colinthewarriormonkey wrote:Ralph wrote:Healthcare should be based on need not your ability to pay.
We should aspire to a system where the billionaire has the same access to healthcare as a penniless tramp.
If the ruling class were told they couldn’t use money to bypass problems in the NHS the funding would increase overnight.
That's mental, people going private pay into the NHS regardless of whether they have private medical insurance or not and by going private they are taking a burden off the NHS, so, therefore, poor people get treated quicker by the NHS because these "rich" people aren't taking up a place on the waiting list.
The vast majority of people with private healthcare aren't part of the ruling class.
Unless you are suggesting that as soon as you become an MP, you are no longer allowed to access private healthcare, so that you get an idea of what it is like to be part of the NHS system, in which case you have a point which I'd also extend to schooling.
I worked in the GMC Fitness to Practice division for about 2 years.
I can tell you that only severe and prolonged malpractice reaches FTP and many of those fall by the wayside.
A doctor, particularly a GP, can be neglectful, incompetent or out-of-date for years without detection.
I can tell you more if you like.
BTW there is far more chance of a poor doctor being detected in a hospital than elsewhere.
This thread was originally about a provider who knew a doctor was failing, and had failed to properly supervise him and to check he was insured. But worst of all then continued to recruit patients for him.
But as it's been widened let's deal with the idea that private medicine takes the load off the NHS
No it doesn't.
It does not provide A and E, acute care, chronic condition management , paediatrics, gerontology, and a long list of other disciplines it can't make money out of. That is left to the NHS which will never refuse but may not have the resource to help soon enough.
Why does it not have the resource?
Under-funding
Short-termism which doesn't work when you are building hospitals and training nurses and doctors.
Encouraging skilled EU nationals to leave the system.
And being poached by the private sector.
There is no sensible debate about medicine where there are scarce resources without having a moral dimension. To me, as a society, we should have an understanding that access to medicine, while it is limited, is based on need and urgency and not ability to pay.