Streeting has made a big deal about revisiting GP availability and diverting money to it so that or 111 would need to come first.
Westminster Politics 2024-2029
- Thread starter Pexbo
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Streeting has made a big deal about revisiting GP availability and diverting money to it so that or 111 would need to come first.
We have to wait weeks to talk to a GP by phone. It's next to impossible to see one face to face.
It’s the gateway to the American model where big pharma is given the keys to exploit patients as cash cows.
I agree. Free At The Point of Service is the line that keeps us from moving to a private system. We can not move from that.
Wow, this says a lot.
Nah, that’s not true. Won’t happen in a country with a functional public health service. Something you really do need to worry about is a two tier service, where people who can afford it will pay private health insurance to avoid waiting lists, which takes the pressure off the public system and lets the government get away with less investment. I’d say that’s an imminent threat in the UK. If it’s not already happening. Baked in inequality in healthcare. And that’s what yer man in the video is saying he wants to prevent happening. So I’d say he’s got his priorities about right.
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Yup. Unfortunately under this labour government that's exactly what's going to happen. Centre right wing people masquerading as lefties will assure us that this is good for everyone involved and then 20 years from now people will be dying of totally preventable diseases because they cannot afford healthcare. It's so fecking predictable it's almost funny.
Private healthcare has always existed in Britain, what you're describing has been happening as long as the NHS has been around. It didn't stop the NHS being the most efficient health service in the world as recently as 2010.
Have you been to a dentist in the last 15 years? It's already here, 'in a country with a functional public health service'
I don’t live in the UK. Explain to me, how is seeing a dentist in the UK similar to seeing a doctor in the US?
Well, exactly. The way to stop people being forced to pay health insurance to get adequate healthcare is to make sure that the public system is as efficient as possible. One way to help make it more efficient is by gatekeeping emergency services, to make sure they’re used in genuine emergencies only. Which brings me back to the nominal fee for a&e visits (without a referral) There’s obviously a load of other things that need to be fixed in the NHS, I’m just saying that this particular red line is unnecessary.
Not unless we pay, instead we are encouraged to call 111 for out of hours service which is like a basic over the phone triage, they generally recommend going to A&E
Dentistry in the UK is effectively private now. You cannot get NHS appointments. They theoretically exist but they’re like unicorns.
Why dentistry was allowed to be privatised and considered separate to the NHS I have no idea.
The same has happened with optometry.
But the NHS has been around for almost 80 years and until austerity politics made shit of it, not many were complaining about the situation. New Labour began to privatise the NHS and swore that this would make it more efficient and a better service overall, guess how that went. I'm not going to sit here and listen to more neolib pricks (Wes Streeting in this case) tell me how privatising healthcare is good actually when it's demonstrably false.
I imagine that policing would result in a lot of deaths of people that need to visit A&E and decide they can’t afford it or misunderstand the process of getting a referral.
Because they were easy targets. It's the model for all healthcare in Britain since Thatcher took power. I think this Labour government will finally finish what she started.
That definitely hasn’t happened in Ireland, where we’ve had that system for decades. And I’m not suggesting you use the exact same system in the Uk. But I don’t think you should be permanently ruling out something similar. Because the NHS is completely fecked. So you need an open mind about solutions. And NHS doctors have been singling out free at point of use as a problem for a very long time, believe me. “Free at point of use = free at point of abuse”
It’s almost like people understand a system that has been around for decades vs a brand new system that is introduced and misunderstood?
Ah sure why change systems at all? People will get confused!
And die
Always worth reposting
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You should read Tony Benn's diaries - he talks about this alot and fought tooth and nail against it, but we had to start paying for Opticians, dentists and prescriptions as early as 1952 causing Nye Bevan to resign. When Wilson got in Benn wanted to overturn it, they abolished prescription charges but Benn writes, he was told they could not afford the others. The Wilson government then reintroduced prescription charges 3 years later due to cost and tried to introduce GP charges, but thankfully that was blocked. Thatcher got rid of the last free eye tests, though Blair reintroduced them for over 60s.
They're free in Scotland, as are prescriptions.
I was being glib but if you’re actually serious you’re really not thinking this through. The NHS is in deep shit. If you want to have even a slim chance of keeping it afloat you need to be open to changes in the way it is run and delivered. So people will need to be prepared for changes in the system regardless.
This is a bit misleading, lots of NHS doctors and staff are strong supporters of free at the point of use as I'm sure others point it out as a problem, there is not just one opinion.
I like Corbyn’s proposal that we create a national pharmaceutical company which makes all generic drugs and exports surpluses along with a research which can generate revenue.
It's means tested in the countries that do it. You pay then claim back. It works well.
Some form of co pay is going to be necessary and I don't know of any health systems that don't have it other than ours. The big European countries certainly do.
This policy was so much better than these red Tories' "reforms" that they shouldn't even be compared. A revolutionary policy that was thrown in the bin because the capitalist class couldn't have left wing policies being successfully implemented otherwise people might realise that neoliberalism is just one big scam.
Spending on generics is fairly trivial. They’re cheap as chips. Any savings made would be vastly outweighed by the enormous cost of building manufacturing plants and cold chain distribution networks from scratch. One of those ideas that sounds like genius to those who don’t really understand the issues involved. Classic Corbyn.
Just because other European countries do it it doesn't mean it is a good thing.
The Common wealth fund did a study to see the percentage of people put of accessing healthcare by charges.
Obviously the US came out on top with 37%, but France and Germany had 18 and 15% respectively, the UK had 4%.
Those percentages are going to represent the poorest and most vulnerable in any society, I'd prefer not to live in a country where the poorest arw afraid to access healthcare, we should be proud of the principle we have.
I get that with GPs, there isn't too much difficulty getting appointments where I live even though it's quite a deprived area, but for A&Es I'm not so sure. Mainly because the waiting times there are so massive, and someone triaged down as trivial would be waiting quite literally all day. I'm all for 'what works' rather than ideology bu I wonder if the benefits would be worth the bureauracy. I'd be interested to hear from any current A&E workers what they think.
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Can you explain this a little more to me? I loved that policy.
The problem in this country is that we treat every single issue as a volume dial, rather than a massive graphic equaliser.
You can spitball public health issues that push some of the controls up, with no real detriment to ‘Free at point of use’.
People it should always be 100% free for : Children, Pregnant Women, The unemployed, chronically ill people, people below the poverty line, pensioners. Probably some I’m forgetting. (And yes, I appreciate those cohort groups probably use GP’s most).
But you can means test payments for GP visits without conceding the whole system. If you’re aged 25-60 in full time employment, you could have tiered fees based on income. I’m talking small beer;
Earn less than £20k it’s £0.
£25-30k = £5.
£35-45k = £10
£45-60k = £15
£60-75k = £20
£75-90k = £25
£90k+ = £50
Slide those age ranges and fees around. Work something out. Maybe cap fees after 3 payments in a year.
We have something like 300 million visits per year. Half of those at £20 is only £3bn. Just raise some money through direct taxation. You don’t need to turn the massive volume dial to ensure that everyone pays a ‘fair’ share. Tax me double what other people pay. I see a GP once or twice a year. I earn money. I’ll pay. I don’t need a whole new Chancellor Budget to be ok with me paying more.
TAX people at point of use. Just in a few areas. It’s not some gateway drug for an American system. It’s a little pressure let out of the valve that will always cover its own increases in some way.
I'm suddenly pro-private healthcare now it if meant I didn't need to risk Pogue being my GP.
Generic drugs are cheap, much much cheaper than those drugs still under patent. Look at Ibruprofen for example, nurofen cost 5.80 where as Boots own brand is 1.70.
The money in pharmaceuticals is made on drugs under patent protection and companies charge outrageous prices for them. So I guess what Pogue is saying is that to set up that company, manufacture and distribute those generic drugs will cost more than the revenue you get for them internationally. The real scandal here is that companies are allowed to charge such high prices for drugs they have the patent for. I know people argue that Research etc is a pricey business, but maybe this should be the business of government rather than companies whose priority is making money for shareholders.
Interestingly the Kings Fund found that with prescriptions, the exemptions often end up cost more money as there are so many of them and the system is convoluted. They worked out that if you got rid of the exemptions instead of some paying 9.90, everyone would pay a standard 2.50.
Would you not say there is a reason that those generic drugs are still manufactured and sold within our capitalist system? Obviously the upfront costs of setting up the manufacturing facilities would be high but eventually it would turn a profit and provide great relief to the healthcare budget. We're talking about healthcare, we should be taking a long term approach to it, I feel a lot of people are becoming more and more short sighted.
Your last point about governments taking the reigns on research I believe was part of the same policy.