Axe falls on NHS services

stonethrower

carolt wrote: »

No, I'm afraid I don't remember post office telephones - before I was born, I assume?
I don't object to the profit motive in an ideological sense - if I thought it worked, I'd support it.

I am just aware that, for example, trains are far more expensive and less efficient than before they were privatised. For example.

And your doctors perform well on their 100K or whatever it is, even though in a fully private system they could earn far more.

I think the problem with a private system isn't just that the greed of individuals is given free rein, it's that at its heart, the reason d'etre of the service is profit, not service. I've seen things happen in the private education system that would never happen in the state education system - because the priority there ultimately isn't education, or the welfare of children, but bums on seats. Profits. True but sad.

You jest about the trains they poor now but a disgrace before privatisation

StevieJ

carolt wrote: »

So where's it going, then?

Don't know, answers on a postcard

princeofpounds

Feel free to try to change my mind here - any more examples?

Well I wasn't trying to totally change your mind. I suppose I'd just add that the profit motive is also the incentive to be efficient, which is critical to routine and operational administration.

Of course efficiency can be both nice and nasty, usually both at the same time. It's never nice to cut a job when it is no longer necessary, but even if (say) 50% of that goes into profits for shareholders, if another 50% goes into reinvestment for jobs or facilities that ARE necessary (and shareholders will always reinvest to support and grow their business if they can make a return on that investment) that is a great thing. Better part of a £ goes to something useful than the whole pound going to something useless.

The crucial (but often difficult) thing is to make sure that the shareholders are incentivised to deliver what the public wants (as consumers and/or taxpaying voters).

If the incentives are aligned the shareholders, the profit motive, and most importantly the discipline and investment capital they bring with them, become servants of the customer's requirements as much as profiteers. I'm not going to pretend that's always easy though!

Generali

carolt wrote: »

you did deliberately choose to misinterpet my point,

Genuinely I didn't. If you use the word 'democracy' (meaning rule by the people or the strength of the people depending on your interpretation) to describe the NHS then it's quite possible I won't have a clue what you're on about because you're not making sense!

carolt wrote: »

As I said, we obviously differ in what we call top-notch. I didn't go into hospital to give birth worrying about whether or not I'd have to share a ward - what mattered to me was the quality of the medical care, not the 'hotel-style' services. If I'd wanted to pay more for a private room, BTW, that option was open to me - but I didn't because I couldn't have cared less.

You said:

I had to share cramped wards with loads of other mothers and their screaming infants

Not "I shared a ward" or "We were in a ward" but "I had to share...". The implication is one of a degree of minor suffering.

If you want to be understood then you should try to be more precise with your language. Why do you think you get into these arguments with posters over what you think you said and what they think you said?

RenovationMan

Generali wrote: »

I'm glad you've had a good experience of the NHS.

The thing I've found is that the paid for by patients health services mean everyone (or near as dammit) gets a much higher level of provision than under the NHS.

It seems a little odd to me that you would deliberately take a pay cut in order to use state provision. Some British people seem to have a bit of a 'hair shirt' attitude to health and education provision.

It's hard to go off your own personal experience of health care unless you're a health professional. I'm cartainly not one and so can only speak from the limited personal experience I have and I'm assuming you're the same. It seems that you have had good experience of private health care and so have I, personally, but I have also seen the bad side where you may have not. I dont see how you can state so categorically that everyone (or near as dammit) gets a much higher level of care, based on such a small amount of personal experience. However, I'm not going to argue about it as it's all highly subjective anyway.

I didn't take a pay cut, I just didnt accept a benefit. They're not the same thing, my pay packet remained unaltered by my decision not to sign up for BUPA.

The 'hair shirt' remark is a bit snidey and I refer you back to your own comment to a different contributor.

kabayiri

We need a system which encourages people to value the service they get.

We benefitted from one cycle of IVF. After that, we had to pay for the treatment and drugs ourselves. In one case, this involved costly travel across the country to take part in a drugs trial.

Still, we were immensely fortunate to see success.

If people ask where the nice executive saloon is, I can point to the 2 kids and say that's where we spent the money.

Should we pay? Of course we should. It's our choice to have children.

Should there be a system to allow us to pay over a period of time? I think so, the tax credit system Generali talks about seems a plausible approach.

Generali

RenovationMan wrote: »

The 'hair shirt' remark is a bit snidey and I refer you back to your own comment to a different contributor.

The 'hair shirt' comment isn't meant to be snide. To clarify, there seems to be a strain of British (and Australian) culture where people chose the mediocre over the good and revel in not having something better.

carolt

Generali wrote: »

Genuinely I didn't. If you use the word 'democracy' (meaning rule by the people or the strength of the people depending on your interpretation) to describe the NHS then it's quite possible I won't have a clue what you're on about because you're not making sense!



You said:

Not "I shared a ward" or "We were in a ward" but "I had to share...". The implication is one of a degree of minor suffering.

If you want to be understood then you should try to be more precise with your language. Why do you think you get into these arguments with posters over what you think you said and what they think you said?

I think we both know why I get into arguments with posters nitpicking over choice of words and that it has nothing to do with the choice of words but a way of trying to avoid discussing the content, where that involves house prices falling (which in my case it frequently does).

Again, I suspect your innate dislike for my political views may have clouded your head on this; I agree my language was not 100% clear, but I think the meaning in context was not terribly hard to ascertain.

Re the 'had to share', obviously I'd love 5 star facilities as well as great medical care, but accept that it is not the duty of the public purse to provide that.

StevieJ

I understood what you meant Carol, don't let them bully you I think Gen has stated in the past that anyone who has remotely left wing views and is over 30 is not a full hit :eek:

carolt

Off topic, but it is funny that, isn't it?

I have a lot of respect for Gen and indeed my dad who usually votes Tory, and posters like Nick Mason, who is a Tory councillor. Yet it's odd how politics can divide us. Gen strangely often comes across as more partisan than Nick does, even though Nick does it for a living.

And although I'd call myself left-wing, I definitely have views that would be regarded as extremely out of favour with the Labour party, old or new (I'm a big fan of grammar schools, for example).

I think thinking outside the political straitjacket can be a good exercise for all of us.