Debate 3 - The NHS

[davieG]

You'd think with what the NHS charge people for parking they'd be rolling in money.

My Grandad was recently in hospital for less than a week and he's since had 4 follow-up outpatients visits. (My Mum has to take him as he's not mobile enough to get himself there or use public transport). We've estimated that between Mum and myself we've spent over £70 in paying for parking. I can't begin to imagine how people who have relations or friends in there on a longer-term basis can even afford to visit them.

Also the public transport links are so poor they're only really a feasible option if you live in the same town. Interestingly though, bus services to and from the hospital finish early in the evening - often before ward-opening!

Apparently they made a loss on the car-parking - although what the out goings are

[AoWW]

Apparently they made a loss on the car-parking - although what the out goings are

The diamond-encrusted barriers do look very attractive though.

[FoxyPV]

NHS fares best on free access to healthcareBritain is the only country in the industrialised world where wealth does not determine access to healthcare, study finds

Randeep Ramesh Social affairs editor guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 November 2010 15.26 GMT

NHS patients have the best access to care at the lowest cost, according to a US study. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The NHS is the only health system in the industrialised world where wealth does not determine access to care – providing the most widely accessible treatments at low cost among rich nations, a key study has found.

The survey, by US health thinktank the Commonwealth Fund, showed that while one-third of American adults "went without recommended care, did not see a doctor when sick, or failed to fill prescriptions because of costs", this figure was only 6% in the UK and 5% in Holland.

In all countries except Britain, wealth largely determined access to health, with patients with incomes below the national average more likely to report trouble with medical bills and problems with getting care because of cost.

The survey, of 19,700 patients in 11 nations, found "substantial differences" among countries on access to care when sick, access after hours, and waiting times for specialised care.

About 70% of British patients reported same- or next-day access to doctors when sick, less than the 93% of Swiss adults reporting rapid access. In contrast, however, only 57% of adults in Sweden and the US, and less than half in Canada and Norway, were seen this quickly.

The NHS was also extremely cost-effective, with spending on health per person almost the lowest in the survey. A person in the UK paid $1,500 less than a person in Switzerland, $600 less than a German and less than half the $7,538 paid by every American for healthcare.

Only New Zealand, where one in seven people said they skipped hospital visits because of cost, spent less per capita than the NHS.

The report was particularly damning about the healthcare system in the US, where it found patients "are far more likely than those in 10 other industrialised nations to go without healthcare because of costs, have trouble paying medical bills, encounter high medical bills even when insured".

Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said the report was a "good result for the UK. The issue in many other nations is that you buy insurance to cover for the price of expensive drugs. Or that you need co-payments on hospital treatments, dental care, spectacles, which in a country like France amount to 11% of health spending."

Edwards said that there were issues with NHS care. "I think if you look at why we are not able to treat patients out of hospital well for, say, diabetes, or why we have high rates of coronary heart disease, or look at cancer survival rates, it would be a different story. But the question is whether the government's plans for the NHS help this."

Labour echoed this point, saying the report vindicated its reforms. "We need to keep a focus on the patients. The last thing the NHS needs is a big internal, high-cost and high-risk reorganisation," said Emily Thornberry, Labour's health spokeswoman.

A government spokesperson said: "The UK lags behind many international healthcare systems on survival rates – for example, for diseases such as cancer or stroke – and the NHS must reform in order to achieve better outcomes."

The health minister, Simon Burns, said: "Reform isn't an option, it's a necessity. With ever-increasing demands on our NHS, we must deliver efficiency and quality improvements if we want to sustain and improve services for patients."

Today's Guardian

[z-layrex]

if nurses are on over 18k per year, they're not going to starve.

I just qualified as a nurse in september, we get nearly 22k a year (before tax) as a new band 5 and that only goes up with time, and you can earn a lot more if you do further education to become a band 6, 7, specialist etc. i'm not sure if my pay is slightly higher because I work in critical care. Obviously for the responsibility, stress etc it could be higher but I still feel like it's a decent wage. I don't feel 'underpaid' or 'unappreciated' anyway, patients are almost always a pleasure to look after which is the main thing despite how manic it can all get at times.

I love working for the NHS, yeah it has it's problems but I think it's an amazing organisation, the treatment and care is absolutely fantastic imo. We're well staffed in theatres however so my world is quite different to that of working on the wards. They've told us they're not making cuts in our department, just not filling positions after people leave etc. Hope that's true.

[Finnegan]

Oh Nye Bevan.