Our GP’s surgery puts a sign on the waiting room wall stating the number of missed appointments for the previous month. It is astonishing how many there are.
You don't get many missed appointments here where I live in the channel islands. We have the opposite problem people not booking appointments when they need to because they cant afford to pay the £52 cost of seeing a doctor and the £30 cost of a blood test. The blood test cost can be waived if your prepared to go to the hospital blood clinic, but you have to make an appointment for this.
If you go to A&E and your problem could be dealt with by a GP they try and charge you £20 so many people do this and refuse to pay. Those that do pay are obviously saving £32.
Its a shameful situation, no one should be denied health care because they cant afford to pay. There are rules in place for the low paid to receive waivers to charges ,but the income levels are so low to qualify that hardly anyone does.
Thankfully prescriptions are free. If they weren't I'd be bankrupt pretty damn quick given the medications the wife has to take. However the usual suspects are promoting chargers again in our parliament. They wont be getting my vote in next years elections thats for sure.
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
Smokers are good for the economy. They pay a very high level of tax on the cigarettes and, by dying young, forfeit years’ worth of pensions and other benefits.
There was a recent R4 programme looking at the reasons why some folk make repeated visits to A&E … it was found that the overwhelming majority of them had unaddressed mental health problems …. the state of mental health provision in this country is appalling …. sort that out and a lot of the problems that are currently impacting on the NHS and the police will have been dealt with.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I agree a small universal charge for prescriptions, £2 or £3 would be a good idea. The current system is a nonsense. I pay nearly £10 a time, the same as someone with a lower income and higher outgoings (eg children to support) but not on benefits. OH has just turned 60 so he gets his free even though he's stlll working and earns more than I do. My parents get theirs free although they are reasonably well off pensioners, My sister who's younger than me, with a decent income, gets hers free because she lives in Wales. She says lots of people there go to the doctors for really minor things because they can get eg ibuprofen or paracetamol free on prescription instead of paying 32p for them in the supermarket.
Also yes to charging for missed appointments in theory, although how you'd force people to pay (without denying them an appointment next time) I don't know. I'm not convinced about charging for A&E.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
"Beam me up, Scottie". So here we are again! a couple of weeks before Christmas and we are facing a "crisis". The NHS has "lost" some 5,000 beds over the past year - but we have to take draconian measures to save it. How about the NHS takes a few draconian measures to save US - from delayed cancer diagnoses for example? For every extra Billion pounds allocated to the NHS, perhaps we should lose - well, let's say, ten "managers". And how about we look seriously at the European models of better health care. And how about we take a grown-up view of the need, the absolute NEED, to stop thinking that the NHS model is the envy of the world. It isn't.
Posts
You don't get many missed appointments here where I live in the channel islands. We have the opposite problem people not booking appointments when they need to because they cant afford to pay the £52 cost of seeing a doctor and the £30 cost of a blood test. The blood test cost can be waived if your prepared to go to the hospital blood clinic, but you have to make an appointment for this.
If you go to A&E and your problem could be dealt with by a GP they try and charge you £20 so many people do this and refuse to pay. Those that do pay are obviously saving £32.
Its a shameful situation, no one should be denied health care because they cant afford to pay. There are rules in place for the low paid to receive waivers to charges ,but the income levels are so low to qualify that hardly anyone does.
Thankfully prescriptions are free. If they weren't I'd be bankrupt pretty damn quick given the medications the wife has to take. However the usual suspects are promoting chargers again in our parliament. They wont be getting my vote in next years elections thats for sure.
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw'
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I think they said level 5 = lockdown.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
How about the NHS takes a few draconian measures to save US - from delayed cancer diagnoses for example?
For every extra Billion pounds allocated to the NHS, perhaps we should lose - well, let's say, ten "managers". And how about we look seriously at the European models of better health care. And how about we take a grown-up view of the need, the absolute NEED, to stop thinking that the NHS model is the envy of the world. It isn't.