The destruction of the NHS?

[Ivor the Engineer]

I've just received a leaflet through my door entitled:

"GP services in your area are improving"

In it is the following information:

New health centre

We are working to give you new GP services for more choice and convenience. In spring 2009 a new health centre will open in the Oadby and Wigston locality, operating 7 days a week from 8am to 8pm.

Any member of the public can simply walk in and see a doctor or nurse at the new health centre or phone and book an appointment in advance. You do not need to be registered with the health centre - you can use the services offered at the centre as well as the services at the GP surgery where you are registered.

The new health centre will offer the following services:

treatment of minor injuries

treatment of one-off illnesses

general healthcare

Below that is this:

Choose your hospital

The NHS is giving you more choice over the your healthcare. Now you can choose the hospital where you would like to be treated, in the NHS or independent sector. Choose a hospital that you are familiar with, one that is close to your family, or one that can treat you more quickly. You may be able to choose a hospital that offers faster diagnostic tests. Ask your GP about the choices available.

What is not mentioned is who will be running these polyclinics, which is likely to be private companies in many cases.

GPs are getting annoyed and worried because since the foundation of the NHS they were allowed to run their practices as businesses after protesting and pleading poverty. As Bevan so eloquently stated when asked how he dealt with this opposition:

"I stuffed their mouths with gold."

I'm thinking this was the seed of what will ultimately lead to the destruction of the NHS and massive inflation in the cost of healthcare in the UK.

And it's all happening under a Labour government.

Why don't politicians just come clean and admit their role is to run the country for the benefit of big business at the expense of the individual taxpayer?

 

[gtc]

Surely, if the NHS was being destroyed you would have fewer health centres, not more?

Australians are allowed to choose our own GPs and Hospitals. We still have a viable public health service.

 

[dudalb]

I see that the idea of "People have a right to choose" does not hold a big place in Ivor's world.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Surely, if the NHS was being destroyed you would have fewer health centres, not more?

<snip>

That's what the sales pitch is designed to make people think. But here's what's going to happen:

Privately run polyclinics will take the simple (i.e. profitable) healthcare away from GP surgeries and outpatient services of hospitals. These resources will be then considered to not be cost effective and closed down.

We will then be left with a state healthcare system taking care of all the hideously expensive no-hoper and chronic cases, with privately run polyclinics charging more and more for ever more insignificant healthcare services.

I should add that many of these polyclinics are being funded by Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding, which is another way for the taxpayer to be ripped off.

 

[leftysergeant]

There used to be public hospitals and non-profit hospitals all over America, until some genius got the idea of out-patient, for-profit minor surgicval centers, which, supposedly, would take some of the burden off of non-profits and public hospitals.

Now Bill Frist is a gazillionaire and non-profits can't survive.

Bad move.

 

[kallsop]

Obviously these private polyclinics won't able to compete with the well run and entrenched NHS facilities, who already offer efficient service for minor health problems and much goodwill.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Obviously these private polyclinics won't able to compete with the well run and entrenched NHS facilities, who already offer efficient service for minor health problems and much goodwill.

Not if patients had to pay the true cost of the private services when they used them.

 

[funk de fino]

Vote Conservative at the next election and you will really get to see an NHS destroyed.

Luckily Labour managed to save it last time.

NHS has worked well for me apart from one misdiagnosis when I was 17. Saved my mothers life more times than I care to mention.

Most who slate the NHS are ignorant of the NHS.