£25 to see the Doctor?

moneyistooshorttomention

lostinrates wrote: »

Even this is problematic.


Last year when I first lost my sight I decided simply to get dressed ( I was naked) because nothing hurt, but I thought it would be less awful to be dressed if something did happen :eek::D.

When the sight started going repeatedly the go said to call for an ambulance if it happened put of hours. When I did this and explained the problem 99 9 said they were not a taxi service and I should make my own way to a and e. ( impossible for someone rural totally new to having no sight with no back up whatsoever ever...too far by far for a taxi, and no way to find a taxi number really)

An out of hours doctor making house calls or at a local community hospital not the nearest city ( we are in a rural area) would have made a big difference.

A case in point of exactly why its so scarey not to have a decent out-of-hours doctor service. I know, as a single person, I worry about how to get the care I need if an emergency situation arises (and I currently live in a city).

Graham_Devon

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Yes but the pre-NHS era was a time when you had to self fund all health treatment, not just pay a small access charge whilst the government picked up the vast majority of the costs so your comparison isn't really valid to my mind. What is valid is the fact that almost every developer country in the world manages to run a health care system which involves a mixture of public and private provision and which requires users to pay some charges themselves (often recoverable later). Many of these systems produce better healthcare outcomes than the NHS does.

Whenever anyone suggests reforming the NHS in any way it sparks a load of scaremongering about how we'll all be dying in the streets whilst rich businessmen make huge profits at the expense of our life expectancy. There doesn't really seem to be a whole lot of evidence to support such scaremongering given that many other countries have better healthcare than we do using systems which are precisely what people in this country seem to be terrified of.

I don't think there would be much harm in charging people a Tenner to see a GP as long as they put a ceiling in place for how much you could be charged in any one year to say £50 and it might remove some of the strain on the NHS leading to better health care outcomes for everyone.

The strange thing about the NHS is that a lot of it is private anyway.

GPs? Private, profit making entities and always have been.

Consultants? Many are private, self employed individuals. Not sure on the numbers, but I wouldn't mind betting a good 30-40% are private contractors supplying a service to the NHS. Hence why you see the same consultant in an NHS bed that you do when you pop down the local BUPA hospital.

The whole IT system is run on prvate entitiy systems.

It's only the core hospital staff and hospital employed doctors, nurses and consultants that are NHS provided. Indeed, in many cases these people are declining in numbers with private companies providing staff to the NHS.

Lots of counselling services are private too.

All the NHS is doing in a lot of cases is paying your fee on your behalf. That's now unsustainable considering how much people take it for granted and how much wastage there is by people who take it simply because it's free and therefore doesn't really concern them.

A study was done on customised medical equipment....over 50% of it is in cupboards. Medication? Millions upon millions of boxes of medication taken because it's free to the customer sitting on shelves in cupboards.

The only way to get people to stop this wastage is to start charging for it unfortunately.

Imagine if Milk were free in supermarkets....people would be all over it taking what they don't need. Essentially that's wht we have in the NHS. People need some of it, but will take whatever else is offered too in many cases.

Errata

The puzzling thing in all this is that people are visiting their GP twice as often each year as they did just a few years ago. I doubt the nation as a whole is becoming twice as sick and diseased as it was.

GoldenShadow

Errata wrote: »

The puzzling thing in all this is that people are visiting their GP twice as often each year as they did just a few years ago. I doubt the nation as a whole is becoming twice as sick and diseased as it was.

We do have a growing (ageing) population. I do think some people will time waste but I think the consequences on the vulnerable are too significant to get shot of the time wasters.

Mojisola

Paying for an appointment will change the relationship between the GP and the patient. If their GP doesn't look properly at them, rushes through an appointment, doesn't seem to listen properly or just tells them to come back again in a couple of weeks if things don't improve might lead people to moan a bit now - if that happens when they've paid upfront for the appointment, they are going to be complaining directly to the surgery.

grizzly1911

Mojisola wrote: »

Paying for an appointment will change the relationship between the GP and the patient. If their GP doesn't look properly at them, rushes through an appointment, doesn't seem to listen properly or just tells them to come back again in a couple of weeks if things don't improve might lead people to moan a bit now - if that happens when they've paid upfront for the appointment, they are going to be complaining directly to the surgery.

Said surgery will probably black list them (if they are allowed to) rather than have a non compliant "patient".

Either that or we end up with something like a bank ombudsman scheme, for complaints, that costs a fortune to run and gets swamped.

N1AK

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Even this idea of £25 per GP visit would 'only' raise £1b of revenue - 1% of the NHS budget

The point, as I understand it, isn't that the fee is going to fund the NHS but instead that it would discourage 'time-wasters' and thus decrease waiting times for appointments.

It would work, in the sense that many 'pointless' appointments would not get booked, however it would have other negative consequences such as diverting people to A&E or delaying seeking treatment until later stages.

The problem is that if you have a system where what we should really do is charge people for making wasteful appointments. However, how do you define wasteful? People might not book appointments that they did actually need for fear of fining and who really wants a system where a lonely elderly person who books more appointments than they need is labelled a money-waster and fined? Plus, we know doctors hate being asked to 'police' use of their service so won't start deciding who is wasting time willingly.

The issue needs sorting, however I'm not sure this is the best solution.

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Said surgery will probably black list them (if they are allowed to) rather than have a non compliant "patient".

Either that or we end up with something like a bank ombudsman scheme, for complaints, that costs a fortune to run and gets swamped.

Or standards might rise.

If a GP is fobbing someone off it hardly matters whether the service is 'free' or costs £25 - it's not acceptable.

N1AK

Errata wrote: »

The puzzling thing in all this is that people are visiting their GP twice as often each year as they did just a few years ago. I doubt the nation as a whole is becoming twice as sick and diseased as it was.

Can you give us a source for those figures? Depending on the time frame we're discussing the change could be largely down to the changing age demographics and increase in treatments for chronic conditions. Additionally I know our local surgery has a habit of seeing people multiple times for things that could theoretically be done in one visit if the doctor (or support staff) had the time; the total treatment hasn't changed but it would take place over 2-3 appointments rather than 1.

grizzly1911

wotsthat wrote: »

Or standards might rise.

If a GP is fobbing someone off it hardly matters whether the service is 'free' or costs £25 - it's not acceptable.

Depends if the problem is with the GPs.

People expect too much these days and instead of taking a reasoned approach often go into rant mode without thinking why, what if etc.

There is already a complaints system.

Not just confined to GPs.