Is the NHS Now On a Downward Slippery Slope?

[rov1100]

Since the coalition took over running the NHS waiting times have increase, the 4 hour wait in A & E has been abandoned, and in todays newspaper scans are to be axed because of the cost. What is next on the list?

[Gromit]

Hand everything to GPs who will hire private firms at great expense, and instead of being a patient we all become a business opprtunity and potential profit.

[Sqad]

http://www.theanswerb.../Question1055155.html

Join that debate.

[rich47]

You should have qualified your posting with the note that you are referring to the NHS in England.
The coalition has no remit for the Scottish Health Service.

[modeller]

Yes it is but it is a slope that has been going on ever since its inception.
It started when everything was free and people stopped going into chemists and paying because they could get all there needs via the doctor. Cough syrup and pastilles, sticking plasters, cotton wool for their Christmas trees ,disinfectant, iodine , I knew one family got medicated soap because ordinary soap irritated their skin., so they said.
Right from the start it was badly organised and whenever a government tries to regulate it there are cries of protest. Now 60 years on we have the same basic problems.
It is abused at all levels e.g the consultants are allowed to work for the NHS and work privately which is wide open to abuse . We have a Nuffield Centre near us where the consultants have their private patients but if things go wrong in an operation they transfer their patients to the NHS
hospital and use their facilities. So the NHS have to pick up the pieces.
In addition many of these patients have in effect jumped the NHS queue.

[Sqad]

modeller......you and me again.

At the inception of the NHS it was seen the benefit the new health service to have it's consultants in the building and the private patients paid for their accommodation directly to the hospital and hence the hospital benefited.

Remember that private patients also paid their taxes and N.I ..in other words they were paying twice.

To have private patients one had to take a drop in salary and at the same time maintain the same workload and i just wonder how many trades unions would have accepted these terms of employment?

This sometime does happen that patients are transferred from Private Hospitals to "pick up the pieces" as you put it, but this is not as common as you may think.

The NHS is the largest public sector institution and is indeed open to abuse, which i agree does go on.

Queue jumping is wrong, but does go on......nobody is perfect and ther is huge waste in the NHS.

But again...what does one do about the NHS? My suggestions have been rubbished and my question to you on the same subject was rebutted. is perfect.

[emmie]

if we didn't have so many who abuse the system, and that includes people in the NHS, mismanagement on a grand scale, then perhaps it wouldn't be in the poor shape it is. Too many people, who demand ever more from a service than hasn't got the money to keep going.
Sqad will be in a better position i'm sure to give a blow by blow account of what's wrong in the NHS, as do others who work in it.
The idea of the NHS is great, but my heavens it needs a long overdue overhaul

[emmie]

sqad, sorry i didn't see you up there, apologies, i thought you would be well placed to make a case.

[Quizmonster]

When the NHS was being set up, doctors were, by and large, dead set against it. When Ny Bevan was asked how he had managed to get them to drop their objections, he replied, "I stuffed their mouths with gold." Sounds like they didn't really NEED a trade union to get the dosh!

[emmie]

it would appear that it is the Primary Care Trusts who have instigated this, if so, what has that got to do with the coalition.

[Sqad]

Quizmonster..I thought that the saying was "Stuff their pockets with Gold"....but you may well be right.

From it's inception it has always been the flagship of the Labour party and money has been injected however and whenever to keep it afloat.

Yes,Unions in the NHS was strong both for the medical and non-medical staff and in the early 70's I think Harold Wilson instructed to 2pay them what they want" when there was a threat of strike action over pay and terms of service.

I always call Barbara Castle, the founder of private practice in the NHS when in the 70's she removed all private patient beds from the hospitals and said " I will show doctors who is in charge" from that moment, Consultants got organized, borrowed money from the banks and bought and equipped suitable buildingd for private hospitals.

In the last Labour government Patricia Hewitt, then Secretary for Health offered the GP's a deal beyond their wildest dreams....more pay for less hours work.

Yes the NHS and Labour have been good to doctors...........?too good.

[sandyRoe]

The old Cottage hospital was good enough for our grandparents. Lady Almoners for the unwashed poor and others paying for their treatment.
And is there really any need for these new fangled products, anaesthetic, and the like?

[emmie]

Sqad, QM is correct, stuff their mouths with gold, and it worked.

[Sqad]

em thanks and Quizmonster I stand corrected.

sandy..;-)

[China Doll]

Handing it all to GP's is just the worst idea ever. For a previous speciaty I've worked for I've spoken to GP's who didn't even know what it was.... and we want to put them in charge? It's a traversty.

[modeller]

Thanks Sqad for your information on current practice. I didn't know the details of the consultants who do private work . I don't know what you mean by 'the same workload' but I do know two consultants who only work mornings for the NHS and one who only works on one day a week.

My neighbour's wife went to the Nuffield Centre for an operation and apparently there were complications for which the Nuffield was not equipped. She was then transferred to the NHS for the procedure and post op. care.
However according to my neighbour he only paid for the Nuffield part . The NHS picked up the tab for the remainder .
My snobbish Aunt always insisted 'going private ' but she told me when any extra expense was incurred her GP booked it to the NHS.

//Remember that private patients also paid their taxes and N.I ..in other words they were paying twice. //
I do know that but they are also getting the massive benefit of jumping the queue. I was told that I would have to wait 9 months for a hernia operation but I could have it next day if I went private. I paid rather than suffer for months. Immoral but money will always talk. I would do it again to save my family. What I didn't do was to expect the NHS to pay for any after care . I paid for that as well but the surgeon said I could have had it on the NHS. As I said earlier there is chronic abuse at all levels.

[Kromovaracun]

I don't think you can be on an -upward- slippery slope. I mean I suppose it might look like it's going upwards if you're at the bottom. But then you wouldn't be on it anymore.

[boxtops]

The Primary Care Trusts aren't instigating all these changes -they are being driven by the Department of Health, the PCTs don't have any choice in the matter.