is now the main risk to the budget balances of major countries. The next global industry is better, cheaper healthcare. In a world where trade barriers are tumbling and borders are opening up, we cannot afford to be protectionist.”

    globalti
    Free Member

    Er… are there any foreign-owned healthcare providers already established in the UK? I bet there are.

    I think it’s an excellent idea; British medical expertise is already widely respected in Anglophone countries and people who can afford to will travel to the UK for any serious matter; I have been involved in arranging operations for several of my African customers. So why not take British healthcare to them and earn revenue from it as well?

    It explains the bizarre and unexpected NHS advert at the Olympics. I bet the other sponsors are furious.

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    People SERIOUSLY think it can all be done by taxation?

    of course it can, we are a very rich country we would just need to be prepared to pay for it.

    kimbers
    Full Member

    All i see is profits before patients

    standard tory policy innit

    Peyote
    Free Member

    of course it can, we are a very rich country we would just need to be prepared to pay for it.

    That’s true, there’s a few arguments that the UK is a low tax/low spend economy. I’d be happy to change that…

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    So how exactly, does this proposal differ from NHS Global?

    Plenty of sources today giving quotes used by Burnham at the launch of NHS Global in 2010. On the face of it, they show a striking similarity to the concept outlined in the newspaper/BBC reports today.

    And yet, his (Burnham’s) argument on the lunchtime news is that the two ideas are very different in practice to the extent that the new proposal will not only increase patient waiting times but will fundamentally change the characteristic of the NHS.

    So how do we square this particular circle? What are the details that confirm these fundamental differences and do they matter? It seems some suggest that both should be attacked on principle ie, there is no fundamental difference. If this is the case, what have been the negative consequences of NHS Global?

    jfletch
    Free Member

    standard tory policy innit

    Ha Ha.

    This topic highlights all that is wrong with politics. This is actually a policy originally put forward by the labour party.

    So rather than proposing a policy that may have some mertits, debating the merits, maybe even testing the theory and then making an informed decision on what is best…

    …We have petty point scoring, name calling and a oposition for the sake of it mentality becuase “we can’t be seen to agree” default position. Mental.

    It can’t be coincidence that once things are judged as being above party politics, e.g. Olympic sport or broadcasting, they actually tend to work quite well.

    The BBC is a good example. One of the best broadcasters in the world but is publicly funded. We export this to the rest of the world via BBC worldwide and actually do quite well.

    Seems a farily logical thing to try this with health.

    mt
    Free Member

    alfabus – Member

    Only things that make a profit are good, everyone knows that.

    like countries… which is another bugbear of mine. Why does everything have to be measured by economic growth? Why can’t we judge our success by how happy everyone is?

    Dave

    Alfabus, what a nice chap you are. It’s because there would be nowt to moan about. This forum is specifically designed to make sure that the averagely up set has a place to go winge and moan. It stops them actually having to do anything. I offer myself as a prime example. Everyone else is really happy contented and enjoying life. It’s the same for those that Watch the BBC, as opposed to the happy people who are all have Sky. Or the Daily Mail/Guardian readers, all the contented folk are reading the Daily Star.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    I am little surprised that more detailed critiques of this have not been forthcoming especially given the strength of opposition (and the personal attacks above). Much of the press in the last 24 hours seems to be a regurgitation of press briefings and too early to have detailed consideration. Genuinely interested in details especially from practitioners to support student’s case study materials.

    To date, channel 4 news seems to have been at least broadly considered the pros and cons and made a stab at differences between this and NHS Global. If anyone is interested:

    http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-is-labour-right-about-the-commercialisation-of-the-nhs/11219

Viewing 30 posts - 1 through 30 (of 30 total)

The topic ‘Hospitals to make profit abroad’ is closed to new replies.