Nhs Identity Cards

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287531/British-citizens-forced-carry-ID-cards-access-free-NHS-care-crackdown-health-tourism.html

In view of the NHS being abused by health tourists, would the introduction of NHS membership ID cards be a good idea?

[sp1814]

em10

£10million a year.

Better than the £200million a year quoted by the Daily Mail.

Still very high though.

One has to wonder whether a computer system can be developed and rolled out that will cost less than that...

[anotheoldgit]

em10

Your main objection as regards ID cards seems to be that they could easily be forged, why haven't you said anything about my bank note referral?

As I have said before these are not widely forged surely.

Some are possibly forged but they are so difficult to be forged that the very small numbers that get through would not make much of a difference.

[Zeuhl]

aog

Banknotes are not personalised.
And therefore are transferable between people.

The cost of issuing a personalised 'entitlement' card, with anti-forgery features and maintaining the system would be a lot more than £10 million a year.

The usual government it system costs billions and still doesn't work properly

[sp1814]

AOG

Cards themselves can be forged, but we also have to consider the IT infrastructure which would bridge both the NHS systems and those used by the Immigration services. This is how forgeries would be trapped.

First, everyone in the country would have to be registered, and then the two systems would have to be 'bridged'. I work on systems like this for a private company, and without boring you with the details, it's a nightmare to implement successfully, because you have to take account of different database back-end solutions. Data from the two systems would have to be delivered, anonomized, secured, backed up, updated...the list goes on and on.

That is all prior to the system being built if course.

Here's what happened with a £3.8billion system implemented for the Department of Work and Pensions a few years ago:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/97853/U.K._government_hit_with_another_large_computer_failure

Can you imagine the furore if a hastily cobbled-together system like the one suggested for NHS ID cards were to suffer a similar failure?

Finally...should we not be listening to experts in the Health industry, both providers and managers, when it comes to resolving this issue...rather than MPs, whose primary objective is to staunch the flow of supporters leaving for UKIP?

[emmie]

the providers seem to be part of the problem, if they don't check whether the person who they see is actually entitled to treatment then surely that's part of the problem. I do know the banks have had some problems with the 50 quid notes, forgeries turning up, or being changed in shops and they have then been refused elsewhere as dodgy..

[Old_Geezer]

This thread still going on ? Gosh.

The main objection to ID card is that it isn't for the citizen to prove themselves to the State. The State should not have the cheek to consider demanding it is so. The State should justify itself to its citizens. (Never mind the issue of potential abuse from hostile governments of the future.)

We have no need for cards for the NHS because if we go to a hospital is is because there is a health issue that needs to be sorted immediate for humane reasons, so we make our way to A&E (or at least we would if uncaring authorities weren't trying to close them all down). Or we have been referred to the hospital by our GP, who knows us and the referral vouches for us.

It is our foreign visitors that have a need to prove themselves. A&E should be provided as needed since no one is daft enough to come miles across countries for something that needs immediate attention; so as a caring society we deal with it. For longer term health issues the visitor should be able to identify themselves and the cost claimed back from their government and themselves in the same proportions that would be the case were they getting treatment in their own country. No country should play Lady Bountiful for the world's sick.

[emmie]

OG, the state never asked the citizens if they wanted cctv 24/7, nor has it ever considered this is an intrusion on people and their lives.

[emmie]

the countries don't pay up when asked, that is also part of the problem.

[dave50]

Yes, the only way to stop health tourists is to turn them away at the hospital doors, no matter what is wrong with them. Only then will they get the message.

[emmie]

it won't happen.

[pdq1]

We cant even get the US to pay for parking fines by its diplomats.

[Zeuhl]

/Yes, the only way to stop health tourists is to turn them away at the hospital doors, no matter what is wrong with them. /

Doctors are prohibited from doing that by their professional oath

And I would hope that our Nurses would baulk at it too

So no, it won't happen.

[pdq1]

As a novel solution all immigrants should dip their finger into a dye thats impossible to remove. They do this in places like Iraq and Afghanistan when they vote. If turning up at a hospital with a dyed finger treatment would be refused.

[cassa333]

Far more money is wasted by missed appointments than health tourism.

It is far too easy to blame 'incomers' but tackle the waste and the apathy from uk citizens then the start on the rest.

[Zeuhl]

pdq

Are you sure our hospitals could cope with all the severed finger tip injuries?

[Zeuhl]

Cost for four years of 'health tourism' = £40 million
Cost for cocked up West Coast Line bid = £40 million

Perhaps we should demand Identity Cards for senior civil servants to confirm that they have basic project management skills?

[New Judge]

"Far more money is wasted by missed appointments than health tourism."

I doubt that's true because all a missed appointment means is that the clinic has a bit of time to catch up meaning later patients are seen only an hour and three quarters late instead of two hours.

However that aside, my wife and I between us have missed probably half a dozen hospital appointments in the past two or three years. These have been for various scans and checks. But I should add that we did not make them, we did not ask for them but were simply told they had been made for us. It was then left to us to cancel an appointment that we did not want, did not make but which were made for us unilaterally. We were not inclined to do so and I imagine those appointments form part of those said to have been "missed".

[anotheoldgit]

There seems some concerns regarding the UK grasping charges back from immigrants that don't pay-up.

That's an easy one, deduct the charges from the huge amount of aid these certain countries receive from the UK.

[emmie]

can you see the headlines now, UK takes back aid money, that doesn't look good does it.

[sp1814]

100th post.

There you go AOG.

A nice three figure thread.