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alta-pete

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I've been tempted to start a discussion on this for a while but with BoJo's NI rise and a derailment on the Covid Thread, now seems apposite.

Over a number of years I have had direct interaction with the NHS at both beginning and end of life care and I found every experience of dealing with the staff involved to be equally humbling and awe inspiring, leaving me hugely grateful that we have such skilled professionals to look after us and our loved ones when things get to the genuine life and death stage. 

However, to me, the real problem area is the bit in the middle where I, as a consumer of their services, seem to made to feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. Now that I'm creaking into middle age, I am becoming more involved with our primary healthcare providers and, in my experience, I'd struggle to find a more disinterested bunch of jobsworths - and that was before Covid. I suspect this is because they are frankly jaded by dealing with a significant cohort of the general public (bad enough as a whole in their own right IMO) that is disproportionaletly made up of the geriatric population, malingerers, the addicted, the mentally unwell and other patients that they can never properly cure but just patch up and send home until they present themselves next time for more treatment, all the while being choked by chronic underfunding for such sectors of the commuity by a management that doesn't really understand the front line.

I am also fortunate enough to have private health insurance. How they are able to run the service they do for the money their customers pay in I also find equally astonighing. Equivalent to a phone contract or a modest dinner out, the monthly amount to take personal responsibilty of your own health seems a no-brainer to me. Is it because the NHS is free to all at the point of service that everyone feels entitled to use it and therefore overwhelm the system? Or should there be some sort of means tested arrangement? An annual limit on the services you can use?

Health is fully devolved to SG so I can't see that there can be a legitimate 'but Toarries' argument but I'm sure that won't stop some. And BoJo's NI rise actually directs further funding to our NHS beyond what we, as a Scottish population, are contributing through NI. And, of course, if SG are opposed to the NI increase, they have the power to shift PAYE rates to counter the total tax take from individuals. 

I know we have some health professionals on here, @Tynierose being prominently eloquent. Any views on how the PnBHS should be run?

 

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6 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

I am also fortunate enough to have private health insurance. How they are able to run the service they do for the money their customers pay in I also find equally astonighing. Equivalent to a phone contract or a modest dinner out, the monthly amount to take personal responsibilty of your own health seems a no-brainer to me. Is it because the NHS is free to all at the point of service that everyone feels entitled to use it and therefore overwhelm the system? Or should there be some sort of means tested arrangement? An annual limit on the services you can use?

Can you explain how an annual limit would work, because it sounds like the most bat-shit mental thing I've ever heard. 

And I know you don't want to hear any screeching about Tories but guilting folk into paying for their own privatised care is a pretty Tory attitude to have. "It's just the cost of a modest dinner out" - sound then, shouldn't be too hard for the government to cover the cost and let some poor fucker take his family out for a meal. As VT pointed out on the COVID thread, there should be no reason the government needs to raise NI to divert more funding if they stopped spending eye-watering sums on projects that a minority of people give a f**k about. 

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If you take the views of Facebook boomers and maws on board, the two biggest problems appear to be:

1. "Why can't I see my own GP IMMEDIATELY like in the old days"
2. Similar to 1, but because "wee Chelsi hus coughed twice this mornin"

Special mention too for the classic:
"Too many chiefs and no' enough Indians"

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2 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Can you explain how an annual limit would work, because it sounds like the most bat-shit mental thing I've ever heard. 

And I know you don't want to hear any screeching about Tories but guilting folk into paying for their own privatised care is a pretty Tory attitude to have. "It's just the cost of a modest dinner out" - sound then, shouldn't be too hard for the government to cover the cost and let some poor fucker take his family out for a meal. As VT pointed out on the COVID thread, there should be no reason the government needs to raise NI to divert more funding if they stopped spending eye-watering sums on projects that a minority of people give a f**k about. 

I can't but it's an idea that I'm fairly sure I'd seen mooted somewhere in the past so I was throwing it out there for discussion. But if you think 'that's the most bat-shit mental thing I've ever heard', I'd suggest you probably either need to get our more or, maybe more likely, turn down the hyperbole a wee touch? 

As for the cost of the dinner argument, of all the shite and tat that we consume every month, I find it slighly bemusing that a huge proportion of the population that can perfectly well afford it, instead choose to abdicate responsibility for their families' health to a system that is plainly creaking at the seams.

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8 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Can you explain how an annual limit would work, because it sounds like the most bat-shit mental thing I've ever heard. 

This! I've probably used up a lifetime limit in the past 5 years! 

I also have private health insurance but there is very little in the way of private consultants etc outwith Glasgow/Edinburgh/Aberdeen so this would have to be improved if you wanted more people to use their service. It would also take staff away from NHS work. My work pay the insurance premium and I pay an extra £20ish a month for my 2 children. 

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31 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

I am also fortunate enough to have private health insurance. How they are able to run the service they do for the money their customers pay in I also find equally astonighing. Equivalent to a phone contract or a modest dinner out, the monthly amount to take personal responsibilty of your own health seems a no-brainer to me.

Can't remember who, but somebody said they couldn't understand all the Irish emigration during the potato famine, if they could afford a transatlantic voyage surely they could afford to eat in a moderately priced restaurant. Probably a very bad man.

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Just now, welshbairn said:

Can't remember who, but somebody said they couldn't understand all the Irish emigration during the potato famine, if they could afford a transatlantic voyage surely they could afford to eat in a moderately priced restaurant. Probably a very bad man.

I was thinking it was quite an Alan Partridge statement when I was reading it.

The NHS seems like it needs a total overhaul. It also seems to be chronically understaffed - why is this?

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I'd imagine services are more stretched than ever due to our hugely unhealthy and aging population, before the impact of the pandemic ever hit. 

Pressure on the NHS would be much lower if more people lived healthier lifestyles or we culled everyone over age 70. Guessing the former is the more palatable option. 

Given the link between poverty and all manner of health problems like obesity if you tackle these root problems then you help the NHS in the process. 

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Just now, alta-pete said:

I can't but it's an idea that I'm fairly sure I'd seen mooted somewhere in the past so I was throwing it out there for discussion. But if you think 'that's the most bat-shit mental thing I've ever heard', I'd suggest you probably either need to get our more or, maybe more likely, turn down the hyperbole a wee touch? 

As for the cost of the dinner argument, of all the shite and tat that we consume every month, I find it slighly bemusing that a huge proportion of the population that can perfectly well afford it, instead choose to abdicate responsibility for their families' health to a system that is plainly creaking at the seams.

Well lets just offer up a scenario to see how bat-shit mental an annual limit on using health services might be; Mr Al Pete breaks his arm in January, catches a virus that requires hospital treatment in March, some swarf flicks off a machine at work and goes into his eye in June and eventually he has a heart attack in October, but sadly he's already used his limit on the previous 3 visits and thus the defibrillator gets packed away and Mr Al Pete perishes at the side of the road. Is this what you had in mind? Or would Al Pete be saved by the defibrillator and then hit with a financially crippling bill (with penalty charges for going over his health care limit, no doubt) that he needs to pay up the rest of his life?

As for the second paragraph, this is just you putting your own mindset on others. You feel people should pay for their own care and because you're able to do it you expect others to do the same. Plenty of people (I'd say an overwhelming majority) feel nobody in the country should be refused treatment based on how much money they can pay. 

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4 minutes ago, GiGi said:

I'd imagine services are more stretched than ever due to our hugely unhealthy and aging population, before the impact of the pandemic ever hit. 

Pressure on the NHS would be much lower if more people lived healthier lifestyles or we culled everyone over age 70. Guessing the former is the more palatable option. 

Given the link between poverty and all manner of health problems like obesity if you tackle these root problems then you help the NHS in the process. 

Double edged sword that, people with healthier lifestyles live longer and could end up needing more help over the years. I'm doing my bit for the NHS by drinking like a fish and smoking like a chimney.

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15 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Well lets just offer up a scenario to see how bat-shit mental an annual limit on using health services might be; Mr Al Pete breaks his arm in January, catches a virus that requires hospital treatment in March, some swarf flicks off a machine at work and goes into his eye in June and eventually he has a heart attack in October, but sadly he's already used his limit on the previous 3 visits and thus the defibrillator gets packed away and Mr Al Pete perishes at the side of the road. Is this what you had in mind? Or would Al Pete be saved by the defibrillator and then hit with a financially crippling bill (with penalty charges for going over his health care limit, no doubt) that he needs to pay up the rest of his life?

 

I think you're getting me mixed up with @Shandon Par chief..

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Law Stud once proposed everyone is given £10,000 a year that they can choose to either spend on their own medical treatment or whatever they want but if it ran out they would be denied medical treatment for that year.
Do we get to save up our 10k each year or do we all just have to have a really crazy week the last week in December each year?
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31 minutes ago, Day of the Lords said:

If you take the views of Facebook boomers and maws on board, the two biggest problems appear to be:

1. "Why can't I see my own GP IMMEDIATELY like in the old days"
2. Similar to 1, but because "wee Chelsi hus coughed twice this mornin"

Special mention too for the classic:
"Too many chiefs and no' enough Indians"
 

My wife was very ill recently. Our GP didn't really give a f**k. Went in to hospital and was told "you're a young woman. Go home and drink water". This was despite her being jaundiced.

We eventually managed to see an NHS specialist and he was fucking brilliant. She had to use an antibiotic for an eye condition which fucked her liver. Luckily the specialist is in the middle of doing a case study on this and is about to visit other hospitals in Scotlands major cities to make more doctors aware of how many people this is affecting. Co-amoxiclav is it's name. There's a small note about the damage it can cause the liver on the NHS website.

She ended up having to spend a week in hospital to get a biopsy but everything is fine now. Getting anyone to see her was a nightmare but once she did the staff were fantastic.

Funnily enough I had a look at my private healthcare myself and my partner are entitled to use through my place of work. I can imagine this costs a bit more than "a modest dinner out" and liver ailments of any kind are not a part of the plan. So even if you are paying for the healthcare than there's a decent chance you'll still be fucked.

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Law Studs £10k a year policy is great. If you assign that cash amount to every person in the UK (65m) then you would have an NHS budget of £650,000,000,000, around three times the current NHS budget. It would mean around two thirds of UKG spending would be on healthcare, moving closer to the inevitable end point of the British states sole purpose being to fund healthcare for its population of perpetually drunk obese idiots. 

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3 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Law Studs £10k a year policy is great. If you assign that cash amount to every person in the UK (65m) then you would have an NHS budget of £650,000,000,000, around three times the current NHS budget. It would mean around two thirds of UKG spending would be on healthcare, moving closer to the inevitable end point of the British states sole purpose being to fund healthcare for its population of perpetually drunk obese idiots. 

I might have the figure wrong. It was over a decade ago. I believe one part of his argument was that the amount he gave was what the NHS cost each individual Briton therefore he believed it was better for us to get that money direct and choose how we wanted to spend it. I dunno how you would accurately budget a health service and whether you would actively want people to get sick so you brought more dosh in but it was part of the wonderfully racist and lunatic mind he had. The OP's lazier "take charge of your own health" stuff doesn't hit the same. 

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52 minutes ago, Honest Saints Fan said:

This! I've probably used up a lifetime limit in the past 5 years! 

I also have private health insurance but there is very little in the way of private consultants etc outwith Glasgow/Edinburgh/Aberdeen so this would have to be improved if you wanted more people to use their service. It would also take staff away from NHS work. My work pay the insurance premium and I pay an extra £20ish a month for my 2 children. 

I wouldn't be far behind you, I'm probably using up somebody else's annual limit now.

The implant I get costs £400.00 I was told. I had 4 of them last year = £1,600.00, + 3 inhalers every month, I've no idea what they cost, (at least) 2 x-rays and a scan last year.

Prostate biopsy and MRI scan the year before.

Two prostate examinations, consultations with cancer nurse, oncologist and annual consultation with chest specialist.

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56 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Its almost as if those in charge of it for the past decade dont actually give a shit about it and would actually like to see it fail.

2011 - Nicola Sturgeon

2012 - Alex Neil

2014 - Shona Robison

2018 - Jeane Freeman

2021 - Humza Yousaf

 

Edit: I've probably used up my £10k allowance for this year with my 'free' prescriptions and the operation on my broken hip. Plus the ambulance and bed and board costs of the Wed-Fri stay at ARI.

Edited by Suspect Device
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