ps i am not a liberal no cuts person, i quite like private healthcare, but you cant help being amazed by what expertise the NHS has, people come from all over the world to learn from our specialists.

They also come from all over the world to take advatage of free care they are not entitled to because many trusts have no proper invoicing or accounting proceedures or just can't be bothered to charge.
Not denying there are some great specialists, if you can ever get to see them on the NHS. Because they are effectively allowed to work on the black by taking private patients to suppliment their substantial NHS salaries, they always put paying patients first. The times I quoted are from personal experience with friends. In general hospitals are overstaffed and extremely poorly managed with far too many pen pushers.
 
They also come from all over the world to take advatage of free care they are not entitled to because many trusts have no proper invoicing or accounting proceedures or just can't be bothered to charge.
Not denying there are some great specialists, if you can ever get to see them on the NHS. Because they are effectively allowed to work on the black by taking private patients to suppliment their substantial NHS salaries, they always put paying patients first. The times I quoted are from personal experience with friends. In general hospitals are overstaffed and extremely poorly managed with far too many pen pushers.
my brother in law was told at least 6 months to see specialist about back problem so he went the private route only to be seen by same specialist within 4 days
 
My daughter a few years ago had a back problem and asked for a scan. She was told four to six weeks waiting list. This was on Thursday. She paid £250.0 for private scan and it was done on same scanner the Monday after. Something is wrong here.
 
my brother in law was told at least 6 months to see specialist about back problem so he went the private route only to be seen by same specialist within 4 days

I had the exact same experience. Consultants should either work for the NHS or the private sector, not both, their charges should be regulated as they are in France.
 
with the scanners they are a huge cost, (literaly unbelievable, from the item itself, to the training, the specialist room for it, and the fact they become outdated within a few years) and waiting lists are a huge problem, i obviously do not know your daughters case but the same scanner is used for everything from 6 month follow ups for cancer patients to immediate scans for strokes and trauma cases, so they have to prioritise its use, its never nice making patients wait to be assured about a problem but believe me if they thought it was something that needed immediate review she would have been their that week at the latest with the NHS (well definitely round here) the private work doesnt have to deal with the infinite expenditure of finite resources which is why it is done so soon and it is a shame

as for wages, yes consultants do earn well, but they deserve it. if you look at accountants, my friends have been paid through exams, have all their future training paid for and start on wages i can only dream of. im going to have £50k debt (only that small due to parents being able to help) will then work double the hours i am paid for make sure i am doing the best for my patients (we cant declare them due to eu work directives) and my exams to progress into surgery are £400 per written and £1000 per practical, which i cant claim for. if i have research that i get published and get to present it abroad, i cant ask for expenses, and i cant not go because i need to further my career. so yes consultants do earn well, but when you factor in the 25 years it takes do get there and the costs, plus the fact that before they even pick up a knife for private surgery the annual costs for insurance is £60k it puts things into perspective.

i personally love being in the hospital at night, as the only people there need to be there and are there to help patients. the nhs needs to stop bringing in cost cutting consultancy firms and let care providers allocate resources.
 
ps its just not possible to make consultants do one or the other, they are needed in the NHS to train the likes of me, junior doctors and registrars
 
So here goes, money in pounds ok; I move to the uk with my brit partner. I have my pension's and medical she has her pension from the nhs. our income is say about 35,000 we buy a house for about 150,000 no mortgage. buy 2 lr's and pay your vat on everthing. Where do we fix into your idea of taking advantage of the free health? And we don't take anyone's job. Just might create 1 or 2 jobs for someone?

How does that fit in with you all?:D:D:D:D

£150,000 wont get you fook all round here matey , if you like living with our asian brothers in a shoe box you may be ok
 
What you mean fett?:eek:

Think he maybe saying it's the land of Faggots. It's not though don't believe him. But if you ever visit certain parts of Brighton or Blackpool wear slip on shoes. It really is not a good idea to bend down to tie a shoe lace in those places.
 
They also come from all over the world to take advatage of free care they are not entitled to because many trusts have no proper invoicing or accounting proceedures or just can't be bothered to charge.
Not denying there are some great specialists, if you can ever get to see them on the NHS. Because they are effectively allowed to work on the black by taking private patients to suppliment their substantial NHS salaries, they always put paying patients first. The times I quoted are from personal experience with friends. In general hospitals are overstaffed and extremely poorly managed with far too many pen pushers.

That's the problem - Too many managers and levels of managers.

I couldn't believe how many managers there were running the local health care. This area has problems obtaining out-of-hours GP's, simply because they won't pay a reasonable amount out to the GP's for weekend and night time cover. Well I have a solution...:mil73:

I'm probably one of the few who think the NHS needs scrapping - Competition will create the need to slim these bloated organisations down at managerial level, and stop all this time wasting and pratting about from patients. I'd much rather pay a regulated insurance for my health care, knowing that my NI contributions and tax isn't being thrown away any more. And that's from someone who has been on the NHS operating table and has a NHS Doctor wife.:mad:
 
That's the problem - Too many managers and levels of managers.

I couldn't believe how many managers there were running the local health care. This area has problems obtaining out-of-hours GP's, simply because they won't pay a reasonable amount out to the GP's for weekend and night time cover. Well I have a solution...:mil73:

I'm probably one of the few who think the NHS needs scrapping - Competition will create the need to slim these bloated organisations down at managerial level, and stop all this time wasting and pratting about from patients. I'd much rather pay a regulated insurance for my health care, knowing that my NI contributions and tax isn't being thrown away any more. And that's from someone who has been on the NHS operating table and has a NHS Doctor wife.:mad:

The French system where you pay and get a percentage reimbursed seems pretty good:D
 
ps its just not possible to make consultants do one or the other, they are needed in the NHS to train the likes of me, junior doctors and registrars

There should be no question of one or the other, NHS or nothing. Here they all work in the system and either charge the approved scale which is mostly reimbursed to the patient or they can charge more then scale in which case only the scale charge is reimbursed. It's the patients choice, but no one is bumped off the state service in preference to a private patient.
 
The French system where you pay and get a percentage reimbursed seems pretty good:D

Being Dutch, I am a fav of the Dutch health system - one of the best in the world. The americans and other countries are, as we speak, studying it to learn from it and possibly introduce it.
 
ⓡⓤⓓⓨ;1506802 said:
Being Dutch, I am a fav of the Dutch health system - one of the best in the world. The americans and other countries are, as we speak, studying it to learn from it and possibly introduce it.

Sorry Rudy, the French system rates higher according to studies.:D
 
once semi privatised unless you can pay there will be inferior service as already in dental service,there no reason why nhs cant be run properly ,no one doing private work while working for nhs ,there would be less call for private work if nhs was run better so they would have less demand ,our gps seem more interseted in making money than what patients want ,a free market in this country would only lead to the greedy prospering and others loosing out
 
you could never do just a sole nhs, the nhs could not cope with it, private healthcare is an aid to the nhs, as we have discussed, you still pay national insurance even if you pay NI, I had a minor op through our private cover, my brother has had three major surgeries, but its still the nhs i rely on for a&e visits (suspected crushed testicle and taking various team mates for all sorts of breaks)

as for the cutting jobs, the problem is the ones in charge of 'resource allocation' are the ones that need to go, and they are not selfless, they do not stay 3 hours longer than paid so they can see a patients family to break the bad news themselves, they do not cancel any friday night plans because its just that bit too busy to leave the next team taking over on their own, so they obviously are not going to cut there own jobs, its that cycle that needs to be broken.

this will make you laugh, hospital i am placed in, a consultant was pulled up for having a 40% mortality (death) rate and grilled about it being so high. the idiots had not looked to see what his specialty was, medicine of the elderly, with most of his patients being under palliative car (end of life care!) the surgeon i was with said something must be wrong is that many are surviving! just shows what people trying to do the best for patients, such as WSLR's wife, are up against.
 

Similar threads