Not going to be personal and ask what your particular scare was but our PCT runs a 2 week cancer referral system, don't know if that is National though which doesn't seem too bad to me.  In reality you are generally seen at the next clinic run by the relevant consultant which would usually be within the week.

But isn't that one of the problem with the NHS - it is inconsistant and has different waiting times across the country? Postcode lottery!

I don't know. I thought it was a Government initiative, I know Tony made noises about the subject.  I suppose the price to be paid for local governance is some national differences but then the benefits are better response to local needs. 

Whilst i see your point, I have to say that not all areas are the same. i found a 'lump' in my breast, saw my GP the day I called to make the appointment, (squezed in) 3 days later I was having my mamogram and had the results that day, with a follow-up appt in 3 months just to be on the safe side. There have been other health issues for me, and I have always been refered and seen within a short time scale. I keep my fingers crossed that this will always be the case, as I can't afford private care at present.

Compulsory health insurance? :(

No, what I actually said was: >OK, so let those of us who want exclusive private healthcare opt out of the NHS

Fine - but when someone's found lying at the side of the road, how will anyone know whether they've opted out or not? Whether to call an NHS ambulance or a private one - because if an NHS one is called out to an opt-out victim it then can't respond to an opt-in one ...

OOooooh yes they can, if they pitch the posh one out on the kerb ;) :D :D
and tell them to get a taxi! :p :D :D

As I said, NHS ambulances would be used and then claimed back off the persons insurance.
I fail to see your problem with it - surely its a win win situation for the NHS.

Don't get me wrong, people are at liberty to spend their money how they want - if they want private healthcare or private education, that's fine! :) I was privately educated which meant the local state school had a fractionally better pupil-teacher ratio as a result! :D

My father had surgery privately - but it was the NHS who saved his life in the middle of the night when his wound opened and discharged half his bowel into his hands at home. Yes, the healthcare plan paid up, but someone else's NHS surgery was delayed because of it. So by all means have private healthcare, but also pay for your place in the emergency queue! ;) :)

But you would be in the queue regardless - whether you paid for the beginning bit or the end! It could have happened under a NHS surgeon just the same :D Under my scheme IF emergency NHS treatment were needed - the insurance company would cover that cost. Its a money maker for the NHS!

I think a lot of people would think that, if you opt out entirely from the NHS, you shouldn't be entitled to use it at all.

I certainly wouldn't it hardly seems fair to allow them to withdraw their contributions and still be able to purchase emergency care on the off chance they need it.  If people were allowed to opt out that would, by the nature of who could afford it, be the best paid and therefore highest contributors leaving disproportionatley reduced funding available to help the old, the incapacitated and, yes, one or two scroungers :rolleyes:, the very people who require the most but can contribute so little.  Countries where people look to their own provision leave the disadvantaged with even less look at what happened in last years hurricane in the US, not pretty viewing and on a day to day basis the facilities for health care for the poor are appalling.  If you want to suppliment your health provision to cover a nicer room, telly etc even faster consultations that is fine but it should not entail any lose to the less fortunate.

Why should people who want others to pay extra to maintain facilities, because they don't want to chip in with their share, have a right to use them when it suits them? If enough people opted out the tax burden on the rest would rise so high to compensate (or let the sservice go to the dogs even more) that they'd have no option but to drop out of the system and take their chances. Then there'd be no emergency service for anyone to fall back on.

I don't think you understand my point.

Say Man A has Health insurance and opts out of paying into the NHS. Say he has a car accident and a NHS ambulance, and casualty are used, before being moved to a private hospital. The NHS would then claim back for the ambulance usage and the casualty costs from Man A's health insurance - and, if they have any sense, include handling charges and admin costs etc aswell. It doesn't tie up a bed for those who can't afford/don't want to go private and raises funds for the NHS that they would otherwise be covering anyway. Aren't we always hearing about bed shortages?

Say Man B is purely NHS and pays through PAYE. He has an accident and uses NHS and casualty and stays in an NHS hospital. The NHS fund the lot.

What is the difference - other than the fact that Man A chooses his own healthcare, to suit his own needs, to suit his own lifestyle, to suit his area and the hospitals in it.

Whats the problem - other than the feeling I get that you think it will create a two tier class system - seeing Isabels posh folks post above - which there already is anyway?!

The trouble is that Man A is relying on the taxes (made even higher to offset the loss from people opting out) paid by Man B to make sure that the NHS system is waiting for him to use when necessary.

If Man A continues to pay his share of the costs of maintaining the NHS for his use in emergencies, and pay to go elsewhere when he doesn't want to use it, then fair play to him. :)

As far as I am concerned, Man B is relying on the services I have been paying for years which I (thankfully) haven't used. And the times that I pay to go private frees up an appointment for those who choose not to.

Both Man A and Man B are relying on Men C, D, E, F etc to share the cost of maintaining a system they can all draw on. If Man A opts out, then the share he used to pay now has to be borne by the others in case Man A decides he needs to use it.

Yes, joking apart I can't really see any problem in people using there insurance to pay for an ambulance to take them to the hospital of their choice in the same area because they would have using one anyway but I cannot see opting out of the obligation to pay their contribution to the NHS as being at all fair to society.  As I tried to explain earlier the top, say 1% of earners, in the country, whether they like it or not ;), are paying probably as much as the bottom 30 or 40% because they are made up of retired, children, disabled or just plain low earning.  If the 1% take their contribution away those people are left with possible only 60% of the funding available before.  These are our society, our neighbours I really would not want to be like America and leave them to fend for themselves.

In my opinion, the NHS bleeds (pardon the pun) money from bad management, bad decisions, and waste.  THATS the core of the problem. And I am sick of seeing my hard earned money wasted and poured literally down the drain. I want to see where it goes, how its managed - then I might not have such a problem paying it!

Absolutely. The NHS is a fine system which is being appallingly badly managed. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Abandoning it by opting out will only make it worse.

Whats your solution then - keep pouring money in? More taxes? Doesn't work - its just making the problem worse.

I think it does work, hence people are living longer healthier lives so I am not looking for a solution.  By making the problem worse do you mean enabling people to live longer? What would your solution be for ensuring good funding for the most needy if the wealthy opted out?

If people are living longer and healthier lives - surely that is easing the burden on the NHS... longer, healthier and dying at home v short, painful and in hospital?

By being healthy I mean in the younger years taking them into the years when things start to fail due to long use, they are then supported by medications possibly for years and require all the support that old age requires wear and tear on joints, bone density decreasing, cancers.

>longer, healthier and dying at home v short, painful and in hospital?

I don't understand?  You can have either end following either life can't you? And painful or painfree can occur at home or in hospital can't it?

Taking money away certainly won't improve it, though. :(

Numerous strategically-targeted redundancies at higher levels would be needed, with the saved money being redirected to the lower levels - the people who actually do the work.

Money could also be saved if people didn't get expensive treatment ...

>saved money being redirected to the lower levels

Yes that would be a good move.  I think local governance responding to local needs is good too but they really have to be left to actually do it without the press getting excited postcode lotteries, different postcode have different demands and need different solutions.

>Money could also be saved if people didn't get expensive treatment ...

Yes I agree with that one too but you know what a field day the tabloids would have with that :rolleyes:

>Money could also be saved if people didn't get expensive treatment ...

Please expand...

That's part of the problem. Advances in medicine mean that more and more conditions can now be treated whereas before people simply died. But these new treatments are very expensive. Premature babies, for instance, can now be saved and grow up healthy - but at huge financial cost. People crippled with arthritis can have new hips, and their quality of life is enormously improved - again, the financial expense is high. Or you can simply patch people up and send them home. It's not an easy choice between paying for what can be done or letting nature take its course. I certainly wouldn't want to tell someone their new baby had to take its chances because the NHS funds had been cut because not enough people were paying taxes.

hear hear! good post, ChloeH, just what I think!!

Its a huge organisation, the biggest employer in the UK, I would be astonished if there wasn't a bit of bad management somewhere but as other posted have pointed out they seem to be responding to urgent needs very well contrary perhaps to some people's fears perhaps fed by the medias.  Feed back from actual patients is often very good too although of course the few that have problems are played out gleefully by the press.  Look at the hypocrisy that they rail against poor money management then campaign for the wide spread use of drugs that have not been proven efficacious. 
Paying for health care will always be pouring down a drain, or a bottomless pit as I suggested in an earlier post because of the constant research and innovations revealing more and more that we can do to contribute to the health of the nation and of course the very consequence of this is we have a large ageing population, people with disability and babies that would not have survived previously who need lashings of money to enable their comfort, we are all responsible for keeping it going because that is what a caring society does :)

So when, as happened to me, a pedestrian is hit by a car, the injured person then has to pay for the ambulance on top of the NHS share of income tax?

I don't understand your question?

You seem to be proposing that separate health insurance should be compulsory.

When a pedestrian is injured or ill (elderly, adult, young child) they currently get free treatment whether or not they have private health insurance, because the tax paid by all taxpayers pays for anyone's treatment. Compulsory health insurance would take us back to the bad old days where people had to make decisions on whether to call a doctor on grounds of income.

When I was knocked down I was taken to hospital and received treatment at no charge (other than the tax I've paid throughout my working life), not even for the ambulance.

You are ill served ChloeH, from the far north of Lancashire I can get a return to London for £60 or even first class for £80 odd and no parking or congestion fees when I get there :).  As I say, if my area, a largely rural one, seems to be getting on top of this I can't understand why others are not managing it.

Yep, I do believe that when I lived in Hull it was cheaper to travel into London. I travel from Stafford and I am lucky to get a seat for my £140.

Well I don't want to make you jealous :p but for a first class ticket on one of those pedello trains ;)(which I was amazed to learn I didn't have to poke my legs through and work the paddles ;)) you get wonderfully comfortable seats, fun corner bending, constant free tea and coffee, free wine, free charger for your phone and one of the best breakfasts I have ever had.  I love Richard Branson :).

Branson runs our service aswell. No free coffee, no free nothing - cept free guesses at how later your train is going to be with no prize

.........................................................well, the only explanation I can come up with is he must think we deserve it more :p

Well, I've had a word with Richard and he says if you are prepared to give up a little flexibility and book your ticket in advance he will do a return ticket from Stafford for 43 quid.  I'm still working on him to persuade him you deserve a first class deal though :D

Booking rail tickets is NBG if you don't know when you need to go! Even if you're psychic and do know in advance ('I need a ticket to Hastings, my mum's going to have a fall next week' :rolleyes: ) they sell out of advance bookings within hours. :(

Bring back the days when you could use trains like you use buses - turn up and go.

There will always be emergencies but hopefully the vast majority of journeys will not be made on that basis.  I have used the trains for years, booking in advance, for many social outings, holidays, shopping trips, crufts! etc I've never failed to get a ticket and I wouldn't say I'm exactly on the ball :) 
You can just turn up and go, I sometimes do this on cheap day returns to Manchester shopping, but of course for most walk on journeys the Rail Companies are not going to be able to pass on to you the savings they are able to make on preplanned and predicable bookings.  I think, all in all, them offering these advance savings and us making a little effort to organise ourselves to take advantage of them is little enough to do in terms of improving environmental and social conditions.
Now Manchester, thats another shining example, bring back trams nationally :)

Doesn't work like that when travelling with work - I often don't know whether I am definitely going until the day before.

And why should we have to book early? You don't have to do that to use the clean, reliable and dirt cheap public shuttles in Amsterdam. You should be able to turn up and go, get a train and fast. And, shock horror, actually be able to park at the station you ant to leave from!

The more public transport is used the more financially viable it becomes and the more money is available to make it as attractive as other countries.  The British just don't seem inclined to sit on a seat they don't own :)  Even in my area where we are very well served I constantly hear people moaning about it that clearly have not actually been near a bus or train since childhood.  Even if they either don't care or are not convinced with the predictions of environment decay the unpleasantness of using road systems is pretty unlikely to decrease as long as people stay with their cars and the family get more and more vehicles for each individual to use, is it?

Oh, we have no problem sitting on a seat thats not our own - assuming we can actually find a free one. Have you ever tried to get the 3 o-clock Liverpool train from Euston? If you are not there 25 mins before to get on and get your seat you will stand all the way to Stafford.

Here's my suggestion - rip all the tracks up and turn the old railways into roads. Problem solved :D

The beauty of planning your journey is it includes a booked seat :)  Well what about pony express if I can't get you on a train? :p

Aaah, the booked seat debacle - like the carriage they put on that had no tickets on the back saying the seats were reserved - so folk who got on first refused to move :D including me :D

I HATE TRAINS! :D

I'm beginning to think you are doomed :p

i used the advance booking service cut the cost, but they are very cagey about when they become available and you keep having to recheck and then find they are sold out :(

Also you have to stick to the prebooked service so need to be sure which train you will be getting back, whcih menat that soemtimes I woudl be kicking my heals for hours as I woudl book on the last journey back not knowing when I would be finished.

wow Chloe, as a person living in the country myself, I think your post excellent, and totally agree with all you say!

This should have followed your first post.........why can't I get them where I want them :(