This is one of the things contributing to the closure of A&E units, most people just don't need to be there, and the result is that they are very inefficient. Hope your son is on the mend quickly
Absolutely, I want my surgeon to be chosen because they are the best person for the job, not because they were born on the right lump of rock.
When a service is provided for 'free' it is taken for granted and not valued. I see nothing wrong with a fee for visiting your doctor or A&E with safeguards for those on low income and the long term sick. Triage should work but sounds like it doesn't. After a minor off from my mountain bike last year which resulted in a small hole in my leg I was very impressed with the care I received at my local minor injuries unit, except for the doctor who came and poked around without gloves or washing his hands after the nurses had been using impeccable sterile procedure.
I think this is obvious, It's how it works in Sweden and you don't see people dying in droves outside the A&E as they can't pay. Obviously they are not going demand money off anyone before treatment in a real emergency. But it keeps away the people who doesn't need to be there. Also non of the GP nonsense, what a waste of time and money that is. That's a nurses job not a fekking doctors, to sit and tell people they have a fever and prescribe paracetamol and antibiotics.
A problem with triage, and other aspects of NHS care, is that even though the amount of training that nurses undergo is considerable, and increasing, there are many aspects of care where they are not "trusted", thus creating a bottleneck in the system because of the smaller number of doctors than nurses. On one occasion I spent 3 hours plus with an elderly relative in AE, after a minor fall, when she had already been through triage with a nurse who had done a perfectly good job of dressing a wrist injury. So why spend 3 hours more? Because we had to see a doctor, who spent about a minute removing the dressing, having a quick look, confirming that no bones were broken, and that there was no head injury, so no need to stay in for X-rays.... leaving another nurse to have to put on a fresh dressing. There was nothing he did, or asked, that would not have been done by the triage nurse 3 hours before. There are similar NHS problems in the area of dispensing, where highly qualified pharmacists are subject to tight restrictions on what they can sell "over the counter" - tighter than in other parts of Europe for instance. It always makes me laugh when government advertising encourages us to "ask your pharmacist" rather than visiting a GP - to buy some Paracetomol or Gaviscon perhaps? I'd be interested in doctors' views on this. As a nation we have to accept that the ageing population will generate more and more demand for healthcare, and we cannot afford to track that with a similar increase in the number of doctors (unless we pay them less?).
It may be obvious to you (and me) but to the British in general, the idea that healthcare should be "free at the point of need" is some sort of holy sacrament. Even Nigel Farage is saying that UKIP would not change this - it would be political suicide for any British politician to say otherwise. And thus we are doomed to suffer ever more overloaded GP surgeries and A&E departments. It's not as if you would have to charge a lot either - I am convinced that £10 would make a huge difference (and very few people cannot afford that - after all, how often do you need to go to A&E?).
Wrong target, I think. It's not taking up a little of a doctor's time in a hospital A&E which is the main expense. People sitting in a waiting room are costing the NHS nothing, and those who have little or nothing medically wrong with them don't take much time to dispose of. Patients have to lie in hospital beds for several days or weeks, who if they had still been at home would have been paying for their own food, heating , laundry, etc. (even if they were poor). While they are in hospital all food and domestics are provided free of charge by the NHS. My view is that doctor's time, surgery, pharmaceuticals, dressings, and nursing care should always be free at point of use. If charges need to be imposed on anything in the NHS, it should be for the food and domestic services which the patient would have needed anyway even if they were healthy and at home.
What needs to be done is A&E needs proper funding. Instead Billions have been wasted on carving up the NHS for ideological reasons. Giving the money to local doctors to spend at the hospitals they want instead of directly to the hospitals. Making individual hospitals and areas compete against each other with 'Internal Markets' and management trusts that are giving funding in isolation instead of the money being distributed where it is needed. Entire levels of management could be removed and artificial barriers scrapped. That is what will improve A&E and other care. What is happening at the moment is what was done with the Railways. Carve it up in to pieces ready for privatization with a big subsidy paid to the private sector to give to their shareholders instead of re investing.
So like in the third world where family has to bring in your food and blankets? or if you are poor you can starve? Maggie would be proud.
Good point, still they will (and do) take up resources. Just because it's worse in other areas doesn't mean you shouldn't address this one.
No, I think he means something more like Sweden: Health care in Sweden | sweden.se Not a 3rd-world country. No question of blankets being taken in, but a moderate bill to pay. But not like the USA for instance. I'll bet the food is better too. I'm probably not the only one who has taken food in to help to cheer up a relative in hospital who has been finding the diet unappetising (and I don't mean chocolate - just things like some decent sandwiches made at home). For what it's worth, there are some benefits (not state pension though) which can be affected by a lengthy hospital stay. For those who are genuinely poor enough not to be able to pay for their own food, it can be assumed that they would be on benefits anyway, so it would only need some rebalancing in that area to allow them to pay the bills, or else to let them off paying.
