Are we really going to sit by while they destroy the NHS?

[Awesome Wells]

I tried complaining to my MP about these changes. Being a tory he spins it all as a good thing. It's great to have more choice. This is bullshit: if i'm ill i want the best care available. I don't want a choice. All that means is the GP is compelled, by his manager/head of CCG, to buy from the cheapest service going - or from who the CCG is connected to financially.

 

[SpookyFrank]

They won't even sell them for what they are worth.

The idea that a public hopsital can have a price put on it at all is pretty blood curdling.

What will they do about selling off hospitals which still have 30 years left on their PFI 'maintenance' contracts?

 

[SpookyFrank]

I tried complaining to my MP about these changes. Being a tory he spins it all as a good thing. It's great to have more choice. This is bullshit: if i'm ill i want the best care available. I don't want a choice. All that means is the GP is compelled, by his manager/head of CCG, to buy from the cheapest service going - or from who the CCG is connected to financially.

They're taking choice away in any case. Last time I went into hospital I was allowed to choose between two private facillities, I would have chosen an NHS hospital but that wasn't an option.

Not to mention the fact that if the NHS was no longer free I would have had two choices: suffer chronic pain indefinitely or operate on myself

 

[treelover]

BBC always seem to be kite flying the notion of an 'end to free care' in many of their news bulletins

btw, I wonder if people have heard of 'personal healthcare budgets' these have the potential to really undermine the NHS, privatisation, etc, hidden cuts, etc

will post more when up to it.

 

[treelover]

TUC march later this year. It's on a Saturday, not sure when. I am planning on making it

TUC have narrowed it down to being about 'pay rises' excluding a lot of people including claimants.

 

[Greebo]

BBC always seem to be kite flying the notion of an 'end to free care' in many of their news bulletins

btw, I wonder if people have heard of 'personal healthcare budgets' these have the potential to really undermine the NHS, privatisation, etc, hidden cuts, etc <snip>

I've heard about them, and they sound like pretty poor value for money to me. You do away with all the advantages of group deals (eg for access to a hydrotherapy pool) and shared resources.

It's also going to result in the person who needs a "personal healthcare budget" being lumbered with extra paperwork and red tape. Ask any disabled person (or people with whom they live) whether the one thing they want is more of that.

 

[8115]

I was thinking I would kind of like a personal healthcare budget. I thought I could order my blood tests and 2 checkups and maybe have a bit left over for some counselling. But not sure I am sick enough to get one. And not sure how the details would work.

 

[el-ahrairah]

We're already seeing PR campaigns intended to normalise the idea of no more free health care.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28235850

what are we going to do then?

 

[J Ed]

what are we going to do then?

What do you want to do?

 

[two sheds]

get involved in the nhs action party?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

http://nhap.org/

Thanks for that ...

 

[Greebo]

I was thinking I would kind of like a personal healthcare budget. I thought I could order my blood tests and 2 checkups and maybe have a bit left over for some counselling. <snip>

Can't you already have the blood tests, checkups, and counselling on the NHS without having to do the paperwork yourself?

FWIW VP's supposed to have a liver function blood test at least twice a year and ideally 4 times a year while prescribed statins, and (so far) he's only been sent for that anuually.

 

[two sheds]

I pointed to this before but there's a superb talk by Allyson Pollock ""

How our NHS has been abolished

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2014/06/25/how-our-nhs-has-been-abolished/


I'm half way through doing a transcript for it but it really is worth listening to. Some of the slides are enlightening.

I tried to post them here but failed miserably, but two contrast the simplicity of the pre 1999 structure against the phenomenal complexity of the new structure, a graph of NHS expenditure as a percentage of GDP showing a large increase since the start of the creeping privatization, and a pie chart of how the US model leads to only 64% of spending going to actual medical care (11% insurer marketing and profit, 8% to insurer billing, 4% to hospital billing, 5% to physician billing, 8% to medical care administration).

Eta: ah they do seem to have uploaded after all.

 

[treelover]

tx for that

 

[8115]

Can't you already have the blood tests, checkups, and counselling on the NHS without having to do the paperwork yourself?

FWIW VP's supposed to have a liver function blood test at least twice a year and ideally 4 times a year while prescribed statins, and (so far) he's only been sent for that anuually.

Personally I would rather do it myself. Cash is king But doesn't really bother me too much.

 

[Greebo]

Personally I would rather do it myself. Cash is king But doesn't really bother me too much.

Well, good for you - you're very welcome to do my paperwork if it's so easy.

Here are the forms. *thwap* Here are the copies of previous forms as a starting point. *thwap thwap* Here are the advice booklets. *thwap thwap thwap* Here's the case law. *Thud*

Okay, highlighter pens, post its, medical notes, biros, and computer. Scanner there, printer here, coffee and tea in the kitchen - you weren't planning on doing anything with your life for the next 2 months, were you? Jolly good, I'll leave you to it then.

 

[8115]

Well, good for you - you're very welcome to do my paperwork if it's so easy.

Here are the forms. *thwap* Here are the copies of previous forms as a starting point. *thwap thwap* Here are the advice booklets. *thwap thwap thwap* Here's the case law. *Thud*

Okay, highlighter pens, post its, medical notes, biros, and computer. Scanner there, printer here, coffee and tea in the kitchen - you weren't planning on doing anything with your life for the next 2 months, were you? Jolly good, I'll leave you to it then.

If you need case law for your medical needs you may wish to consider asking for some help.

 

[Greebo]

If you need case law for your medical needs you may wish to consider asking for some help.

Sweetie, I'm on the edge of a migraine and doing my level best to not rip you to shreds. However... fuck off fuck off fuck off and don't come back until you've got a fucking scooby about the red tape involved!

 

[8115]

Sweetie, I'm on the edge of a migraine and doing my level best to not rip you to shreds. However... fuck off fuck off fuck off and don't come back until you've got a fucking scooby about the red tape involved!

I'd take red tape over (hopefully) imaginary brain eating amoeabas or a possibly murderous stalker outside the window, to quote a couple of the recent treats life has thrown at me.

Hope your migraine doesn't materialise.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I was thinking I would kind of like a personal healthcare budget. I thought I could order my blood tests and 2 checkups and maybe have a bit left over for some counselling. But not sure I am sick enough to get one. And not sure how the details would work.

And if you get the 'flu or any other of the many transient but tricky health problems we're all heir to, or develop a(nother?) long-term health problem?
You see, that's where personal budgets are insidious. They're effectively a rationing tool with the onus put on the patient to prioritise spending, so while you could do the above, and spend your annual allowance/budget, you're confining yourself to those actions being the only health service interaction you can have, outside of emergency medicine.
Many of us who are "long-term sick and/or disabled" (as the DSS used to term us) don't have "headline" illnesses, we're victims of multiple issues that, taken together, have serious ongoing effects on our lives. The complexity of our issues means that the sort of "personal health budget" proposed will force us to pick and choose which of our problems get priority. For example, I have heart disease, type II diabetes, arthritis and several other problems including M.E. Do I target the diabetes, the heart disease or the arthritis with my health budget, which will exacerbate the effects of my M.E., or should I just give up the ghost, as the eejits proferring this idea would probably prefer?

Add to that the likely weight of bureaucracy that people taking up the budget would have to engage with, and some people will be on a hiding to nothing.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If you need case law for your medical needs you may wish to consider asking for some help.

Help from...?
Some news for you. Health and welfare advice provision has been cut by about 60% (in some areas by more, depending on extant funding arrangements), so actually accessing that advice, rather than taking Greebo's DIY approach is (to say the least!) problematic.
We're old hands at this, too, and know how to operate in the bureaucratic mire. Many people won't be able to take a DIY approach in the absence of decent public advice services, though, and many people with acute and/or chronic health conditions will get fucked over.

 

[purenarcotic]

This is just terrifying. You look at the specialist places like GOSH where they try again and again to help the very sickest children, where hugely expensive and experimental treatments are regularly carried out to improve quality and quantity of life and you think of how many children will just die without access to that (obviously lots of children around the world already do, I mean UK specific). Children who have just as much a right as any other child to be able to grow up and take part in life.

It makes me so angry and feel so incredibly helpless.

 

[purenarcotic]

Help from...?
Some news for you. Health and welfare advice provision has been cut by about 60% (in some areas by more, depending on extant funding arrangements), so actually accessing that advice, rather than taking Greebo's DIY approach is (to say the least!) problematic.
We're old hands at this, too, and know how to operate in the bureaucratic mire. Many people won't be able to take a DIY approach in the absence of decent public advice services, though, and many people with acute and/or chronic health conditions will get fucked over.

And for those who can't manage the minefield themselves the services they might have had access to before that could have helped them are being slashed.

 

[Libertad]

A whole series of posts liked but certainly not liking.

 

[Sprocket.]

They should make it illegal for MPs or their families to own.

FTFY

 

[StoneRoad]

Well, good for you - you're very welcome to do my paperwork if it's so easy.

Here are the forms. *thwap* Here are the copies of previous forms as a starting point. *thwap thwap* Here are the advice booklets. *thwap thwap thwap* Here's the case law. *Thud*

Okay, highlighter pens, post its, medical notes, biros, and computer. Scanner there, printer here, coffee and tea in the kitchen - you weren't planning on doing anything with your life for the next 2 months, were you? Jolly good, I'll leave you to it then.

Bliddy hell, that's a lot of paper you have experience with. I know why you do it, but to my mind, there is something seriously awry with a system that needs that level of input from the user-side. Personal budgets sound as if they are really intended to dissuade use of the system for anyone - or their "agent" - with complex needs.
I have only a *minor* amount related to the care at home my 95 year old father receives, he is in good health otherwise.

 

[Greebo]

<snip>Hope your migraine doesn't materialise.

My reply to you yesterday was typed during the advanced aura phase. I don't plead migraines as an excuse for being antisocial unless I'm definitely getting one.

By that time, a migraine can't easily be blocked or reversed. It began in an atypical order (and without my usual triggers) or I'd have taken something sooner. Came offline asap, took my tablets (usually take the edge off within 45mins if they're going to work at all), and spent until 7.30pm with it full blown (pain, dyslexia, disturbed vision, photophobia, no balance, censor off, drowsing in and out, itching, digestive shutdown etc).

That was a short and mild one, you should try it some time. Really.

 

[Awesome Wells]

Where do only fools and horses park!

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nurses-charged-200-month-just-3848184#.U8JH6dUu8Os.twitter

 

[Dogsauce]

Well, we're going to charge nasty health tourist immigrants:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28291276

Of course, this requires setting up a financial system to allow for such payments. Can't think what else they could do with that, can you? I mean, we know they'll definitely only charge immigrants and not progressively extend that to other 'undeserving' groups, right up to including those horrible people born on a day of the week with a 'Y' in it, right?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well, we're going to charge nasty health tourist immigrants:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28291276

Of course, this requires setting up a financial system to allow for such payments. Can't think what else they could do with that, can you? I mean, we know they'll definitely only charge immigrants and not progressively extend that to other 'undeserving' groups, right up to including those horrible people born on a day of the week with a 'Y' in it, right?

IIRC the charging system has been in place since at least 2008. This is about hammering the clinical and admin staff in hospitals to actually apply the charges, as currently a lot of the workers just do their jobs and fuck the charging work off as pure malicious cuntishness.