Reply To: NHS – will it survive?

[summo]

The health service is broken.
It needs someone with the courage to admit this, and restart it.
It was designed many years ago when people’s lives were different and that wasn’t such a high population. If it were a profit making business, it would have gone bust.
The government. Can chuck money at it, but because it doesn’t have shareholders, and doesn’t have to justify – in the same way- where the money goes, much of it is wasted away from the front line imho.
Successive governments – Tory and labour- have failed to find a resolution, and I really hope Corbyn doesn’t get in, as he will almost certain make it even worse as he has no clear policy to protect it while making it efficient and modern.
Imho, there are too many people drawing on it, not enough contributing and those who do don’t contribute enough.
France has a system whereby they charge €5 for every appointment made, which is refunded if you turn up. I believe this has been a great success and saved a considerable sum of money.
New Zealand, I was told by a consult who had worked there, had a 2 tier system. Those who earned under a certain amount paid less, those who earned over paid extra, but were scooped out of the nhs and put into a private system, taking the strain off their nhs. However, many of the private and nhs hospitals shared the same sites and this meant sharing skill set and equipment and therefore saving money.
Nothing is perfect, but it’s time the dinosaur was overhauled.
Also, what annoys me, is that you don’t get the same service at different hospitals. If it were a profit making business, you would within reason.
I go to Moorfields eye hospital in London, a specialist hospital and they are perfect. They are also had training in “customer service” and you are treated as well as you are in the service industry. My local hospital is Stoke Mandeville and it’s the polar opposite of Moorfields. Again, it’s a specialist hospital, spinal and burns but with general wards and specialists attached. However, it seems unless you have a spinal or burn issue, the customer service is minimal, has a high staff turnover and it’s somewhere I have been worried about coming out alive from.
They should be the same, but are not. Why? Because th8gns aren’t implemented NHs wide, good practices are rarely shared and people are still afraid to complain for fear of retribution.