Raising Money for Hospital Equipment / Child Illness

paulofessex

I just cannot get my head around why it is that hospitals rely on donations of equipment, i.e. incubators for the baby units, electric beds to prevent bed sores etc. Surely if such equipment is required it should come out of the hospitals budgets, yes ultimately we would still be paying via our taxes but l for one object that the money raised by the WRVS within the hospitals goes on such equipment, sometimes life saving equipment. By donating such equipment is it not covering up the issue that more funds are required via the government?
Surely the hospitals need to manage their budgets better, get rid of a lot of the management structures and use that money on the vital equipment.
Perhaps the donations would be better spent buying items that would make patients and visitors more comfortable, seating areas for example.
This also leads me onto my next rant….why oh why should we be raising money for these children that have to go to America etc for life saving surgery…..if a child needs the operation the costs should be covered by the NHS.
Am l wrong?, am l missing something here? Like l say l really can’t get my head around this one.

paulofessex

mspig wrote: »

When you have a child that needs life saving medication/equipment etc you will be very grateful for the donations and the fact that so many people do give their hard earned cash etc to help your child.

That goes without saying, and as a parent l agree with you on your comment, however l still maintain that fund raising shouldnt be the answer, if it means our taxes go up so beit in my view.

Ivory_Tinkler

I think it's disgraceful that money has to be raised to fund hospices and as you say, buy necessary equipment for hospitals while the government can bail out our banks who in turn, pay themselves big fat bonuses.

mustrum_ridcully

paulofessex wrote: »

I just cannot get my head around why it is that hospitals rely on donations of equipment, i.e. incubators for the baby units, electric beds to prevent bed sores etc. Surely if such equipment is required it should come out of the hospitals budgets, yes ultimately we would still be paying via our taxes but l for one object that the money raised by the WRVS within the hospitals goes on such equipment, sometimes life saving equipment. By donating such equipment is it not covering up the issue that more funds are required via the government?
Surely the hospitals need to manage their budgets better, get rid of a lot of the management structures and use that money on the vital equipment.
Perhaps the donations would be better spent buying items that would make patients and visitors more comfortable, seating areas for example.
This also leads me onto my next rant….why oh why should we be raising money for these children that have to go to America etc for life saving surgery…..if a child needs the operation the costs should be covered by the NHS.
Am l wrong?, am l missing something here? Like l say l really can’t get my head around this one.

It's pretty simple. People want everything and they don't want to pay for it (perhaps that's a bit too strong a statement but it pretty much describes the situation).

The cost of healthcare provision in the USA is TWICE that of the UK (16% GDP vs 8.4% GDP).

So there is more money to spend on advanced treatments for those who can pay, despite this infant mortality in the USA is worse than in England and Wales and is equivanlent to that in Poland http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db09.pdf and life expectancy is worse (USA 78.1 vs UK 79.1).

I wonder how many Americans have to have similar appeals to take advantage of what is available in their own country?

Meritaten_2

Seems to me that Americans are obsessed with health and medicine, and think the two go together. their doctors are also obsessed - with covering their a!ses. so they perform more tests using more sophisticated machinery more often than our own doctors. their system is based on insurance payed health care.
our system is based on everyone in employment paying for a free at point of use system. fine if most of the employable are employed! this means that for every person who may need healthcare here - the resources dont always meet the need. but, the increase since the sixties of managers and administrators has drained the NHS of much needed funds. oldies like me remember when even large hospitals had more nurses and doctors than admin staff. oh and they had cleaners too. and SENs who did most of the nursing. now they have SRNs who wouldnt dream of giving a bed bath (even if they knew how to do it) and wonder why hospitals are rife with infections?
as for equipment - most hospitals know that if they beg for a new peice of equipment - the way to get it is by fundraising.

jdturk

paulofessex wrote: »

That goes without saying, and as a parent l agree with you on your comment, however l still maintain that fund raising shouldnt be the answer, if it means our taxes go up so beit in my view.

A budget only goes so far and ultimately if the taxpayer paid for everything there would still be something else that would be needed and then the fundraisers would raise the money for it

solodanceparty

mustrum_ridcully wrote: »

I wonder how many Americans have to have similar appeals to take advantage of what is available in their own country?

You get what the insurance company offers, if they don't offer you pay or go without. Your insurance company tells your doctor what treatments you can and can't get, what meds you can and can't get. They dictate your doctors.

So, for example. If you have severe depression and you need to see a psychiatrist, and your insurance doesn't cover mental health, you don't see the psychiatrist, unless you pay out of pocket. Or, say your insurance does cover mental health, but you may have to pay something like 30% of the cost. Psychiatrists are not cheap. So, say it's $100 per hour. Plus, if they prescribe you, you have to think about the cost of that as well. So, let's say you have 10 sessions with this doctor, that's $1,000, so either you pay the full amount or $300, plus medication.

Or, if you need to visit the ER. If you aren't admitted, with some plans you pay $100 per visit. If you are admitted you could pay 30% of the cost. So, if your stay costs $3,000, you have to pay $900.

It's not always 30%, could be more, could be less. It's between 20% and 40%, depending on how much you pay a month. You could pay $300 a month for your plan and still have to pay 20%.

Imagine if you needed say, a heart transplant and your plan doesn't cover it, or only covers part of it, you're in trouble. A new heart will cost you about $148,000 (http://www.chfpatients.com/tx/transplant.htm).

Now, I'm not saying all healthcare plans are like this, but too many of them are.

Sorry to go on.. But you are all very lucky to have the NHS.

VfM4meplse

paulofessex wrote: »

I just cannot get my head around why it is that hospitals rely on donations of equipment, i.e. incubators for the baby units, electric beds to prevent bed sores etc. Surely if such equipment is required it should come out of the hospitals budgets, yes ultimately we would still be paying via our taxes but l for one object that the money raised by the WRVS within the hospitals goes on such equipment, sometimes life saving equipment. By donating such equipment is it not covering up the issue that more funds are required via the government?

As a clinician and NHS manager I couldn't agree more with this sentiment, charitable donations should be spent on desirables rather than necessities and on that basis my own donations to health charities are limited to research (academic research is funded on the basis of who screams the loudest rather than any merit). There are always economies to be made in the NHS and the sad fact is that many service managers do not apply appropriate scrutiny to their budgets.

The biggest waste of money is the PCT allocations to voluntary services that are run by the enthusiastic amateurs with no structured means of spending the money, nor measurable outcomes. They call this "engaging with the community" but I would argue that this can be done without spending on frivolities. :mad:

paulofessex wrote: »

This also leads me onto my next rant….why oh why should we be raising money for these children that have to go to America etc for life saving surgery…..if a child needs the operation the costs should be covered by the NHS.
Am l wrong?, am l missing something here? Like l say l really can’t get my head around this one.

Raising money for treatments abroad is completely inapproproiate. The NHS will fund treatments that are appropriate, cost-effective and affordable either routinely or through an individula funding request. Patients need only ever self-fund if the health benefit of an intervention is of marginal benefit / the cost of treating an individual means that other services with wider population benefits are sacrificed.

pmduk

When did the law change? for many years after 1948 it was illegal for the NHS to accept donations for equipment/running costs.

katiepatie

i thought these donations for equipment were normally used to replace older (not the lastest model) equipment, not to bring in more medical equipment, because surely that would cause issues with staffing/space/maintance costs, which would really cause the managers endless meetings lol.
Am more confused by the budget for IT systems in the NHS!! no one seemed able to access my notes until after 2pm because the system was down 'due to essential maintenance':mad:

Mankysteve

VfM4meplse wrote: »

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Raising money for treatments abroad is completely inapproproiate. The NHS will fund treatments that are appropriate, cost-effective and affordable either routinely or through an individula funding request. Patients need only ever self-fund if the health benefit of an intervention is of marginal benefit / the cost of treating an individual means that other services with wider population benefits are sacrificed.

I would agree. I also suspect that a lot of these treatment are down right dangerous.