Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

** Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink **
A NHS funded entirely by tax is unsustainable and should go, the new
head of the Royal College of Surgeons says.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/h...th/4148114.stm >

Interesting theory and something I thought would/will happen eventually, unfortunately.

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

After working in the NHS for 12 years something has to bee done, the NHS is on its knees people who can afford to pay should and those that cannot get it free. I have friends in Australia and there they have a 2 tier system private and state funded, maybe that would work in the UK. But firstly they need to get rid of all the highly paid administrators who know their arse from their elbow then they may make progress. BTW I know Doctors in the NHS who would like it privitised.

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

I don't know about now, I've been gone a long time, but there were more admin people than doctors and nurses combined when I left. Of course if you fire half of them, you make the unemployment figure look bad.

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

Doesn't taxation already pay for the NHS, are you asking people to pay twice?
Whatever the problems with the NHS it's still better than the mess that exisits in the USA by a long way.

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

I concur. On both points.

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

:D I work as a registered nurse here in the USA I think the care received here is as good as in the UK screening for cancer is better here than in the UK as you do not have a postcode lottery s you have in the NHS beleive me I know this happens. The system in the USA is not perfect but any Doctor you speak to in the USA does not want the same mess here in the USA that exists in the NHS just ask yourself why so many Doctors and Nurses are leaving the NHS. The NHS desperatley needs a big overhaul and not so many hangers on. People in the USA who do not have insurance can have acess to healthcare it is called medicaid and medicare. If people in the UK have to eventually . pay for their healthcare then they should get tax breaks for doing so by taking some of the burdeon off the NHS

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

Dragonfly - That's a rather dubious statement in my opinion. I have been here less than a year and know of 2 US citizens who have been made either bankrupt and forced to sell their home , or had to re-mortgage their home, to pay medical bills. In both cases, they were temporarily uninsured due to adverse cicrumstances, after having paid insurance all their working lives.

The NHS no doubt needs a good sort-out, but in general the system is good, and has served the UK well enough for a long, long time. Naturally, wealthy surgeons and doctors will advocate private medicine - why wouldn't they?
It would become just another money-making business for them - as in the USA !

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

Still smarting over the $500 wart removal? I would be too.

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

what? don't be so ignorant :rolleyes:

If you think that every family who can't afford health insurance qualifies for Medicaid then you are living with blinkers on.

yes it's available for the very poor but what about the many people who just earn too much?...even $50 too much. Many middle class Americans fall in the ever widening dark place that exists between being too poor to afford health insurance and being too rich to receive any help........say what you want about the NHS but it doesn't make parents worry about how they're going to pay their bills while sitting with a child in hospital ..neither does it make people bankrupt.

how many American's just don't go to see the doctor when something is wrong just because they can't afford the bill? it's shameful... my family back in the U.k just find it hard to believe..America is supposed to be a world leader..yet many of it's citizens have no health insurance... :mad:

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

I wholeheartedly believe in the NHS system. I've, for the most part, had pretty good treatment and was quite thankful that I didn't get a huge bill at the end either. But, like all things (and as you said) it really does need a good clean-up. As things go, and after reading the article, I believe that it will eventually have to be subsidised by the users as well. I don't have all the answers, or suggestions. However, I can't see how the NHS can hold on to any kind of quality health care in this day and age without added cash. And of course, as we all know, the quality of NHS health care depends on what district you live in.

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

Hear, hear! :(

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

That is simply not true. There are millions of Americans who go untreated because they can't afford insurance and can't afford treatment...many of them children, which is a national disgrace IMO.

The NHS has always needed overhauling and there is always some doctor or other who thinks it ought to be privatised...but even Thatcher couldn't dismantle this one.

People in Uk often pay privately for treatment if they have to wait a while on NHS...but the supreme benefit of the institution is that EVERY person CAN get medical treatment...that should never ever be stopped.

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

My mother has worked in the NHS since she was 17 (she started as a cadet nurse) until she trained to be a RN she is now 52 in her 35 years of working for the NHS she has seen a lot of changes etc but if you were to sit and talk to her she would tell you there is nothing like the hospitals that were run by a Matron and her 2 assistants... hospitals were cleaner and more organist... now they have 30 or 40 people doing the job of 3!

Anyone can say what they like about the NHS but I would choose it anyday over the health system in the US.

Morgan Spurlock (the guy who did the show '30 days') could not have said it better... 'we don't have health care in the US, we have sick care'

Ash :)

Re: Top surgeon calls for NHS rethink
 

No! http://instagiber.net/smiliesdotcom/...ked/icon24.gif Don't do it! I was a nurse in the NHS for 13 years, and have been one in the USA for nearly 2. If the UK adopts the awful mess that is USA healthcare then I'm moving to Outer Mongolia! :rolleyes: