British Health Care - NHS

Difficult choice. I wouldn't like to see the whole NHS go the way that the dental service has with people having to resort to self-treatment because they can't afford to pay. I wonder if independant businesses would be more costly to the consumer? I think the health service, like education needs to reassess how the funding is spent and cut back on admin. A lot of the services are not run in the most cost-effective way and there is an incredible amount of waste. This seems to be particularly true of services which have been contracted out. When you make these things means tested, there is always seems to be a 'middle' group who end up worse off by virtue of the fact that they go to work. Sorry, this isn't really what you asked - I think I'd fall on the side of the NHS but it does need changes.(Are you actually in Suffolk or a long distance supporter BTW)

This is a timely discussion for me. I've just finished doing a couple of days temporary work in the outpatients' contact centre at a hospital. The computer system that they use for booking appointments has been down since early last week, and they don't expect it to be fixed till next week. The staff there are writing down details of phone calls on forms which will be dealt with at some point - no-one seems to know when. And form letters are still being generated to inform people of upcoming appointments. In the case of appointments that are tomorrow or the day after, they've had to deliver the letters by taxi today to make sure they're received on time. I thinks something like two or three dozen letters were sent out today in this way, in at least four different taxis to different areas of Bury, Oldham and Manchester. Who can say what the cost to the taxpayer is? The point is, I just don't see that happening in the private sector. If a hospital was run by the same people who owned it, they'd get the problem fixed as quickly as possible, because it would be their money at stake. I think the NHS - along with the rest of the welfare state - was a tragic mistake, and we need to move to a system based on private medicine, insurance, co-operative health societies, charity etc. Of course getting from here to there is going to be a big, complex job.